Sponsored by
Can’t believe it is already June. Today’s edition is a look back at the most popular stories from May 2026. These are the stories that resonated most with you, the ones you clicked on and forwarded to your friends.
We will be back tomorrow with new stories for your lunch break.
|
Support the Club
Every day, I share interesting stories with hundreds of readers who want to break free from their daily doomscroll. If you have enjoyed the newsletter, consider contributing to our work by buying me a cup of coffee. Any amount helps defray the cost of the site and news subscriptions.
|
|
01 • Lunch Break Reads: May 19, 2026
|
|
The Sunday Long Read
|
Joshua St. Clair
|
|
Ryan Nickerson was driving to work in July 2017 when a 10-year-old girl named Kennadē Patterson darted across a dark Georgia highway. He thought he had hit a deer. He learned otherwise watching the noon news, holding his 35-day-old daughter. He was never charged. What followed was eight months of drinking, an attempt to end his life, and a Facebook message to Kennadē's mother. Her reply, three months later, refused to blame him. Five years on, Ryan teaches fourth graders. He still drives the dented blue Nissan.
|
|
|
02 • Lunch Break Reads: May 27, 2026
|
|
Chris Jones returned from covering Euro 2016 to find his wife texting his best friend. Sitting in the dark with her synced MacBook open, he watched in real time as Amy professed her love for another man, a friend named Brad, while simultaneously venting about Jones to Phil, the best friend he had known for 25 years. Phil agreed with every cruel assessment. In twenty minutes Jones lost his marriage and his closest friendship, three months after losing his job at Esquire. He documents the wreckage and the slow rebuild that followed, including therapy and trash-claw walks.
|
|
|
03 • Lunch Break Reads: May 20, 2026
|
|
The San Francisco Chronicle
|
Matthias Gafni
|
|
A Sacramento drug counselor named Bridget Adams spent two years bombarding her former methadone patient Shawn Stewart with anonymous threats, then forged emails in his name to land him in jail on stalking charges. Detectives believed the screenshots without ever checking her devices. Stewart spent 23 days behind bars before investigators reversed course. Adams had a long Pennsylvania record of identity fraud, including a fake 2003 kidnapping report. Prosecutors later found she had also paid New Orleans witches $1,800 for love spells targeting Stewart. She pleaded no contest to stalking and is serving over nine years.
|
|
|
04 • Lunch Break Reads: May 7, 2026
|
|
Suzanne McKinney, a 63-year-old attorney, has lived in a yellow Mitsubishi Eclipse near Denver's Washington Park for a decade, refusing every offer of shelter, Medicaid, and mental health services the city has extended. Blinded by cataracts, she navigated parking restrictions by feel while neighbors, police, and advocates debated how to move her without destroying her. Kyle Harris follows the standoff as neighbors pressured a mutual friend to evict her, cops threatened to impound the car, and a Quaker congregation turned her away. A GoFundMe eventually funded cataract surgery. After the procedure, McKinney could see again, and with it came the first credible possibility that she might, one day, find her way inside.
|
|
|
05 • Lunch Break Reads: May 29, 2026
|
|
The Atlantic
|
Monica Potts
|
|
In Clinton, Arkansas, a "wrong" choice at 13 could close a girl's future for good. Monica Potts writes in her 2023 book about her and her best friend Darci's dreams of getting out. Only Potts did. She left for college and built a journalism career. Darci lost her virginity at 14, had a miscarriage senior year, missed too many days to graduate, and later lost custody of her children to drugs and legal trouble. Their friend Vanessa married a 24-year-old preacher's son at 15. Potts traces the divergence to their boy-crazy middle-school years.
|
|
Summer starts here (free gummies!)
The sun is here and we're back outside!
Longer days, lighter hangs, and THC gummies that fit the vibe. Grab a free pack of gummies from Cycling Frog! Just cover $4.99 shipping. Fruity, perfectly dosed, and made for campfires, park days, and whatever summer turns into.
Must be 21+ and only valid on 10ct bags of gummies.
