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Bluebells are a British icon, literary stars, and have recently become a besieged underdog and Brexit symbol, with hordes of Spanish bluebells ousting and hybridising with the native English variety. Bluebells are also called 'fairy flowers' as mythology says fairies used bluebells to lure and trap people passing by in the woods - especially children. Wearing a wreath of bluebells has been said to compel one to tell the truth. Bluebells are poisonous and contain about 15 biologically active compounds to defend themselves from animals and insect pests. The first bluebells are believed to have appeared in Britain after the last Ice Age. In the Bronze Age feathers were stuck on arrows with glue made from bluebells and during Queen Elizabeth I's reign starch was made from the crushed bulbs of bluebells to stiffen their big ruff collars. Bluebells are protected under law in the UK. If you dig up and sell a wild bluebell you can be fined £5000 per bulb, as it takes at least five ...

At 5280 , Robert Sanchez profiles members of NecroSearch, a Colorado-based volunteer organization made up of dedicated lab experts, scientists, and skilled technicians. NecroSearchers apply decades of specialized experience to help law enforcement officers locate dead bodies. Their reward? Bringing closure to the families of the deceased . In the past three decades, NecroSearch has helped police and district attorneys with more than 300 cases in 40 states and on four continents. Fifteen bodies have been discovered as a result of that work. They’ve been found in mine shafts and in landfills, hidden under a pile of rocks in the Rocky Mountains, and buried under a suburban patio in Arizona. Once, a victim was discovered stuffed inside the trunk of a car that had been dumped into the Missouri River. Another time, a body was tangled in a Northern California redwood’s root system. When a Tennessee suspect learned authorities enlisted NecroSearch to find his missing wife, the man referred ...

In many cases, dying young grants many artists a type of sainthood, forever shrouding them in mystery, and protecting their profile from the inevitable creative and stylistic ravages of age. Some famous examples are Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Belushi, Kurt Cobain, and poet Frank Stanford. For the Poetry Foundation , writer  Ben Ehrenreich  sifts through Stanford’s papers at Yale, gives his work a close read and travels to Arkansas where Stanford grew up and eventually met his end in 1978. Best known for the 500-page poetic magnum opus The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You , unanswered questions still swirl around the young poet, questions about what parts of his mythology were self-made or true . Called “a swamprat Rimbaud,” Stanford had a strong relationship with death, both on and off the page, and the pages he left behind continue to inspire and tantalize readers, as new generations discover his dense, singular, ethereal work. Death is everywhere ...

Popular perceptions of rock and opera typically place the two traditions on opposite sides of the musical spectrum — so much so that a genre like rock opera could emerge in the 1960s as an oxymoronic novelty. Yet they share wide swaths of common ground when it comes to earnest expression and unabashed sentimentality. Corey Atad drives this point home in his Hazlitt piece on Jim Steinman’s prolific composing career . His biggest hits — from Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” to Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” — all proudly wear their emotions on their huge, puffy sleeves. It’s no accident that Jim Steinman’s songs veer into the theatrical: his roots were in musical theatre. Steinman grew up in love with opera. In the late 1960s, he attended Amherst College in Massachusetts where he worked on several musical projects. In 1969 he wrote and starred in The Dream Engine , an occult rock and roll musical that served as his independent study at Amherst, and featured themes—and ev...

Alana Massey | Longreads | October 2017 | 10 minutes (2,448 words)   It is fitting that I was on my way to a museum filled with ghastly medical objects and oddities when I realized most of us are more haunted by the living than the dead. The Mütter Museum in Philadelphia is a medical history museum that houses such prized specimens as Einstein’s brain, conjoined fetuses in a jar, President Grover Cleveland”s jaw tumor, and an expansive wall case displaying Dr. Joseph Hyrtl’s human skull collection. I was on my way to the wedding of my friends Helena and Thomas, the kind of tender, brilliant oddballs so in love that I’d believe them both if they told me the other had hung the North Star or can understand the language of animals. The kind of people who get married in the Mütter Museum not because they necessarily want to, but because there are simply no other places so tastefully macabre yet oddly tender, befitting their nuptials. I don’t believe this about love but I do believe i...

I was going to begin this post by apologizing to anyone who follows me on Twitter for the way in which my feed has, for the past two weeks, read like a non-stop public radio fund drive. Then I remembered that a) I am the person who added the Unapologetic Women story category here at Longreads, in part to help me check myself in this regard, and b) I have zero regrets for spreading the word about our current member drive , through which we’re trying to raise $25,000 not only for original journalism by great reporters like Alice Driver , but also for personal essays. In some corners of the internet, personal essays are derided as frivolous and narcissistic, but I couldn’t disagree more. I find personal narratives to be deeply compelling and important. I believe they can be as effective as hard reporting in conveying important ideas, and sometimes even more so in terms of opening people’s minds by engendering empathy, first for the person telling the story. I consider myself very for...

This week, we’re sharing stories from Roxane Gay , Katherine Heiny , Alexandra Starr , Dionne Searcey , and Anna Silman . Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. * * * 1. ‘Tiny House Hunters’ and the Shrinking American Dream Roxane Gay | Curbed | October 25, 2017 | 6 minutes (1,705 words) The dream of homeownership, now with composting toilets. 2. ‘Reality Shrivels. This Is Your Life Now’: 88 Days Trapped in Bed to Save a Pregnancy Katherine Heiny | The Guardian | October 24, 2017 | 20 minutes (5,000 words) When Katherine Heiny’s water broke during her 26th week of pregnancy, her doctor told her that in order to save her baby she would have to be almost totally immobilized “in Trendelenburg,” an aggressive form of bed rest in which her legs were raised above her head. She remained on bed rest for 88 days and found comfort reading the memoir of Steve Callahan, a sailor who survived adrift at sea for 74 days. 3. Pushing the Limit Alexandra Starr | Harper...

I know what you’re thinking: Not another sexual harassment post. Bear with me. I’ve spoken to many women over the past few weeks who feel exhausted by the current news cycle, I count myself among them: the endless onslaught of horrific stories, interspersed with the occasional,  extremely bad non-apology . I know it’s tempting to look away, and it’s fine if you have to; please take care of yourself . It doesn’t make you a bad person or a bad feminist. But it’s important the stories keep coming out, that the issue remains in the public discourse. It feels like we are in a moment of momentum, working our way towards something better, however clumsy, messy, and painful the process can be. It’s a little cheesy, but I keep thinking of the quote often misattributed to Winston Churchill : “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” This momentum feels like hell, and we have to keep going. Last weekend,  Los Angeles Times  reporter Glenn Whipp published an investigation repor...

  Evan Lavender-Smith | The Southern Review   | Fall 2017 | 37 minutes (10,132 words) I. Mom called last night to say that when she and my brother went to Good Sam’s yesterday, they found Grandpa John totally naked in the bathroom, his butt basically stuck in the toilet seat, unable to get up, and it was a good thing my brother was with her, Mom said, because dealing with her father when he’s naked is one thing she just can’t bring herself to do. “I can’t deal with his penis,” she said. I told her that I understood, which I do, as often, in recent years, when I’ve been in the position of having to deal with his penis myself, I’ve thought the very same thing, viz., “I can’t deal with his penis.” Mom said that she went into the other room — Grandpa John’s bedroom / dining room / living room — while my brother and a nurse hoisted him from the toilet seat, cleaned him up, and got him dressed. Mom was trying not to cry while describing this scene to me, I could tell; I believe ...