“The Booker Prize 2026 longlist has now been announced…” Among the authors nominated are Marlon James, M. John Harrison, Emma Cline, and Elizabeth Strout.
Please Use AI . “Be sure to use AI when planning that...
Please Use AI. “Be sure to use AI when planning that next camping trip, the last one you will take with this particular child. Definitely do not text your friend who has fly-fished every river in Pennsylvania and biked every backwoods trail…”
Colossal
• Jackie Andres
Lucy Sparrow Invokes ’90s Supermarket Nostalgia in ‘The Beginning of Convenience’
The artist's new exhibition is fully stocked with more than 20,000 handmade felt objects.
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Lucy Sparrow Invokes ’90s Supermarket Nostalgia in ‘The Beginning of Convenience’ appeared first on Colossal.
#499 – Gary Gallagher: American Civil War, Slavery, Lincoln, Grant & Lee
Where Do European Country Names Come From?
Word nerd Rob Watts explains where the names of all the European countries come from.
Which country is the “land of the rabbits”? Why does Germany have so many different names? Where do the Dutch actually live? What links Croatians and neckties?
(via open culture)
Are These Two The Future Of Music?
30 notable sales of rare books by AbeBooks over the past...
30 notable sales of rare books by AbeBooks over the past 30 years, including first editions of Moby-Dick, Winnie-The-Pooh, and Leaves of Grass.
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
Steve Jobs in 2011: ‘We Build Products That We Want for Ourselves, Too, and We Just Don’t Want Ads’
Work Chronicles
• Work Chronicles
(comic) Full potential
19th Century Japanese Woodblock Prints Creatively...
Longreads
• Krista Stevens
The Return of the Monarch
"After years of decline, butterfly populations are rising—for now."
All US Cities Which Used to Have More Than 100,000 People But Don’t Anymore

Here’s a map of the 21 US cities that used to have a population of 100,000 people but don’t anymore. Many of these are Rust Belt cities, in which manufacturing employment fell steeply during the latter part of the 20th century.
The thread at Reddit mentions Detroit and St. Louis as two other cities whose population has dropped during that same time period. Detroit went from 1.85 million in 1950 to 639,000 in 2020 and St. Louis dropped from 857,000 to 300,000 over the same time period:
St. Louis was once the country’s 4th largest city. Worlds Fair and Olympics in 1904. Two Major League Baseball teams. It didn’t boom as much as the Great Lakes cities in between the wars and it declined just as much after.
Tags: demographics · maps · population · usa
How the Words We Teach English Language Learners...
How the Words We Teach English Language Learners Changed, and What That Says About Us. “The shifts reflect a life that moved further from its own making: less tied to tools, animals, food…; more tied to global institutions, categories, systems…”
Colossal
• Grace Ebert
Nature or Culture? Europeans Can Vote on the New Banknote Design
Birds or figures? These are the ten design proposals for a new European banknote.
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Nature or Culture? Europeans Can Vote on the New Banknote Design appeared first on Colossal.
Don’t use AI until you’re 40 . “We have been so...
Don’t use AI until you’re 40. “We have been so quick to treat access to new technology as an inevitability that we have failed to question whether every powerful tool should be placed in the hands of every developing mind the moment it becomes available.”
Longreads
• Peter Rubin
“Spaceballs: The Clickbait”—Inside the Return of Rick Moranis at Comic-Con
“Moranis gets lost and found, Mel Brooks stays mint-in-the-box, and Josh Gad IS Ebenezer.”
Longreads
• Seyward Darby
Johnny Knoxville, America’s God of Mischief
"What moves the star of 'Jackass' to risk his life for our entertainment? A very serious investigation."
Longreads
• Longreads
The Longreads Questionnaire, Featuring Kimon de Greef

‘Obsession’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Joanna Robinson
Bill, Chris, and Joanna make a wish to revisit Curry Barker’s 2026 phenomenon, ‘Obsession,’ starring Inde Navarrette and Michael Johnston.
Producers: Craig Horlbeck, Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, Chris Wohlers, and Kevin Cureghian
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Atlas Obscura Podcast
• SiriusXM Podcasts & Atlas Obscura
Your '50 States' Quests
We asked you about traveling to all 50 states, and in response got several stories about interesting quests and journeys across the U.S.
Up Next: Tell us your stories about visiting the U.S National Parks. Which ones have you been to? Which ones are you looking forward to? Did everything go as planned? Did anything surprising happen? Tell us all about it. Give us a call at 315-992-7902 and leave a message with your story and your name. You can also record a voice memo and email it to us at Hello@AtlasObscura.com.
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