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Editors’ Picks Features Topics Best of 2018
Longreads
The Gift Economy
By Joanne Solomon Feature

In the desert at Burning Man, Joanne Solomon dissects the implicit transaction that defines her cross-cultural love affair.
Friends: We Need Your Help
to Fund More Stories
10 Outstanding Short Stories to Read in 2019
By Longreads Reading List

Stories by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Min Jin Lee, and Saul Bellow.

Of Blackness and ‘Beauty’
By Morgan Jerkins Feature

At an art exhibit exploring black models through Western art, Morgan Jerkins finds historical evidence of the white supremacist definitions of beauty Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom identifies in ‘Thick: and Other Essays.’
Theatre of Wokeness
By Danielle Jackson Feature

Are we having a surface-level reckoning?

Longreads Best of 2018

A collection of our favorite stories this year
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Wear your Longreads love on your sleeve. Literally.

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Bundyville

A new series and podcast from Longreads, in partnership with Oregon Public Broadcasting.
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Latest Picks

Mary Oliver: Listening to the World
By Krista Tippett  / On Being
Diary: How I Write Music
By Nico Muhly  / London Review of Books
The Oral History of Office Space: Behind the Scenes of the Cult Classic
By Stacey Wilson Hunt  / Entertainment Weekly
The Valedictorians Project
By Malcolm Gay , Eric Moskowitz  / Boston Globe
To All the Moms I’ve Ignored Before
By Meaghan O’Connell  / The Cut
Consolation Prizes
By Alex Pareene  / The Baffler
What Is Common, What Is Rare: Why Extraordinary Events Cannot Eclipse Everyday Racism
By Patrice Gopo  / Catapult
Into a Crueler America: Two Border Crossings, Thirty Years Apart
By Reyna Grande  / LitHub
Song Flute
By Naima Karczmar  / Iowa Review
How a Stroke Turned a 63-Year-Old Into a Rap Legend
By Jeff Maysh  / The Atlantic
View more

Latest Posts
Carvell Wallace on ‘Moonlight’ Writer Tarell Alvin McCarney’s Next Acts
By Danielle Jackson Highlight

Tarell Alvin McCarney’s Broadway debbut,, “Choir Boy,” is a tender coming of age story about a queer Black boy at a prestigious boarding school.

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
By Longreads Weekly Top 5

This week, we’re sharing stories from Tiffany Stanley, Raj Telhan, Alex Pareene, Nico Muhly, and Chris Heath.
Motherhood: ‘Thank God I think I love it??’
By Krista Stevens Highlight

“We are experts in our own lives, but ignored by the world at large.”
True Crime and the Trash Balance
By Soraya Roberts Feature

True crime has a reputation for being trashy, but a recent renaissance has it tipping into advocacy.
Alternative Reality: ‘Inferno in Paradise’
By Matthew Kassel Reading List

President Donald Trump has obliterated any notion of off-time for round-the-clock journalists, but it was still a relief to see that the alt-weeklies I read for this installment in my regular reading list were starting off the new year strong. The Chico News & Review, whose work I have previously highlighted here, can be forgiven, […]

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We’re Updating Our Privacy Policy
By Michelle Weber Commentary

Longreads is owned by Automattic, the company that makes WordPress.com — which is what powers Longreads. As of February 1, 2019, Longreads will also be covered by the same Privacy Policy Automattic uses, one designed to maximize transparency and data privacy. We’re retiring the separate Privacy Policy for Longreads to keep things straightforward across all […]
‘Rhyming Was No Longer a Symptom, But a Cure’: From Stroke Survivor to Rap Legend
By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Highlight

For stroke survivor Sherman Hershfield, rapping and rhyming kept his seizures under control.
Revisiting the #MeToo Movement: A Reading List
By Jacqueline Alnes Reading List

#MeToo isn’t just a moment, it’s a movement. And there’s a lot of work yet to do.

