The pieces that moved us the most this year.
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The Power and Business of Hip-Hop: A Reading List on an American Art Form
Stories of hip-hop’s genius, influence, struggle, and endurance.
Please Don’t You Be My Neighbor
“To watch those people vanish and be replaced by people who shine like glass, who cut through the sidewalks like knives but reflect nothing back, has been another scraping out. Am I still here? I don’t know anyone here anymore.”
Cash/Consent
Lorelei Lee reflects on her career in sex work and pornography, the gradations of consent in the industry, and the ways in which radical feminists and the religious right fight to keep sex work criminalized.
Can the Political Override the Personal?
“Harmful to Minors” author Judith Levine mines her past contradictions to sketch out the challenge of a being a young woman simultaneously burgeoning into her feminist and her sexual selves.
Peter Mayer, the Fiery Sage of Publishing
Honoring Peter Mayer, founder of Overlook Press, and one of “the stars of book publishing.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Chris Outcalt, Corie Brown, Daniel Immerwahr, Toniann Fernandez, and Karen Abbott.
Tangled in the Infinite War
Superheroes they used to stick up for the underdog and punch a lot of Nazis. Now, they fight villains who look a lot like themselves. Who are the baddies now?
There’s No Overtime In This Game
Georgia Cloepfil is only in her mid-twenties, but she already contemplating the end of her soccer career.
Beat the Clock
“Halls of fame and records and medals and posters belong to fans. Athletes do not mythologize the body in this way. What they do is navigate decay.”
