a few things worth reading right now…

I update and scrap items from this list somewhat regularly, with the goal that each link is either timely or timeless.

(last update, 26 April 2024)

If you only read one, make it this:

Ben Taub’s The Spy Who Came Home is a profile of an expert in counter-terrorism who returned to his hometown and became a beat cop. To this day it’s one of the finest works of long-form journalism I’ve ever read.

— 30 April 2018

Isabel Fall wrote a short story called “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter.” Emily VanDerWerff writes about what happened next.

— 6 July 2021

Daniel Alarcón wrote on the collapse of the Arecibo.

— 5 April 2021

The New York Times Magazine eulogizes Mary J. Wilson, who was Baltimore’s first Black zookeeper.

— 23 December 2020

A Lonely Occupation: Francesca Mari wrote on the homeless house-sitters of Los Angeles.

— 30 November 2020

Essay: Catherine Jagoe’s “On the Van Galder from Wisconsin to O’Hare” was probably my favorite essay of 2020.

— 15 October 2020

Jack Seitz’s Not Reading JD Vance in Almaty, Kazakhstan is a critique of Hillbilly Elegy and an essential read on who gets to tell whose stories.

— 4 June 2017 (note: Seitz is fellow Dickinson ‘05)

Jennifer Gonnerman wrote on the life and death of Kalief Browder, a victim of abuse at Rikers Island. Six years later, it’s still an essential read.

— 7 June 2015

He Was Not Afraid of the Dark: TIME magazine eulogizes Mister Rogers.

— 3 March 2003