What Are You Going To Avoid Your Family With?

One of the great things about reading is it takes you away from wherever you are.

Have you finished the most important part of your Christmas planning yet? No, not the gift shopping, the loading up of the portable computing device of your choice — okay, who are we kidding, it’s that fucking phone you wear like an extra appendage and which you would sacrifice several other appendages in favor of if you were forced to choose — with content, the better to separate yourself from the crowd amongst which you are forced to spend your holidays. There are any number of best-of lists going around right now, but here’s one of the more promising entries, focusing as it does on pieces that may not have gotten the attention they deserved during the year:

Longreads Best of 2016: Under-Recognized Stories

Good luck! You could also try books, but people seem to respect your privacy more when you are on the phone, probably because obvious literacy is somehow more overtly hostile than the possibility that you are checking email or crushing candy. God, this horrible, horrible world.