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Longreads features

Living in an Alive World

Soft eyes, deep listening, and other ways to extend human perception beyond our limits.

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Recent editors’ picks

The Florida Alligator Dragnet

Luke Winkie | Slate | June 30, 2026 | 8,019 words

“When an alligator kills someone in America, it can make international headlines. What happens to the thousands of gators that people deem ‘nuisances’ does not.”

The Back Meets the Nose

Emily Nemens | The Common | April 24, 2026 | 8,053 words

“It felt like a stabbing. It felt like a burning. It felt like a dull ache, then a sharp one, then it radiated all the way down.”

Why Is Florida Executing So Many Prisoners?

Pamela Colloff | The New York Times Magazine | June 30, 2026 | 5,354 words

“In most of the country, executions are a thing of the past. But one state has been carrying them out at a record pace.”

What Science Knows About Grief

Amanda Petrusich | The New Yorker | June 22, 2026 | 6,128 words

“After my husband’s death, I had never been more pliable, tender, open, or raw. It was then that I tried E.M.D.R. therapy.”

Semiquincentennial Blues

Mychal Denzel Smith | n+1 | July 3, 2026 | 3,802 words

“I am yearning to reject something that is not even being sold to me.”

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Weekly Top 5

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Showcasing stories from Sloane Crosley; Zadie Smith; Mark Johnson and Saumya Khandelwal; Todd Kliman; and Sheila Liming.

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Learn to Love Your Search Results Again.

Introducing the Longreads Story Recommender.

The Longreads questionnaire

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Excerpts from The Atavist Magazine, our sister publication

The Fugitive Childhood of a Cocaine Smuggler’s Daughters

“When their parents ripped two young sisters from their privileged lives, gave them fake names, and took them on the lam, they thought it was because their father was in trouble with the IRS. It would be years before they learned the truth about his life of crime.”

Open Season

Colorado’s San Luis Valley was a wildlife poacher’s paradise. Then an undercover federal agent arrived.

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Longreads reading lists

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