What if the key to understanding ourselves lies in the spaces between things—between words, between waves, between worlds?
Books
Posted inEditor's Pick
Did a Best-Selling Romantasy Novelist Steal Another Writer’s Story?
“Tracy Wolff, the author of the ‘Crave’ series, is being sued for copyright infringement. But romantasy’s reliance on standardized tropes makes proving plot theft tricky.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Rabelaisian Enumerations: On Lists
“What sort of collection should a library hold? How should books be classified? What is the function of lists?”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Gift Thinking
“The relationships, abundance, and reciprocity of nature’s economy.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
A Controversial Rare-Book Dealer Tries to Rewrite His Own Ending
“Glenn Horowitz built a fortune selling the archives of writers such as Vladimir Nabokov and Alice Walker. Then a rock star pressed charges.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Return of Ta-Nehisi Coates
“A decade after ‘The Case for Reparations,’ he is ready to take on Israel, Palestine, and the American media.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Nazi of Oak Park
“It was a stunning revelation: A respected high school custodian had been a concentration camp guard. This excerpt of a new book examines how the disclosure of a dark secret in the early ’80s divided a suburb.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Against Rereading
“For those who do not reread, a book is like a little life. When it ends, it dies—or it lives on, imperfectly and embellished, in your memories.”
Posted inCuration
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Featuring stories by Willa Köerner, Robyn Ross, Ariel Sabar, Julian Lucas, and Dan Moore.
Posted inEditor's Pick
An Intoxicating 500-Year-Old Mystery
“The Voynich Manuscript has long baffled scholars—and attracted cranks and conspiracy theorists. Now a prominent medievalist is taking a new approach to unlocking its secrets.”