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What do you do when they tell you that you’ll never race again? You run farther than you ever have before. Our latest Atavist Magazine excerpt highlights Todd Barcelona’s recovery from a traumatic brain injury. “On the afternoon that changed his...

What do you do when they tell you that you’ll never race again? You run farther than you ever have before. Our latest Atavist Magazine excerpt highlights Todd Barcelona’s recovery from a traumatic brain injury.

On the afternoon that changed his life, Todd was driving home from work in his sky blue 1994 GMC Sierra truck. He had purchased it used and lowered the suspension so it sat closer to the ground. It did not have airbags.

Todd approached the intersection of Austin Peay Highway and Old Brownsville Road heading north. A Shell gas station, fields of crops, and stands of trees filled his view. The light ahead turned yellow, and he continued through the intersection. A gray Honda Accord driving south made a left at the light at the same time, failing to yield the right of way. It smashed into Todd’s truck almost head-on.

Visit Longreads to read the full excerpt.

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Untold Fortunes: A Reading List on the Creative Uses of the TarotHilary Mantel kept a tarot deck in the drawer of her writing desk. William Butler Yeats wrote poetry with tarot symbolism. Today we bring you five great reads that explore the tarot in...

Untold Fortunes: A Reading List on the Creative Uses of the Tarot

Hilary Mantel kept a tarot deck in the drawer of her writing desk. William Butler Yeats wrote poetry with tarot symbolism. Today we bring you five great reads that explore the tarot in culture and literature. 

I hold the old New Orleans deck in my hands. It has a perfectly satisfying aspect ratio. The syncretic vodun artwork is stunning. All decks have 78 cards, 22 of which comprise the Major Arcana. This deck has one extra, a wild card called Les Barons. Top-hatted, dark-glassed, cigar-smoking Baron Samedi and Baron Cimetière walk up some stairs with Manman Brigitte (to the French Quarter Police Station, I’m told). All grinning skeletons wearing long coats and carrying the respective accoutrements of their works—a curved walking stick, a headstone, a cross—they make me smile. Eros and Thanatos, awful without a few laughs. I shuffle the cards, a rustling hush. I hear the Sanskrit root śam that says pacifying, extinguishing; the root śi that says sharpening, focusing. If it’s all a game anyway, wouldn’t you like a deck of cards? 

Check out the list. 

longreads reading list tarot tarot cards
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Creation of Woman: Evangelical and Transgender in the Bible Belt“I opened his underwear drawer to put the laundry away and noticed a flash of color and lace toward the bottom. My stomach jolted." In our latest feature, Lane Scott Jones navigates...

Creation of Woman: Evangelical and Transgender in the Bible Belt

“I opened his underwear drawer to put the laundry away and noticed a flash of color and lace toward the bottom. My stomach jolted." 

In our latest feature, Lane Scott Jones navigates gender identity against the backdrop of the Deep South.

Read it here. 

longreads evangelical religion transgender trans writing nonfiction lgbtq bible belt gender
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longreads.com

Finding Worth Among the Echoes

Faded music dreams, a fledgling family farm, and a search for new definitions of work and success.
Cameron Carr

What happens when the music stops? In this week’s new Longreads essay, Cameron Carr writes about not pursuing a career in music, and searching for new definitions of worth in art and life:

I don’t mean to question the value of practice, effort, time. My questions are about how we choose to look at both skill and success. I want a specific definition of what skill it is that anyone is building and what success it will bring them, and then I want to look at another part of their life, any other. What fulfillment might time bring outside the intention of those hours? I’d like to imagine a world where time spent forming chords and fitting words to feelings does not have so limited an application. I’d like to imagine a world where time spent on any task or craft or passion does not only apply to a single predetermined purpose. I’d like to hear the echoes.

Read Cameron’s beautiful essay, “Finding Worth Among the Echoes,” on Longreads.

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longreads.com

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

The June 14, 2024, edition recommends stories from David Pierce, C.J. Chivers, Paige Kaptuch, Michael Adno, and Jessica Winter.
Longreads

Our Top 5:

- The sport of competitive Excel (The Verge)
- The opioid epidemic at sea (The New York Times Magazine)
- Running away from FLDS (Runner’s World)
- The art of worm grunting (Oxford American)
- Using parents as content (The New Yorker)

Go to Longreads to read why our editors selected these stories. 

Enjoy your weekend!

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The Shapes of Silence Jennifer Thuy Vi Nguyen brings us a beautiful essay years in the making, in which she recounts coming out to her dad and growing up Vietnamese American. “Dad, it was probably too hard to talk to me about the violence you...

The Shapes of Silence 

Jennifer Thuy Vi Nguyen brings us a beautiful essay years in the making, in which she recounts coming out to her dad and growing up Vietnamese American.

Dad, it was probably too hard to talk to me about the violence you witnessed, just as it was too shameful to tell you about my sexuality. To have a conversation requires an engagement or an exchange—something we could not do since we were in constant translation. To you, I was an American girl in a Vietnamese family living a life that you could not recognize. We spoke in updates, never in dialogue about relationships, sex, life in Texas, or your life in Vietnam.  

Read the full essay at Longreads.

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The Top 5 Longreads of the WeekIn this Top 5: * How sickle cell patients are pressured into sterilization * How opioid restrictions harm the terminally ill * The enshittification of bowling * The sudden ubiquity of steroids * Why sperm is a hot...

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

In this Top 5:

* How sickle cell patients are pressured into sterilization
* How opioid restrictions harm the terminally ill
* The enshittification of bowling
* The sudden ubiquity of steroids
* Why sperm is a hot commodity

Learn why our editors are recommending these stories.

longreads curation sicklecell opioids enshittification bowling steroids intrauterine insemination
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longreads.com

A Vigilante Murder in Grand Marais

How a shocking crime divided a small Minnesota town.
Longreads

The new issue of The Atavist Magazine, by John Rosengren, is about a murder that divided a small Minnesota town. 

But nothing has captivated local conversation quite like what happened between Larry Scully and Levi Axtell in March 2023. A shocking act of violence attracted international attention and split the town over questions of truth and justice. Grand Marais is still trying to piece itself back together. 

Read an excerpt of this story our Longreads.

true crime nonfiction reading journalism minnesota small town
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