The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

This week, we’re sharing stories from Rachel Monroe, Jianan Qian, Rene Ebersole, Adi Robertson, and Kyle Chayka.

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1. The Delay

Rachel Monroe | Esquire | April 18, 2018 | 21 minutes (5,373 words)

After two siblings got kidnapped on the Navajo reservation, jurisdictional issues and a structural breakdown of the Amber Alert system slowed the search. Trying to protect Indigenous children on tribal lands requires increased police training and federal funding, but funding often means compromising some tribal sovereignity.

2. The Moon Is Beautiful Tonight: On East Asian Narratives

Jianan Qian | The Millions | April 17, 2018 | 14 minutes (3,578 words)

Using Junichiro Tanizaki’s The Key, Jianan Qian examines the differences between how stories are structured and celebrated in Western and East Asian cultures.

3. Inside the Black Market Hummingbird Love Charm Trade

Rene Ebersole | National Geographic | April 18, 2018 | 20 minutes (5,154 words)

“Catch a hummingbird. Kill it. Wrap it in underwear, cover it with honey—and sell it to arouse passion in a lover.” On the booming black market for dead hummingbirds to be made into Latin love charms called chuparosas.

4. The $100 Laptop That Was Going to Change the World—Then It All Went Wrong

Adi Robertson | The Verge | April 16, 2018 | 21 minutes (5,300 words)

One Laptop Per Child was the vision of MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte, who unveiled the small, green, affordable hand-cranked laptop in 2005. The marketing touted a laptop that would cost $100—except Negroponte quickly learned that creating that was impossible.