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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.”

Into the Darkness

Germanyโ€™s Black Forest faces a future of transformation. So do the people who have lived there for centuries.

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Recent editors’ picks

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

The Disappearance of the Public Bench

Gabrielle Bruney | Places Journal | April 21, 2026 | 7,497 words

“Benches are microcosms of an expansive debate about who belongs in urban public spaces. When they are removed or made uninviting, we lose more than just a place to rest.”

The Hardy Men

Daniel Lefferts | The New York Review of Books | April 16, 2026 | 3,368 words

“Why is a right-wing press reissuing century-old adolescent mystery novels?”

How to Begin

Jane O’Sullivan | The Sydney Review of Books | April 2, 2026 | 3,885 words

“Jane O’Sullivan on first lines in fiction.”

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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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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 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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Longreads reading lists

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