Motherhood on the Line By Alice Driver Feature Three asylum seekers navigate coronavirus and climate change at the U.S.-Mexico border. Friends: We Need Your Help to Fund More Stories
Shades of Grey By Ashley Stimpson Feature In 2018, Floridians voted overwhelmingly to end greyhound racing, a sport they were told was archaic and inhumane. What if they were wrong?
An Atlas of the Cosmos By Shannon Stirone Feature We’ve mapped Mars, the Moon, the solar system, even our own galaxy. Which means there is only one thing left to understand in this symbolic way and that is the entirety of the cosmos.
Longreads Honored with 14 Notable Mentions in ‘Best American’ Series By Longreads Commentary Our cup runneth over! Congratulations to all!
The Dark Side of Birding By Krista Stevens Highlight “Undeniably, eBird … brings birders together and allows for rapid information sharing. It’s also created new—and sometimes contentious—etiquette and social dynamics.”
Longreads Best of 2020: Writing on COVID-19 By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Feature Our top story picks in COVID-19 reporting this year.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week By Longreads Weekly Top 5 This week, we’re sharing stories from Mosi Secret, David Farrier, Ferris Jabr, Blake Butler, and Eoghan Walsh.
Loving Molly, and Mourning Her: A Husband’s Extraordinary Essay By Seyward Darby Feature Blake Butler writes movingly about his late wife, poet Molly Brodak.
Longreads Best of 2020: Sports and Games By Krista Stevens Feature With leagues across the world undergoing cancellations for much of the year, 2020 has been an interesting one in the world of sports. Here are some stories that resonated with us.
On Trees as Social Creatures and Fungi as the ‘Fabric of the Forest’ By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Highlight Trees were previously seen as individual and solitary organisms. But the research of Suzanne Simard shows otherwise.
Longreads Best of 2020: Music Writing By Krista Stevens Feature Music has been a salve this year, helping us cope with the myriad challenges that 2020 brought. Here are some favorite pieces of music writing we picked in 2020.
The Hungry Bears By Carolyn Wells Highlight “For the bears, the lack of salmon was a catastrophe on top of many others.”
The Alarmist: Is One of the Pandemic’s Loudest Scientific Voices Helping or Hurting Public Health? By Seyward Darby Highlight Meet Eric Feigl-Ding, the town crier of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shades of Grey By Ashley Stimpson Feature In 2018, Floridians voted overwhelmingly to end greyhound racing, a sport they were told was archaic and inhumane. What if they were wrong?
The 25 Most Popular Longreads Exclusives of 2020 By Krista Stevens Feature The original reporting, personal essays, columns, and collaborations that were our most-read stories of the year.
Longreads Best of 2020: All of Our No. 1 Story Picks By Krista Stevens Feature Here’s every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email.
An Atlas of the Cosmos By Shannon Stirone Feature We’ve mapped Mars, the Moon, the solar system, even our own galaxy. Which means there is only one thing left to understand in this symbolic way and that is the entirety of the cosmos.
‘My Tongue Swallowing the Taste of Home Soil’: On Filipino Food, Family, and Identity By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Highlight “Far from our barrios, mountains, and islands, we cook, so that we may practice swallowing our undesirable truths, acidic and blood-heavy.”
Out There: On Not Finishing By Devin Feature What happens if the stories we tell ourselves about our lives leave us lonely, wrestling with meaning?
The Powerful Decide By Longreads Feature What makes good or bad design happen anywhere depends on who has the most power.
‘The Sea and Sky Decide What They Will Allow’ By Krista Stevens Highlight “I’m working on a book about Arctic explorers, and that means swimming in a sea of sorrow.”
The Grieving Landscape By Longreads Feature Upon discovering that her mother had been a member of the group Women Strike For Peace (WSP), Heidi Hutner becomes obsessed with feminist nuclear history.
This Week in Books: Farewell Longreads! I’m Taking This Rodeo to Substack. By Dana Snitzky Commentary To read my “This Week in Books” newsletter in the future, follow me on substack.
Palliative Brownies By Krista Stevens Highlight “I grew up in the grip of the epidemic, maturing as people I adored as surrogate aunties and uncles fell ill and vanished from our lives.”
Longreads Best of 2020: Writing on COVID-19 By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Feature Our top story picks in COVID-19 reporting this year.
The Alarmist: Is One of the Pandemic’s Loudest Scientific Voices Helping or Hurting Public Health? By Seyward Darby Highlight Meet Eric Feigl-Ding, the town crier of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trapped in Limbo Down Under By Seyward Darby Highlight In Australia, some 30,000 people live in a state of legal uncertainty crafted by politicians.
The Secret Group Trying to Topple North Korea’s Regime By Seyward Darby Highlight Has the U.S. government already betrayed the activists seeking regime change in North Korea?
Inside the Chaos of Immigration Court By Gabriel Thompson Feature Gabriel Thompson takes us into San Francisco Immigration Court and the labyrinthine system that asylum seekers—and attorneys and judges—are up against.
Loving Molly, and Mourning Her: A Husband’s Extraordinary Essay By Seyward Darby Feature Blake Butler writes movingly about his late wife, poet Molly Brodak.
The Secrets of a Hidden Diary By Seyward Darby Highlight A hidden diary, a love story, and a mystery.
‘Anyone Can Walk in the Woods, But Who Truly Knows Them?’ By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Highlight Tristan McConnell writes about the forests of Mount Kenya, and the people there with a deep understanding of the land and the trees.
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers on Helping Elderly Black People to Vote in 1976 By Krista Stevens Highlight “I called out the names, and they’d tell me who they wanted to vote for. Then, very carefully, I put my finger by each name they’d chosen.”
Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Electric Guitar Pioneer By Krista Stevens Highlight “She wielded her guitar like a weapon and distorted the sound: a guitar technique that was completely original at the time and would be copied by legions of rock guitarists in the decades after.”