A Journey of 6,000 Miles

Layan Albaz is one of thousands of Palestinian children who have lost limbs in Israeli air strikes—and one of the very few evacuated to the US for medical care.

Weekly Top 5

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Recommending excellent stories by Charlotte Higgins, Lex Pryor, Michael Hardy, Elissa Altman, and Brad Phillips.

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

This week we’re recommending stories by Andrew R. Chow; Jonathan Blake; Maurice Tamman, Laura Gottesdiener, and Stephen Eisenhammer; Drew Anderson; and Ben Buckland.

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Featuring stories from Ryan Hockensmith, John Woodrow Cox, Ryan Nourai, Mary H.K. Choi, and Ferris Jabr.

Editors’ Picks

The Spiritual Realm of Sydney McLaughlin

Lex Pryor | The Ringer | August 7, 2024 | 3,203 words

“The 400-meter hurdles world-record holder is once again on the cusp of Olympic glory. To get there, she had to find transcendence—both on and away from the track.”

Ukraine’s Death-Defying Art Rescuers

Charlotte Higgins | The Guardian | July 30, 2024 | 5,856 words

“When Putin invaded, a historian in Kyiv saw that Ukraine’s cultural heritage was in danger. So he set out to save as much of it as he could.”

Scrabble, Anonymous

Brad Phillips | The Paris Review | May 15, 2024 | 2,489 words

“Somehow, doing it with other people took the stain away, made it feel fun instead of abject.”

Forever Less of Beauty

Elissa Altman | The Bitter Southerner | July 24, 2024 | 2,106

“I was watching him; he seemed to be watching me.”

There Will Be Blood

Brandon Keim | Nautilus | July 22, 2024 | 3,468 words

“Confronting the ethical and ecological dilemma over culling animals for conservation.”

Everybody Gets a Star

Jaya Saxena | Eater | July 18, 2024 | 3,114 words

“Twenty years after its debut, Yelp has changed how we think about reviewing everything and anything.”

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Essays and Features

Fuel, Medicine, Pleasure

What could it mean to give yourself the food you need to keep going? No punishing, no guilt, no withholding. Just nourishment.

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Reading Lists

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Our year-end collections

The top longreads each year, selected by our editors.