This week, we’re sharing stories from Abrahm Lustgarten, Lois Beckett, Julia O’Malley, Alice Driver, and Sarah Jeong.
The Guardian
Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Lizzie Presser, Linda Villarosa, Maurice Chammah, Mike Giglio, and Will Storr.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Our Contemporary Notion of Self-Esteem Was Born — Surprise! — in 1980s California
Apparently, feeling great about yourself does not improve your chances at success.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Great Self-Esteem Con
By now, the idea that positive self-esteem is necessary for success is more or less taken for granted. But what if it’s all based on very shaky, smartly packaged science?
Posted inReading List
Our Gardens, Growing: A Reading List
Five stories about plants and gardens and the humans that tend them.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
On the Frontline of Disaster: The Volunteer Ambulance Drivers of Karachi, Pakistan
The Edhi Foundation volunteer ambulance service drivers work for $1.30 US per day, collecting the dead and wounded in the streets of Karachi, Pakistan.
Posted inFood, Reading List
Back in the Kitchen: A Reading List About Gender and Food
Eight must-read essays on how we cook and how we eat.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Quotes
How a Story Becomes a ‘Hopeful Thing’: George Saunders on His Writing Process
At the Guardian, the author recounts how it takes “hundreds of drafts” and “thousands of incremental adjustments” to form a story into a “hopeful thing.”
Posted inNonfiction
The Grim Reaper of Pubs
Tom Lamont’s exhaustive 2015 deep-dive on the death of pub culture in England is worth re-reading, considering the role a bar plays within a community.
Posted inQuote Posts
27 Years and 1,000 Break-Ins: North Pond Hermit — Book Edition
An excerpt from The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit — Michael Finkel’s book on Christopher Knight, the hermit who survived by committing 1,000 break-ins over nearly three decades.