The Secret Door
Mac Barnett| Longreads | May 5, 2026 | 3,941 words (16 minutes) This is an excerpt from Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children by Mac Barnett, which was published by Little, Brown and Company on...
View ArticleDefining Color
Kory Stamper| Longreads | March 19, 2026 | 3,830 words (16 minutes) This is an excerpt from True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color–from Azure to Zinc Pink by Kory Stamper, which...
View ArticleThe Endless Self
Mandy-Suzanne Wong | Longreads | February 5, 2026 | 2,658 words (11 minutes) This is an excerpt from Daughter of Mother-of-Pearl by Mandy-Suzanne Wong, which will be published by Graywolf Press on...
View ArticleDeath, Divorce, and the Magic of Kitchen Objects: How to Find Hope in Loss
In this adapted excerpt from The Heart-Shaped Tin: Love, Loss and Kitchen Objects, Bee Wilson explores how items in our kitchens can become unintentionally meaningful to us over time. She considers...
View ArticleSentenced to Life At 16
Maddy Crowell | The Atavist | April 2021 | 5 minutes (1,507 words) This is an excerpt from The Atavist‘s issue no. 114, “The Invisible Kid,” by writer Maddy Crowell. The year Adolfo Davis was...
View ArticleSwitch at Birth — But How?
Lindsay Jones | The Atavist | March 2021 | 5 minutes (1,556 words) This is an excerpt from The Atavist‘s issue no. 113, “The Lives of Others,” by writer Lindsay Jones. In remote Newfoundland, a search...
View ArticleDon’t F**K With the Pet Detectives
Phil Hoad | The Atavist | February 2021 | 5 minutes (1,558 words) This is an excerpt from The Atavist‘s issue no. 112, “Cat and Mouse,” by writer Phil Hoad. With dozens of felines turning up dead...
View ArticleThe Black Cube Chronicles
While investigating allegations of sexual-assault against Harvey Weinstein, Ronan Farrow was surveilled by an Israeli private-intelligence agency called Black Cube. Agents from Black Cube tried to get...
View ArticleEven the Dogs
In an excerpt from her memoir, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls, T Kira Madden recalls a harrowing adventure with her parents. Read The Story The post Even the Dogs appeared first on Longreads.
View ArticleRules For Departure
An excerpt from Rachel Z. Arndt’s new essay collection, Beyond Measure. While hitching a ride to a week-long bike tour, Arndt considers the rituals of leaving — and making a clean break. Read The...
View ArticleSentenced to Life At 16
This is an excerpt from The Atavist‘s issue no. 114, “The Invisible Kid,” by writer Maddy Crowell. The year Adolfo Davis was arrested, he became one of 2,500 adolescents serving mandatory life...
View ArticleSwitch at Birth — But How?
This is an excerpt from The Atavist‘s issue no. 113, “The Lives of Others,” by writer Lindsay Jones. In remote Newfoundland, a search for answers about a series of baby mix-ups leads to a woman known...
View ArticleThe Way We Treat Our Pets Is More Paleolithic Than Medieval
John Bradshaw | Excerpt adapted from The Animals Among Us: How Pets Make Us Human | Basic Books | October 2017 | 18 minutes (4,861 words) We have no direct evidence proving that people living prior...
View ArticleThe Great Online School Scam
Noliwe Rooks | Excerpt from Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education | The New Press | September 2017 | 18 minutes (5,064 words) * * * DeVos’s ties to—and support...
View ArticleBlockchain Just Isn’t As Radical As You Want It To Be
Rachel O’Dwyer | An essay originally anthologized in Ours To Hack and To Own: The Rise of Platform Cooperativism, A New Vision for the Future of Work and a Fairer Internet | OR Books | August 2017| 6...
View ArticleHow Lobbyists Normalized the Use of Chemical Weapons on American Civilians
Anna Feigenbaum | An Excerpt from: Tear Gas: From the Battlefields of WWI to the Streets of Today | Verso | November 2017 | 22 minutes (6,015 words) * * * Just as some in Europe argued that chemical...
View ArticleThe Thing about Women from the River Is That Our Currents Are Endless
Terese Marie Mailhot | Heart Berries | Counterpoint | February 2018 | 11 minutes (3,098 words) Terese Marie Mailhot’s powerful, lyrical memoir is about a member of the Salish tribe reckoning with her...
View ArticleLiving Differently: How the Feminist Utopia Is Something You Have to Be Doing...
Lynne Segal | Verso | November 2017 | 32 minutes (8,100 words) The following is an excerpt from Radical Happiness: Moments of Collective Joy, by Lynne Segal (Verso, November 2017). This essay is...
View ArticleThe RNC, Revisited
Jared Yates Sexton The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage | Counterpoint | August 2017 | 19 minutes (5,081 words) Below is an excerpt from The People...
View ArticleHow Does It Feel? An Alternative American History, Told With Folk Music
Daniel Wolff | Grown-Up Anger: The Connected Mysteries of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Calumet Massacre of 1913 | Harper| June 2017 | 18 minutes (4,937 words) This story is recommended by...
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