Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle and Readmill users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.
Slate
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Mother of the 'Distressed Baby' Speaks Out After AOL's CEO Blames Them for Reduced Benefits
Some commentators have questioned the implausibility of “million-dollar babies.” I have no expertise in health care costs, but I have a 3-inch thick folder of hospital bills that range from a few dollars and cents to the high six figures (before insurance adjustments). So even though it’s unlikely that AOL directly paid out those sums, […]
Posted inUncategorized
Longreads Guest Pick: Sarah Bruning on Women and Journalism
Sarah Bruning is the associate features editor at Time Out New York and has contributed to Cosmopolitan, InStyle and CNTraveler.com, among other publications. In recent months, both before and after Sheryl Sandberg released ‘Lean In,’ the media has scrutinized the issue of gender equality in the workplace across myriad industries. This week and last, a […]
Posted inUncategorized
A writer digs through his personal library of quitting-smoking books as he attempts to quit smoking: Step 3: Go to the Strand. Buy a book you already own—Richard Klein’s Cigarettes Are Sublime. (Your old copy—a gift from one of the girls next door senior year, the same ‘friend’ who another time gave you a carton […]
Posted inUncategorized
The story of Will and Erwynn, the first gay couple to marry on a military base: At church, Will and Erwynn lead me to a windowless back-room chapel that has been converted from a gym. This is the Sojourn service, a more informal worship than the one taking place in the main hall. They worry […]
Posted inUncategorized
How authorities broke up an extortion ring in the 1960s that targeted gay men: Impersonating corrupt vice-squad detectives, members of this ring, known in police parlance as bulls, had used young, often underage men known as chickens to successfully blackmail closeted pillars of the establishment, among them a navy admiral, two generals, a U.S. congressman, […]
Posted inUncategorized
A writer of made-for-TV movies reflects on his middling successes and near-misses from a career of steady but not spectacular work in Hollywood: On occasion during my 30-year screenwriting career, the amount on these checks has been life-changing, enough money to buy a car or temporarily pay off our credit cards. But I don’t really […]
Posted inUncategorized
A writer adopts the Choose Your Own Adventure book format to write a story about a disastrous love affair: “The answer, of course, is that you should dump Anne before it’s too late. But the absurd options the book gives ‘you’— later ‘choices’ include dueling with an Ant-Warrior, or attacking the Evil Power Master—simply highlight […]
Posted inUncategorized
How did pedestrians become an endangered species in the United States—and why is the word “pedestrian” wrong anyway? First in a four-part series: A few years ago, at a highway safety conference in Savannah, Ga., I drifted into a conference room where a sign told me a ‘Pedestrian Safety’ panel was being held. The speaker […]
Posted inUncategorized
What happens when a grizzly bear kills a human being in Yellowstone National Park? An examination of a special criminal justice system designed to protect endangered bears, while giving leeway to euthanize bears that kill humans in ways that are deemed “unnatural”: It’s a squirrely notion, that a team of government biologists might be able […]