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New Longreads Essays and Features

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 enamored—until they learned that the band’s leader ruled with an iron fist.

My Unlikely Existence

Is AI helping prospective parents game the fertility lottery? Should it?

An Internet of Checkpoints

A mysterious YouTube video gave thousands of people a place to breathe. Then it vanished.

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Recent Editors’ Picks

What I Found When I Tried to Walk Across Dallas in a Day

Jeffrey McWhorter | Texas Monthly | January 30, 2026 | 3,425 words

“Determined to find adventure in my own backyard, I tramped across my famously pedestrian-averse hometown. The most memorable part turned out to be the serendipitous encounters with neighbors I met…

The Shooting of Two Cornell Freshmen, 42 Years Later

Dylan Alphenaar | Collegetown Magazine | March 2, 2026 | 6,010 words

“In 1983 six students were taken hostage in a Cornell dormitory. Two of them were killed. How have the survivors reckoned with what happened to them, and what made us…

Sense of Scents

Ana Marie Cox | Texas Highways | February 26, 2026 | 2,753 words

“The annual olfactory rush of cedar pollen is a sign of home.”

Buckle Up for Bumpier Skies

Burkhard Bilger | The New Yorker | March 2, 2026 | 8,262 words

“With climate change, the skies are becoming more turbulent. Can today’s planes still keep us safe?”

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Weekly Top 5

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Recommending stories by Gaby Del Valle, Sheila Heti, Chris Pomorski, Louise Bokkenheuser, and Lida Zeitlin-Wu.

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Introducing the Longreads Story Recommender.

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More Longreads Essays and Features

35 and 1

A brother lost, a son born, and the strange arithmetic of love.
by Maria Zorn

By All Measures

Our problems are too vast, our distance from them too great. How do we navigate our derangement of scale?
by B. R. Cohen

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Longreads Reading Lists

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