Longreads Best of 2020: Music Writing
A long, long time ago / I can still remember / How that music used to make me smile —Don McLean, American Pie If you like these, you can sign up to receive our weekly Top 5 email every Friday. * * *...
View ArticleLongreads Best of 2020: Sports and Games
If you like these, you can sign up to receive our weekly Top 5 email every Friday. * * * Twelve Minutes and a Life (Mitchell S. Jackson, Runner’s World) Ahmaud “Maud” Arbery was a passionate young...
View ArticleLongreads Best of 2020: Writing on COVID-19
All through December, we’re featuring Longreads’ Best of 2020. This year, our editors featured many COVID-19 stories from across the web, and below, we’ve narrowed down 11 picks that really resonated...
View ArticleLongreads Best of 2020: Science and Nature
All through December, we’re featuring Longreads’ Best of 2020. We’ve searched through our archives to find the science and nature stories that take you into ancient forests, through dark swamps, to the...
View ArticleLongreads Best of 2020: Arts and Culture
All through December, we’re featuring Longreads’ Best of 2020. In an unprecedented, strange, and chaotic year, we’ve leaned on writers’ reflections and commentaries on the world around us to help us...
View ArticleLongreads Best of 2020: Profiles
If you like these, you can sign up to receive our weekly Top 5 email every Friday. * * * Visible Men: Black Fathers Talk About Losing Sons to Police Brutality (Mosi Secret, GQ) At GQ, Mosi Secret...
View ArticleLongreads Best of 2020: Essays
All through December, we’re featuring Longreads’ Best of 2020. This year, our editors picked and featured hundreds of beautifully written and poignant essays published on the web. Because of the wide...
View ArticleLongreads Best of 2020: Investigative Reporting
All through December, we’re featuring Longreads’ Best of 2020. This year, our team picked and featured hundreds of in-depth investigations published across the web. Here are our top picks. If you like...
View ArticleTen Outstanding Short Stories to Read in 2021
The #longreads hashtag on Twitter is filled with great story recommendations from people around the world. Pravesh Bhardwaj is a longtime contributor — throughout the year he posts his favorite short...
View ArticleShelved: Yoko Ono
Tom Maxwell | Longreads | January 2021 | 9 minutes (2,485 words) Much is known about John Lennon’s self-described “Lost Weekend” — an 18-month separation from his wife Yoko Ono from the summer of 1973...
View ArticleThe Geography Closest In
Miranda Ward | Adrift | Weidenfeld & Nicolson | January 2021 | 15 minutes (4,339 words) The bald conclusiveness of a positive pregnancy test draws a clear line between yes/no, this/that,...
View ArticleRepetitive Stress
Devin Kelly | Longreads | February, 2021 | 24 minutes (6,376 words) Read Devin Kelly’s previous Longreads essays: “Running Dysmorphic,” “What I Want to Know of Kindness,” and “Out There: On Not...
View ArticleAll that Glitters
This is an excerpt from The Atavist‘s 10th anniversary story, “The Gilded Age” by award-winning reporter Scott Eden. Gold mined in the jungles of Peru brought riches to three friends in Miami—but it...
View ArticleBinders Full of Men
Jennifer Berney | The Other Mothers: Two Women’s Journey to Find the Family That Was Always Theirs | Sourcebooks | February 2021 | 18 minutes (4,976 words) “Becoming Family,” Jennifer’s 2019 essay...
View ArticleThe Big Bear Reading List
Growing up in England, my knowledge of bears largely came from Yogi Bear cartoons, and on a childhood holiday to North America, it wasn’t Disneyland, but the thought of seeing a real-life Yogi that I...
View ArticleOut There I Have to Smile
Heather Lanier | Longreads | March 2021 | 16 minutes (4,473 words) A few years ago on a gorgeous June day, I found myself in a windowless bathroom with forget-me-not wallpaper, my butt on a toilet,...
View ArticleDon’t F**K With the Pet Detectives
This is an excerpt from The Atavist‘s issue no. 112, “Cat and Mouse,” by writer Phil Hoad. With dozens of felines turning up dead around London, a pair of pet detectives set out to prove it was the...
View ArticleShelved: Dr. Dre’s Detox
Tom Maxwell | Longreads | March, 2021 | 6 minutes (1,743 words) Dr. Dre’s Detox might be the best-known album that no one’s ever heard in its entirety. The legendary hip-hop producer’s supposed third...
View ArticleWhy Bumblebees Love Cats and Other Beautiful Relationships
Stefano Mancuso | The Nation of Plants | March 2021 | 3,311 words (19 minutes) I am sure that many of the erudite readers of this little book know On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin inside and...
View ArticleCrosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s Lost Album, Human Highway
David Gambacorta | Longreads | March 2021 | 15 minutes (4,190 words) They needed a song, but not just any song. It had to be a throat-clearing, lapel-grabbing, hey-what’s-that-sound number that could...
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