Personal History
The Last Rave
In the summer of 2020, I felt as if I’d entered the wrong portal, out of the world I knew and into its bizarro twin.
By Emily Witt
Notes on a Last-Minute Safari
We saw every animal that was in “The Lion King” and then some. They were just there, like ants at a picnic, except that they were elephants and giraffes and zebras.
By David Sedaris
The Detroit Pistons Were My Father’s Second Family
Jack McCloskey built a championship team that was both loved and loathed. I only began to appreciate who he was years later.
By Molly McCloskey
The Friendship Challenge
How envy destroyed the perfect connection between two teen-age girls.
By Mary Gaitskill
The Birth of My Daughter, the Death of My Marriage
Now that I was doing little besides keeping this tiny creature alive, it was impossible to ignore my desire to wander the streets with our baby, in ever-widening loops away from home.
By Leslie Jamison
Adventures of a Teen-Age Wharf Rat
After a peripatetic childhood, a young traveller finds his way on an ambitious journey gone badly awry.
By Jon Lee Anderson
The Fall of My Teen-Age Self
This particular April, I’d sworn to my mother I wasn’t smoking. Therefore: stolen cigarettes. Therefore: windowsill.
By Zadie Smith
A Coder Considers the Waning Days of the Craft
Coding has always felt to me like an endlessly deep and rich domain. Now I find myself wanting to write a eulogy for it.
By James Somers