A Crocodile In Paris: The Queer Classics of Qiu Miaojin By Ankita Chakraborty Feature As the first woman in Chinese literature to come out as openly gay, Qiu Miaojin adopted and humanized the bestial expectations of a cruel public.
For Me, With Love and Squalor By Lauren Markham Feature After publishing her first book, Lauren Markham begins the long search for what she truly wanted after writing it.
Storytelling the Flood: Elizabeth Rush on Empathy and Climate Change By Bradley Babendir Feature In her new book, Elizabeth Rush gives voice to poor communities and communities of color who are the first victims of the rising sea.
Somewhere Under My Left Ribs: A Nurse’s Story By Longreads Feature The landscape of operating theaters must be terrifying for patients, but it’s becoming normal for me. It’s amazing what you can get used to.
‘I Was a Storm of Confetti’: Michael Pollan On Why It’s a Good Idea To Lose Your Self By Hope Reese Feature Michael Pollan talks about using psychedelic drugs, escaping his own ego, and the therapeutic potential of seeing yourself spread out over the landscape like a coat of paint.
Nell Battle Lewis, Storyteller for Jim Crow By Longreads Feature How an otherwise high-minded social reformer preserved and perpetuated her white supremacist worldview.
Masters of Contradiction By Brittany Allen Feature Two new books offer fresh perspective on “Otherhood,” that condition in which characters do constant, exhausting battle — for the most part — inside their own heads.
Who Sank El Faro? An Interview With Rachel Slade By Joshunda Sanders Feature Having solved the mystery of the largest maritime disaster in a generation, Rachel Slade can see how what happened on the ocean is an allegory for what’s happening on dry land.
The Tether Between Two Worlds: An Interview with Sergio De La Pava By Tobias Carroll Feature His new novel is about mass incarceration, indoor football, and parallel universes. De La Pava says that when “you dig deep, you start seeing the way everything is connected.”
When the Movies Went West By Longreads Feature Scorned by stage actors and mocked by the theater-going upper classes, filmmakers nevertheless developed a bold new art form — but they needed better weather.
Why Psilocybin and LSD Don’t Deserve Their Bad Rap By Krista Stevens Highlight A survey of recent reads says that psychedelic drugs like psilocybin and LSD are not only enjoying a renaissance — they might actually be helpful to humans.
This Month in Books: ‘How Do We Stay the Right Distance Apart?’ By Dana Snitzky Commentary At first glance, there’s a pretty stark divide in this month’s books newsletter.
The Dying Days of the New West By Tori Telfer Feature Recent books about the American West turn the old frontier myth into a mirage.
The Roaring Girls of Queer London By Longreads Feature Flashy hooligans like Moll Cutpurse and Long Meg sported broad-brimmed hats, wore “ruffianly short locks,” and carried swords. Other women lived quietly in secret same-sex marriages.
Captive Audience By Longreads Feature When you live alongside anything for a long time — any person, any character, any narrative structure, any screen flicker — you become a part of it and it becomes a part of you.
Is Your Job Lynchian, or Is It More Kafkaesque? By Rachel Paige King Feature David Graeber’s “Bullshit Jobs” and Alison Green’s “Ask a Manager” offer differing views — and some good advice.
Earning Our Place on the Planet: An Interview with adrienne maree brown By Justin Scott Campbell Feature Her planet/self-help guide for activists, “Emergent Strategy,” is going mainstream — maybe even in time to save the world.
Life on the Oil Frontier By Longreads Feature What it was like living in one of America’s most patriarchal societies.
The Ladies Who Were Famous for Wanting to Be Left Alone By Longreads Feature The Ladies of Llangollen fell in love, ran away together, and lived a scholarly life of “delicious seclusion” — secluded, that is, except for all the visitors.
Chasing the Man Who Caught the Storm: An Interview With Brantley Hargrove By Jonny Auping Feature “If you’ve had the luck of actually seeing a tornado, man, that’s like nicotine. It gets under your skin.”
When Sartre and Beauvoir Started a Magazine By Longreads Feature In 1945, Les Temps modernes shocked the world with its pessimism and grim determination, and catapulted its founders into intellectual superstardom.
Sharp Women Writers: An Interview With Michelle Dean By Natalie Daher Feature On Didion, Arendt, Malcolm, Ephron and other women writers who made an art of having an opinion.
“We All Had the Same Acid Flashback at the Same Time”: The New American Cuisine By Longreads Feature How the scruffy kids of the ’60s youth movement turned cooking from a shameful job into a lauded profession.
The Death Row Book Club By Aaron Gilbreath Feature When Anthony Ray Hinton was sentenced to death for two murders he didn’t commit, he used his time to create a book club for death row inmates.
The Way We Treat Our Pets Is More Paleolithic Than Medieval By Longreads Feature Hunter-gatherers tended to think of pets as part of the family, and so do we. But in other time periods, intimacy with animals has been more taboo.
The Invisible Lives of Young Women With Chronic Illnesses By Jessica Gross Feature Michele Lent Hirsch on the challenges young women with serious health issues face while navigating their relationships, careers, and own sense of who they are.
Kara Walker’s Subtlety By Longreads Feature In the summer of 2014, Kara Walker’s sphinx posed a riddle about women, sweetness, and power.
The Great Online School Scam By Longreads Feature Students are performing worse than ever, but private companies are making millions.
Blockchain Just Isn’t As Radical As You Want It To Be By Longreads Feature On how a new administrative technology is being conflated with radical politics.
How Lobbyists Normalized the Use of Chemical Weapons on American Civilians By Longreads Feature Or, how we learned to stop worrying and love the gas.
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