A gripping nature thriller. The sleep diary of an insomniac. The golden years of a digital media empire. River rocks etched with history. Musings on returning to one’s hometown. Read on for our editors’ five recommended stories.

1. The Demon River

J.B. MacKinnon | Hakai Magazine | November 15, 2022 | 14,400 words

In recent years, we’ve witnessed the blossoming of a subgenre of longform writing that I’ll call the nature thriller. It’s born of necessity, by which I mean the collision of an ever-expanding human population — we hit 8 billion souls just this week — and a changing, temperamental climate. Natural disasters are on the rise, and with them come harrowing stories of jaw-dropping devastation and remarkable survival. In the right hands, these stories are propulsive without feeling glib, emotional but not exploitative. J.B. MacKinnon is a master of the nature thriller, deftly weaving plot with science. In this multi-chapter feature about the worst flood British Columbia has ever seen, MacKinnon had me on the edge of my seat reading about storm patterns, pressure systems, and infrastructure — yes, infrastructure. I learned from this story as much as I enjoyed it. (Sidenote: I had the pleasure of helping shepherd another MacKinnon feature, “True Grit,” to publication at The Atavist this month. It too qualifies as a nature thriller.) —SD

2. Bed Habits

Rachel Handler | Vulture | November 6, 2022 | 7,169 words

I am not a good sleeper. My room needs to be frosty cold and my bed toasty warm, one foot tucked in and one out, to monitor conditions. A sea of devices cover my bed, distractions to stop my brain from using sleep “quiet time” to catch up on some important worrying. So I was drawn to Rachel Handler’s essay detailing her struggles with insomnia. Jam-packed with fascinating information, it starts with a new study published in the Journal of Sleep Research which, contrary to popular belief, suggests being on your devices before bed may aid sleep. She decides to put this to the test by peer-reviewing herself. For two weeks, she keeps a sleep diary, bizarre dreams and all, to measure the effects of her nightly TV. Sure, it might not be the most scientific study in the world, but her honest appraisal is nothing short of hilarious. Give it a read — on your screen in bed if you want. I support you. —CW

3. The Unbearable Lightness of BuzzFeed

Mia Sato | The Verge | November 16, 2022 | 3,263 words

It’s not easy being on top. Or, rather, it’s not easy being on top when staying there is virtually impossible. Once upon a time, BuzzFeed reigned supreme among digital media upstarts, seemingly minting both page views and revenue at will; today, it’s losing millions of dollars every quarter, and readers are spending a third less time with it than just a year ago. Is this a fall from grace or a Sunset Boulevard moment (“I’m big … it’s the pictures that got small”)? The answer, as Mia Sato unpacks in this Verge feature, is a little bit of both. As hard as it was for legacy outlets to adjust to the internet, BuzzFeed knew exactly how to package it for readers — and in return, readers fed BuzzFeed not just eyeballs, but ideas. The Dress; ’90s-kid nostalgia plays; even harnessing Facebook’s then-new live video capability. Time moved on, though, and the algorithms did too. Quizzes and listicles have fallen out of fashion, and you can’t scroll Twitter without seeing a handful of other aggregation engines repurposing Reddit threads and TikTok trends. The circle of franken-content remains unbroken. That doesn’t mean that BuzzFeed employees don’t look back fondly, though, and Sato does a stellar job of tracing why the site’s heyday was so damn powerful. It wasn’t just the memes; it was the friendships they made along the way. —PR

4. Souvenirs of Climate Catastrophe

Anna Badkhen | Emergence Magazine | September 13, 2022 | 1,828 words

In considering time trapped in a bead of amber, Anna Badkhen reflects on how our planet’s weather patterns have raged across eons. With horrific drought in Europe that saw rivers run dry this past summer, Badkhen reminds us that humans have inscribed their suffering on “hunger rocks” that appear in rivers only when the water level becomes precipitously low or disappears altogether. “In Central Europe, hunger stones—river boulders that people living through droughts petroglyphed with dates and descriptions of their woe—commemorate the years of bad harvest, scarcity, high prices, hunger: 1417, 1616, 1707, 1746, 1790, 1800, 1811, 1830, 1842, 1868, 1892, 1893. One inscription, near Bleckede, in Lower Saxony, reads: ‘When this goes under, life will become more colorful again’; another, near the Czech town of Děčín-Podmokly: ‘If you see me, then weep.’” Badkhen’s essay is a poignant reminder of the magnitude of our planet’s ongoing evolution and the split-second brevity of a human life lived on it. —KS

5. Constraints: A Hometown Ode

Anne P. Beatty | The Rumpus | October 18, 2022 | 3,165 words

Anne P. Beatty never planned to move back to her hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina. But at 33, she did. In these lovely musings, Beatty reflects on ambition, becoming a writer and an English teacher, and the fear of stasis when a person returns to the place they grew up. She also writes beautifully about adolescence and adulthood — what we hope for ourselves, and simply what is. “As a kid, I was constantly looking beyond myself, beyond my world. What’s out there to see? To write about?” she asks. “Now, I just want one more hour, thirty minutes even, to work from within.” I’ve been thinking deeply recently about where I am in my life — struggling as a mother, trying to be a writer — and I appreciate these refreshingly honest reflections about life and growing up. —CLR

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