During the week, we consume words in snackable, tweetable bites. But on the weekends, we have the time to take a dive into the murkier, lengthier depths of the Internet and expand our attention spans beyond 140 characters. We can brew a cup of coffee and lie back with our iPads, laptops, smartphones and Kindles.
Since you're bound to miss a few things during the daily grind, we present to you, in our weekly installation of Mashable Must Reads, a curated list of can't-miss stories from around the web to read and reflect on. (You can find last time's must reads here).
An Explosion, Then Bloodied Children: What I Saw on Gaza Beach | Mashable
The day — hell, week — had been filled with heavy shellfire and outgoing rockets between Israel and Gaza when three children were struck by missiles while playing on the beach in Gaza City. Correspondent Jonathan Miller was on the ground, but he didn't realize at the time that four other children had been killed, playing football on same beach. Miller's reporting from Gaza is utterly devastating: "You could see their little dusty feet from where they had been playing."
Palestinian journalists take care of a wounded boy following an Israeli military strike nearby on the beach, on July 16, 2014 at Gaza City's al-Deira hotel.
Image: THOMAS COEX/AFP/Getty Images
Before the NSA revelations and BuzzFeed listicles, there was the early web. It was an incredible blend of personal, mundane and extraordinary, writes Alexis Madrigal — and cool was, for certain, bright colors! Flashing objects! Sounds when you loaded a webpage!
Imagine that someone you've met on the Internet gets too close and begins spying on you from inside your home. That's what happened to two 12-year-old girls in Texas. Someone not only hacked their social media accounts and tormented them online; that person also managed to gain access to the girls' devices. What started as an all-too-typical cyberbullying case has devolved into an all-out real world stalking nightmare. And they still can't find the culprit(s).
Julia Young and Melody Coffey, both 12, review their social media in the former's room, in Leander, Texas. The two girls are the centerpieces of a violent cyberbullying, hacking and real-world stalking case that's still under investigation.
Image: Mashable
Russia's infiltration of the Nasdaq is four years old, but it continues to affect cyber preparation. Businessweek writer Michael Riley spent several months interviewing more than two dozen people about the Nasdaq attack and its aftermath, which has never been fully reported. Combined, the NSA, FBI and CIA doesn't really know what happened; it's a huge deal, and one that seems like it could be straight out of a sci-fi mystery novel.
Relingos: The Cartography of Empty Spaces | Brooklyn Quarterly
This excerpt from Sidewalks, a collection of essays by Mexican novelist Valeria Luiselli, offers beautiful perspective on creating things of one's own and filling the empty spaces in one's life — while leaving others open. "Cities need those vacant lots, those silent gaps where the mind can wander freely."
The images on TV tell one story. Front pages of newspapers may tell another. But what's it like being under attack in the Middle East amidst a time of utter, complete mayhem? To tell that story, Mashable's Brian Ries and Louise Roug gathered photos and videos uploaded in a 24-hour period from Gaza and Israel, using a number of tools to check their authenticity.
Palestinians look the damage of a destroyed house where five members of the Ghannam family were killed in an Israeli missile strike early morning in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip on Friday, July 11, 2014.
Image: Khalil Hamra/Associated Press
My Runaway Childhood | Narratively
After an abuse-filled upbringing, Melissa Chadburn left home for good at age 13, legally emancipated herself from her mother, and had to take control of her own life.
One year ago, Kali Hardig went swimming at an Arkansas water park and the next day was rushed to the hospital where doctors diagnosed her with a rare, 99% fatal condition: a brain-eating amoeba. This is the miraculous story of how she lived.
Don't have time to read them all now? In our Readlist below, export this week's must reads to your tablet to save for a time you have no distractions. Simply click the "read later" button alongside each story or click "export" to send the entire list of articles to your preferred device.
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