Was It Worth It?

“I didnโ€™t think about those nachos even once. I had never experienced anything like it. Is this, I asked my friends, how it feels to be normal?”
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Longreads features

The Wayfinders

The Marshall Islandsโ€™ first national soccer team discovers what โ€œhomeโ€ can meanโ€”on a field in Arkansas.

The Memory Maker

OpenAI’s Sora allowed you to deepfake yourself. Users started to remember things that never happened.

The Age of Dinosaurs

“Ruminating on extinction, under the slanted tutelage of my child, felt like a responsible thing to do.”

Hollow Body

On attention to craft in defiance of AI.

Defining Color

“A deep pink that is bluer, lighter, and stronger than average coral, bluer than fiesta, and bluer and stronger than sweet william.”

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Recent editors’ picks

Up In Smoke

Philip Connors | The Baffler | April 15, 2026 | 3,393 words

“I woke up one day to the realization that I had written ten good pages of a book that was due in five months.”

Shall We Play a Game?

Jon Peterson, with Angela Chen and Clara Collier | Asterisk | April 22, 2026 | 3,889 words

“Historian Jon Peterson traces the route from Prussian military headquarters to Gary Gygaxโ€™s basement.”

A Night’s Sleep

Vincenzo Latronico | The Yale Review | March 16, 2026 | 2,046 words

โ€œAn insomniacโ€™s lifelong pursuit.โ€

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Lauren Collins | The New Yorker | April 27, 2026 | 5,869 words

“What happens when someone throws a message into the sea?”

When Your Digital Life Vanishes

Julian Lucas | The New Yorker | April 20, 2026 | 5,536 words

“A broken phone or corrupted drive can mean the loss of work, evidence, art, or the last traces of the dead. But sometimes data-recovery experts can summon lost files fromโ€ฆ

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Weekly Top 5

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

This week we are celebrating writing from Paul Collins, Daniel Lefferts, Mitch Therieau, Joseph Bullington, and Hanif Abdurraqib.

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

This week collects standout work from David Moudy-Miller, Caitlin Wash Miller, Kevin T. Baker, Alex Vadukul, and Jordan Ritter Conn.

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Introducing the Longreads Story Recommender.

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Excerpts from The Atavist Magazine, our sister publication

The Good Catholics of Buffalo

With thousands of US soldiers dying in Vietnam, a righteous group of young New Yorkers embarked on a secret mission to bring the war machine to its knees.

The Dark and Stormy Tale of a ShantyTok Band

When a scraggly band of folk musicians arrived to tour the UK, residents of a small Welsh town were enamoredโ€”until they learned that the bandโ€™s leader ruled with an iron fist.

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