Deaths in donation bins, the Hardy boys, MAGA slop, billionaire playgrounds, and nostalgia for the complicated.
the believer
Posted inQuestionnaire
The Longreads Questionnaire, Featuring Vauhini Vara
The author of Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age and The Immortal King Rao on memorable meals and books about whales.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Death of a Superman
“An entirely avoidable problem is killing dozens of homeless people across the country. Why is it being ignored?”
Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
In this edition: January begins, finding beauty, powerful blues, toxic water, and begonia batons.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Worst Shot Ever Taken
“The author and his closest basketball confidantes undertake a formal analysis of Steph Curry’s shot at the Paris Olympics as art object.”
Posted inFeature
A Year in Reading: Restraint as Wisdom
We live in a culture built on ignoring limits—of land, of bodies, of attention—and these stories kept returning me to that truth.
Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Recommending stories by Alice Hines, Maggie Harrison Dupré, Katie Engelhart, Pooja Bhatia, and Tom Lamont.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Last Resort
“At Bombay Beach, a half-ruined former vacation town on the edge of the Salton Sea, absurdist philosophers, artists, and everyday townsfolk have undertaken a postapocalyptic experiment in radical living.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Scholar’s Mate
“After an emotionally tumultuous year, and in search of a way to return to his old self, a writer unexpectedly finds himself devoted to chess.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Fear as a Game
“What can the philosophy of games tell us about our odd impulse to scare ourselves?”