“Stories matter. And in a moment when people so rarely take the time to think before they speak, they matter more than ever.” Hi there, It’s pretty rare for us to send out an email that isn’t our Weekly Top 5 newsletter. In fact, I think the last one was almost a year ago. But […]
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Well Without Water
Haunted by a running tap in prison, a man grows obsessed with water waste and climate change, pushing him to the edge.
’Tis the Season to Kill the Dead-Mom Holiday Movie Trope
How many more women will festive filmmakers dispatch?
To See and Be Seen
Stories about free play, Shetland populism, an ostrich cull, tending friendships, and more.
Memories of Motherhood and Our Top 5
“Much of the time, I feel like a girl. A curious girl of 48 who, today, is walking the neighborhood streets with a girl of 13, and listening to what this girl has to say. She happens to be my kid, this person I made, a living being that gave my life a whole new […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
In this edition:
• Showing our age
• Special delivery
• Unfriendly wagers
• A shore thing
• Sale therapy
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
In this edition: Concrete memories, grief science, captive cats, relentless pain, and myth meets reality.
Wrapping Up 2024 and the Week’s Top 5
Well, folks, this is it. The last Top 5 newsletter of the year! Whether or not you’re observing any holidays, we hope you enjoy a restorative end to 2024. At the very least, you’ll have the full run of our Best of 2024 package at your disposal—between the stories we discussed in our year-end essays […]
Learning to Walk Again (and Our Top 5)
“The average U.S. public school has about 550 students. Imagine eight or nine schools in an area roughly the size of Philadelphia where every kid is missing at least one limb. Imagine also that their amputations happened alongside a torrent of other tragedies: the loss of family members, friends, neighbors, schools, houses.” In the latest issue of […]


