Getting Tricked by Helen DeWitt By Brittany Allen Feature Helen DeWitt’s hectic, disruptive style reflects the content of her stories: the difficulty of living an authentic life, or telling anything like a “story,” in a ruthlessly disruptive world. Friends: We Need Your Help to Fund More Stories
Eating Alone By Longreads Feature We’re eating alone more often than in any previous generation. But why should a meal on our own be uninspired? Why shouldn’t the French saying “life is too short to drink bad wine” still apply?
The Wheel, the Woman, and the Human Body By Aaron Gilbreath Feature How the newly evolved bicycle helped liberate women and modernize America’s concept of fitness.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week By Longreads Weekly Top 5 This week, we’re sharing stories from Aaron Hamburger, William Finnegan, Cecilie Maria Kallestrup and Katrine Jo Anderson, Hannah Jane Parkinson, and Amy Westervelt.
You’re Not Clean Until You’re 110% Clean By Michelle Weber Highlight Narcotics Anonymous programs offer community support — but turns away people who are using medication to aid their recovery.
How Brooklyn Lost Itself By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight On the way from the old Brooklyn to the new branded, post-industrial Brooklyn, the city got lost.
The Law Is No Place for Ethics By Michelle Weber Highlight The SCOTUS opinion upholding the Muslim ban might not be legally wrong, but shouldn’t the court look at what is just as well as what is legal?
Gene Therapy: God Discusses Its Future Possibilities By Katie Kosma Highlight Unraveling the potential of the double helix could render many of our current medical modalities laughable.
Our Planet Still Has Secrets: Talking Tasmanian Tigers with Journalist Brooke Jarvis By Aaron Gilbreath Commentary Investigating the people who search for the extinct Tasmanian Tiger.
The Little Franchise That Couldn’t By Michelle Weber Highlight Ollie Gleichenhaus cooked up a mean hamburger. How come Americans are eating Big Macs and Whoppers instead of Ollieburgers?
The Good Guys Aren’t Always the Good Guys By Michelle Weber Highlight “About 50 of the 800 women housed at Rosie’s at any one time are being sexually victimized by staff.”
White Men On The Edge of a Nervous Breakdown By Katie Kosma Highlight The ruling minority of white men are getting nervous about impending destabilization of their power.
A Person Alone: Leaning Out with Ottessa Moshfegh By Hope Reese Feature Leaning in doesn’t work in real life. When I was writing, I kind of hoped that it would. I think I hoped that the answers are always within me. And when I reached the end of the book, it was like: there are no answers.
Letters from Trenton By Thomas Swick Feature While striving to become a travel writer in the years after Watergate, Thomas Swick discovered that although writing for a newspaper was educational, there was more to be learned through romance with a foreigner.
The Difference Between Being Broke and Being Poor By Erynn Brook Feature It’s a recognition that comes in the aisle of a grocery store.
Pay the Homeless By Bryce Covert Feature It’s time to end the pernicious myth that giving money directly to panhandlers won’t help them.
Eating Alone By Longreads Feature We’re eating alone more often than in any previous generation. But why should a meal on our own be uninspired? Why shouldn’t the French saying “life is too short to drink bad wine” still apply?
How to Be Single By Shelly Oria Feature Shelly Oria shares a manual for life after you’ve left your husband and your girlfriend.
The Bungled Bank Robbery That Ended in a Landmark Legal Ruling By Longreads Feature In 1958, John Leo Brady got his lover pregnant and decided to stick up a bank to fund a new life. It ended with a murder, a Supreme Court case, and the formation of the Brady rule.
Queens of Infamy: Joanna of Naples By Anne Thériault Feature If you thought four (mostly) crappy husbands, vengeful Hungarian cousins, and the Black Death could cramp this queen’s style, think again.
Getting Tricked by Helen DeWitt By Brittany Allen Feature Helen DeWitt’s hectic, disruptive style reflects the content of her stories: the difficulty of living an authentic life, or telling anything like a “story,” in a ruthlessly disruptive world.
Eating Alone By Longreads Feature We’re eating alone more often than in any previous generation. But why should a meal on our own be uninspired? Why shouldn’t the French saying “life is too short to drink bad wine” still apply?
A Person Alone: Leaning Out with Ottessa Moshfegh By Hope Reese Feature Leaning in doesn’t work in real life. When I was writing, I kind of hoped that it would. I think I hoped that the answers are always within me. And when I reached the end of the book, it was like: there are no answers.
Taming the Great American Desert By johnforristerross Feature By advocating for agriculture in the arid West, Major John Wesley Powell challenged the way America viewed its right to develop the continent.
Your Best Work Comes from Scaring Yourself By Ryan Chapman Feature Essayist Chelsea Hodson had to give herself permission to be uncomfortable.
The Law Is No Place for Ethics By Michelle Weber Highlight The SCOTUS opinion upholding the Muslim ban might not be legally wrong, but shouldn’t the court look at what is just as well as what is legal?
The Good Guys Aren’t Always the Good Guys By Michelle Weber Highlight “About 50 of the 800 women housed at Rosie’s at any one time are being sexually victimized by staff.”
A Reading List for Reconsidering the Fourth of July in 2018 By Danielle Jackson Commentary How should we think about the Fourth of July in 2018?
Pay the Homeless By Bryce Covert Feature It’s time to end the pernicious myth that giving money directly to panhandlers won’t help them.
Letters from Trenton By Thomas Swick Feature While striving to become a travel writer in the years after Watergate, Thomas Swick discovered that although writing for a newspaper was educational, there was more to be learned through romance with a foreigner.
How to Be Single By Shelly Oria Feature Shelly Oria shares a manual for life after you’ve left your husband and your girlfriend.
Can the Political Override the Personal? By Michelle Weber Highlight “Harmful to Minors” author Judith Levine mines her past contradictions to sketch out the challenge of a being a young woman simultaneously burgeoning into her feminist and her sexual selves.
Making Peace with Selective Reduction By Amber Leventry Feature When risks arise in her partner’s pregnancy with triplets, Amber Leventry discovers that letting go of one life doesn’t have to mean losing faith, or love.
Alabama’s History Haunts, But It Also Instructs By Danielle Jackson Highlight The hope and future of the United States is bound to Alabama’s.