Mr. Rogers vs. the Superheroes By Longreads Feature One of the few things that could raise anger — real, intense anger — in Mister Rogers was the willful misleading of children. Superheroes, he thought, were the worst culprits.
An Interview with Sarah Smarsh, Author of ‘Heartland’ By Angela Chen Feature The author of “Heartland,” a National Book Award longlisted memoir about growing up poor in rural America, gives her views on politics, identity, and cultural appropriation.
People Sorting: An Interview With ‘Personality Brokers’ Author Merve Emre By Jessica Gross Feature Merve Emre on the history of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
The Dead End on My Record Shelf By Longreads Feature I believed that there was no music existing in the world with an unbroken connection to its original context. I was wrong.
Putting a New Stone on the Grave: Sjón Brings the Golem to Iceland By Adam Morgan Feature Sjón’s “CoDex 1962” is the fulfillment of a pact he made with the Maharal of Prague in the Old Jewish Cemetery almost three decades ago.
This Month in Books: ‘Everything That We Are and Ever Have Been’ By Dana Snitzky Commentary This month’s books newsletter has a lot to say about identities — mistaken, misunderstood, transformed, false, false, fictional, or as anonymous as the op-ed.
A Trip to Tolstoy Farm By Jordan Michael Smith Feature Even if one of the last surviving Tolstoyan communes has fallen short of Leo Tolstoy’s ideals, it’s still turned into something meaningful. It’s a place for people who don’t want to be found.
An Immoderate Novel for an Immoderate Season: An Interview with Olivia Laing By Bridey Heing Feature Olivia Laing’s new novel, “Crudo,” is a fictionalized account of the summer of 2017, written in real time by Laing — from the perspective of Kathy Acker.
Sabrina By Longreads Feature A video of a missing woman being murdered has surfaced on the internet, confirming the worst. Her boyfriend, lying low at a friend’s house, stumbles upon a radio program whose enigmatic host says she’s still alive.
Above It All: How the Court Got So Supreme By Longreads Feature Secrecy and speechifying, collegiality and hierarchy, exceptionalism and opulence on the Supreme Court.
Not Quite Democracy: Lucie Greene on the Civic Aspirations of Tech Giants By Bradley Babendir Feature Lucie Greene’s new book “Silicon States” is about the danger of concentrating so much power in so few hands.
Army of Me By Longreads Feature A woman who doesn’t feel like going to work today stays in bed and looks at the internet instead. She finds a blog by a fed-up call center employee who complains about the customers.
Lyrical Ladies, Writing Women, and the Legend of Lauryn Hill By Michael Gonzales Feature Joan Morgan’s “She Begat This” looks back at how Lauryn Hill crashed through hip-hop’s glass ceiling, while our critic looks at how the author and a cadre of black women writers did the same for hip-hop music journalism.
For Single Mothers Working as Train Conductors By Laura Esther Wolfson Feature My Soviet husband said we’d need 24-hour day care for any children we might have. Many years and the fall of an empire later, I finally realized why he said it.
Working Through the Apocalypse: An Interview with Ling Ma By Ryan Chapman Feature In Ling Ma’s “Severance” — a novel she began to write after getting laid off, while living partly on severance pay — the characters keep going to work, even though they know it’s the end of the world.
The Horse Was a Lie (The Horse Is Here With Us Now) By Levi Vonk Feature In Mario Chard’s “Land of Fire,” was it the truth or a lie that killed the migrants in the desert? And what if that’s the wrong question? What if we say it was a horse?
I Would Never Say That, But the Character, He Said It: An Interview with Catherine Lacey By Tobias Carroll Feature “When I write, I’m creating a character, and then I’m just performing that character, and typing what they say.”
An Inquiry Into Abuse By Elon Green Feature Allegations that Richard Nixon beat his wife, Pat Nixon, have circulated for decades without serious examination by the journalists who covered his presidency. It’s time to look more closely at what’s been hiding in plain view.
Why Do Men Fight?: An Interview with Thomas Page McBee By Cooper Lee Bombardier Feature “When I started asking myself questions about my own notions of masculinity. I just felt so limited, so suddenly afraid of becoming the kind of man I’d grown up in fear of.”
Defeating the Celluloid Axis By JW McCormack Feature The invisible language of film permeates Christian Kracht’s “The Dead,” prose that is neutral and shot through with so much darkness, you occasionally can’t find the light.
The Last of the Live Reviewers: An Interview with Nate Chinen By Matthew Kassel Feature Nate Chinen may have been the last full-time jazz reviewer at any American newspaper. He says jazz hasn’t been in a better place since the ’60s — but the commercial infrastructure is broken.
Ancestor Work In Street Basketball By Onaje X. O. Woodbine Feature The basketball court is a place where young black men feel comfortable mourning death, but are there crucial elements missing from their grieving practices?
On Not Being Able to Read By Tajja Isen Feature In law school, they told me I wouldn’t be able to read anymore. That the pleasure of the text, like a lover in a non-law degree, would slowly grow opaque to me.
Michelle Tea and the Betrayal of Queer Memoir By Alana Mohamed Feature Memoir is always a betrayal. When writing about life in queer subcultures, the harm of honesty can feel even greater.
A British Seaweed Scientist Is Revered in Japan as ‘The Mother of the Sea’ By Longreads Feature Kathleen Drew-Baker died never having set foot in Japan, and never knowing what an impact her research would make. Plus, how to build a lazy bed, how to cook Irish blancmange, and other surprising seaweed stories.
This Month In Books: ‘Name the Very Specific Situation Around You’ By Dana Snitzky Commentary This month’s books newsletter has a lot to say about truth and lies, fact and fiction.
How Women Survive the World: An Interview with Ingrid Rojas Contreras By Naomi Elias Feature To this day, when my mother is driving a car, she will only use the blinkers to indicate that she’s turning at the last second — just so that people behind her don’t know where she’s going.
‘I Loved God, I Loved Believing’: An Interview with R.O. Kwon By Victoria Namkung Feature Not only will I never get my faith back, but I’m going to keep missing it. I’ll always have that longing — but there’s no going back into the garden.
Leaving a Good Man Is Hard To Do By Kelli María Korducki Feature When women end relationships, it seems like the emotion we most acutely feel is the guilt of having pushed it away.
Bridget Jones’s Staggeringly Outdated Diary By Rebecca Schuman Feature Nineties relationship books had some serious issues, man.