Fruitland
By Steven Kurutz Feature

Privately made records enjoy a cult following among collectors, but few are as legendary as Donnie and Joe Emerson’s 1979 LP Dreamin’ Wild.
There Was Nothing We Could Have Done, Because We’re Racist and You’re Black
By Michelle Weber Highlight

“The prevalent perception of black women as unruly bodies and incompetent caretakers overrules even the most dominant stereotype about us—namely, that we are superhuman.”
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Popular Posts
The Redemption of MS-13
By Danny Gold Feature

Danny Gold investigates the movement converting El Salvador’s gang members into born-again Christians.
Longreads Best of 2018: All of Our No. 1 Story Picks
By Longreads Reading List

Here’s every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email.
Swipe White
By Jennifer Chong Schneider Feature

Jennifer Chong Schneider considers what it is to be Asian, maligned, and fetishized in dating — and questions her own desire when she dates someone of her own ethnicity for the first time.
The Science of Dreaming
By Jessica Gross Feature

Science journalist Alice Robb on why we need to take our dreams seriously.
Where Have All the Music Magazines Gone?
By Aaron Gilbreath Feature

Inside music journalism post-2008 recession, and how media consumption in the 21st century offers a road map for the continuation of the once-robust medium.

Eleven Books to Read in 2019
By Dana Snitzky Commentary

We asked eleven authors to tell us about an amazing book that we might have missed in 2018.

Books
There Was Nothing We Could Have Done, Because We’re Racist and You’re Black
By Michelle Weber Highlight

“The prevalent perception of black women as unruly bodies and incompetent caretakers overrules even the most dominant stereotype about us—namely, that we are superhuman.”
This Month In Books: ‘How Thick Was the Cane?’ and Other Questions About Things
By Dana Snitzky Commentary

This month’s books newsletter is all about things. As in stuff, objects. Because, as Heike Geissler says, “It’s because of all the things that are here… that you’re here in the first place.”
Sam Lipsyte on ‘Mental Archery,’ the Quest for Certainty, and Where All the Money Went
By Ryan Chapman Feature

“It’s difficult to say what you really think. You’re too aware of the traps, the dead ends, the cul-de-sacs of utterance: all the ways we let cliché steer us in a certain direction, force us to say not quite what we mean…”

Of Blackness and ‘Beauty’
By Morgan Jerkins Feature

At an art exhibit exploring black models through Western art, Morgan Jerkins finds historical evidence of the white supremacist definitions of beauty Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom identifies in ‘Thick: and Other Essays.’
The Silence of Women
By Longreads Feature

Women who spoke too angrily or too publicly were punished in cruel and unusual ways.
View all

Current Events
True Crime and the Trash Balance
By Soraya Roberts Feature

True crime has a reputation for being trashy, but a recent renaissance has it tipping into advocacy.
Theatre of Wokeness
By Danielle Jackson Feature

Are we having a surface-level reckoning?
Will Amazon Finally Kill New York?
By Rebecca McCarthy Feature

A New Yorker reads “Seasonal Associate” in the age of HQ2.

Earth to Congress
By Livia Gershon Feature

The world-changing potential of a Green New Deal
Reckoning With Georgia’s Increasing Suppression of Asian American Voters
By Anjali Enjeti Feature

As AAPI’s become a more powerful, Democrat-leaning voting bloc, efforts to keep them from the polls intensify.

View all

Essays & Criticism
True Crime and the Trash Balance
By Soraya Roberts Feature

True crime has a reputation for being trashy, but a recent renaissance has it tipping into advocacy.
The Gift Economy
By Joanne Solomon Feature

In the desert at Burning Man, Joanne Solomon dissects the implicit transaction that defines her cross-cultural love affair.
There Was Nothing We Could Have Done, Because We’re Racist and You’re Black
By Michelle Weber Highlight

“The prevalent perception of black women as unruly bodies and incompetent caretakers overrules even the most dominant stereotype about us—namely, that we are superhuman.”
Of Blackness and ‘Beauty’
By Morgan Jerkins Feature

At an art exhibit exploring black models through Western art, Morgan Jerkins finds historical evidence of the white supremacist definitions of beauty Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom identifies in ‘Thick: and Other Essays.’
At Risk, at Home and Abroad
By Joy Notoma Feature

As Joy Notoma grapples with uterine fibroids, harmful biases in the medical establishment, and a move from Brooklyn to West Africa she wonders where, as a black woman, she can find safety.
View all
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