* A Uvalde mom turned gun-control advocate at Texas Monthly
* A deep dive into Ginni and Clarence Thomas at NY MAG
* A love letter to Louisiana and two unrelated women born there in 1953 from The Bitter Southerner
* The man behind the Twitter persona “Dril” at The Ringer
* An underdog surfer nicknamed “Casual Luke” at GQ Sports
These are the Profiles that obsessed us in 2023. Learn why our editors loved these stories and be sure to check out the full Best of 2023 Package
In the December 15th edition:
- The immigration crisis at sea
- The world of romance fraudsters
- Former R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe
- Wikipedia, knowledge, and truth
- Restaurants in the South that serve gas
Read more about these stories—and why our editors selected them—at Longreads.
“Look, I get it: I’d also be relieved to find out my new bonk buddy wasn’t a philanderer. I’m not mad at Cameron; I’m mad that the dead wife-mom is a plot device in more Christmas movies than I can stuff in a stocking.”
Before you curl up with a holiday movie, check out Cat Modlin-Jackson’s new Longreads feature. It might just make you think differently about those festive frolics.
Longreads’ Best of 2023 continues!
Today’s list recognizes five notable investigations published this year, including stories about child laborers working the night shift, the criminalization of pregnant mothers, penile enhancement surgery, and more.
In this week’s Top 5 we’re highlighting stories about:
- Restorative justice.
- Donated bodies allegedly sold at Harvard.
- An ER doctor who recognized her own catastrophic symptoms.
- A fascinating career pivot.
- Seven chimpanzees on the lam.
All this and the piece our audience loved most! Check out our Top 5.
Sign up to get five new story recommendations each week. (It’s free!)
Our “Best of” package continues today with the reported essays we loved in 2023. We’re showcasing a story on climate change and loss by Summer Praetorius at Nautilus, Jennifer Senior’s piece on her aunt Adele, who was institutionalized as a baby for The Atlantic, Nick Bowlin on how climate change is affecting the mining industry at The Drift, fascinating (and surprising!) reportage on Pompeii from Guy D. Middleton for Aeon and Tom Vanderbilt’s treatise on time for Harper’s Magazine.
Check out the list and why we loved each piece, here.
“But of all the sad Yuletides of my life, the one I spent guarding $100,000 worth of explosives on the surface of the moon tops the list."
A new #longreads essay explores the meaning of Christmas from a fireworks tent! Read it here.
#christmas #yuletide #essay #writing #nonfiction #home #loneliness #family
We are continuing our #longreads Best of 2023 by diving into categories. First up: Personal Essays.
Our editors have picked some beautiful stories on loss, Indigenous community, video games, caring for aging relatives, and the fear of missing love (and the jungle). Check them out here.
Issue no. 145 of The Atavist Magazine is out! In this story, Katya Cengel digs into a mysterious story about a father’s disappearance after boating accident in Morro Bay, California.
Bruce hasn’t looked for the truth about what happened with his father nearly as hard as he’s looked for Bigfoot. Still, the truth keeps finding him and his family. Over the past five decades, revelations about a man who left home one day and never came back have taken Bruce and the rest of the Champagnes by surprise—again and again and again.
Ready for some serious reading time? Next up in our Best of 2023 collection is our top 10 Reading Lists of the year!
With topics including Taylor Swift, children, libraries, neuroscience, and more—there are lists for everyone!
Check it out here.
longreads
It feels almost disingenuous to say my car was stolen. It was not broken into. No one hotwired it. I was not carjacked at gunpoint. Nor was it stolen through the recent TikTok trend to boost Kias by sticking a USB drive down the throat of the ignition. Nothing so clever or destructive occurred.
I left Las Vegas, where I live, for a work trip to Phoenix. That morning, my father flew into Las Vegas for a weekend trip with his wife and her grandson. They borrowed my car. While out to dinner that evening, my father left it unlocked with the key inside in the parking lot of the Orleans Hotel and Casino, a budget resort west of the Strip.
I was out drinking with colleagues that night and missed a few calls. When I checked my phone, I saw my father had texted with weird punctuation and fragment sentences: “Call me It’s very important. It’s about important.”
It sounded important. I had also missed a call from the police. I got on the phone with my father first and, with a tone of pure shame, he said, “I’m sorry to tell you this, son. Your car is gone.”
When Dan Hernandez recovered his stolen car, he found a mysterious VHS labeled “Bad Tape” left inside of it. His friends and family told him not to watch it, but Dan couldn’t resist. Read our latest.
