When Friendship Fades But the Images Linger By Eryn Loeb Feature Eryn Loeb looks back on a summer spent taking pictures, and a friend she lost touch with. Friends: We Need Your Help to Fund More Stories
Losing My Religion at Christian Camp By Katy Hershberger Feature Katy Hershberger recalls the way her decade at Christian summer camp both shaped and condemned her views of faith and girlhood.
Mountains, Transcending By Ailsa Ross Feature “Ever since I was five years old,” wrote opera singer–turned–Buddhist lama Alexandra David-Néel, “I craved to go beyond the garden gate, to follow the road that passed it by, and to set out for the Unknown.”
Heartbreaker By Beatrix M. Rooney Feature Beatrix M. Rooney discovers a tragic secret that may explain her brother’s descent into cruelty and violence.
Won’t You Be My Neighbor: An Anti-Hate Pop Culture Syllabus By Soraya Roberts Feature Media and entertainment grounded in empathy are a critical part of a saner culture — and we can all help by actively producing, seeking, and supporting it.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week By Longreads Weekly Top 5 This week, we’re sharing stories from Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Rachel Sugar, Kate Knibbs, Mark Arax, and Anna Wiener.
On Beauty and Disability By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Examining the body, disability, and the damaging idea of objective beauty.
The Occupation of a Woman Writer By Kiley Bense Feature Our inherited biases about who should write what live deeper than most of us realize or want to acknowledge.
Nashville contra Jaws, 1975 By Longreads Feature In their time, “Jaws” and “Nashville” were regarded as Watergate films, and both were in production as the Watergate disaster played its final act.
Here’s What Put Thousands of Californians in the Path of a Blaze By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Forest mismanagement, political corruption, and PG&E’s corporate culture created a highly combustible situation.
‘We Live in an Atmosphere of General Inexorability’: An Interview with Jia Tolentino By Hope Reese Feature Jia Tolentino talks about what kinds of personalities thrive online, why she is suspicious of her own self-narrative, and the pervading sense that everything’s spiraling out of control.
In the Country of Women By Susan Straight Feature Amid badass women and endless stories, a young California writer comes of age in the orange groves as the Golden State comes into its own.
Finding My Father By Natassja Schiel Feature At age thirty-two, after years working as an exotic dancer, the daughter of a mysteriously absentee father finally puts together the pieces that had been missing her whole life.
Towards Chinatown By Melissa Hung Feature Faced with the possibility of losing of her mother, Melissa Hung contemplates another loss — of her mother tongue.
Whole 60 By Laura Lippman Feature The Laura Lippman plan requires that you eat whatever you want whenever you want to eat it, and declare yourself beautiful. We’re not going to lie — it’s really hard.
Reading Lessons By Irina Dumitrescu Feature You never stop learning how to read — probably because you also never stop forgetting how to read.
The Cost of Reading By Ayşegül Savaş Feature Ayşegül Savaş contemplates the way women’s and men’s time is valued and the uneven burden taken by women writers in literary citizenship.
American Green By Longreads Feature How did the plain green lawn become the central landscaping feature in America, and what is the ecological cost?
A Minor Figure By Longreads Feature While searching for photographs that depict black young women and girls living free in the second and third generations born after slavery, Saidiya Hartman finds a disturbing image.
Shelved: Jimi Hendrix’s Black Gold Suite By Tom Maxwell Feature The genius guitarist’s autobiographical, multi-song fantasy album sat in his drummer’s apartment for twenty years. Now in the care of the Hendrix estate, will it ever see the light of day?
Mountains, Transcending By Ailsa Ross Feature “Ever since I was five years old,” wrote opera singer–turned–Buddhist lama Alexandra David-Néel, “I craved to go beyond the garden gate, to follow the road that passed it by, and to set out for the Unknown.”
Nashville contra Jaws, 1975 By Longreads Feature In their time, “Jaws” and “Nashville” were regarded as Watergate films, and both were in production as the Watergate disaster played its final act.
‘We Live in an Atmosphere of General Inexorability’: An Interview with Jia Tolentino By Hope Reese Feature Jia Tolentino talks about what kinds of personalities thrive online, why she is suspicious of her own self-narrative, and the pervading sense that everything’s spiraling out of control.
In the Country of Women By Susan Straight Feature Amid badass women and endless stories, a young California writer comes of age in the orange groves as the Golden State comes into its own.
Shapes of Native Nonfiction: ‘The Basket Isn’t a Metaphor, It’s an Example’ By Colin Dickey Feature The editors of “Shapes of Native Nonfiction” talk about the craft of writing, the politics of metaphor, and resisting the exploitation of trauma.
Editor’s Roundtable: Smiles, Lies, and Promise (Podcast) By Longreads Commentary Longreads editors discuss stories in Gay Magazine, The New Yorker, and Topic.
Editor’s Roundtable: Manufactured to Go Viral (Podcast) By Longreads Commentary Longreads editors discuss stories in Pacific Standard, The Paris Review, and Topic.
Bundyville: The Remnant, Chapter Five: The Remnant By Leah Sottile Feature The Kingdom of Heaven, borne out of blood
A Once and Future Beef By Will Meyer Feature Beef is a major culprit of the climate crisis, but if you want to consider beef’s future, then look to its past. The industry’s tactics have not changed as much as you might think.
Bundyville: The Remnant, Chapter Four: The Preacher and the Politician By Leah Sottile Feature If America collapses, some see that as an opportunity to reboot society. They say they have God on their side.
Won’t You Be My Neighbor: An Anti-Hate Pop Culture Syllabus By Soraya Roberts Feature Media and entertainment grounded in empathy are a critical part of a saner culture — and we can all help by actively producing, seeking, and supporting it.
When Friendship Fades But the Images Linger By Eryn Loeb Feature Eryn Loeb looks back on a summer spent taking pictures, and a friend she lost touch with.
Losing My Religion at Christian Camp By Katy Hershberger Feature Katy Hershberger recalls the way her decade at Christian summer camp both shaped and condemned her views of faith and girlhood.
Heartbreaker By Beatrix M. Rooney Feature Beatrix M. Rooney discovers a tragic secret that may explain her brother’s descent into cruelty and violence.
The Occupation of a Woman Writer By Kiley Bense Feature Our inherited biases about who should write what live deeper than most of us realize or want to acknowledge.