The original reporting, personal essays, columns, and collaborations that were our most-read stories of the year.

We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in food writing.

We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in sports writing.

We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in music writing.

We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in investigative reporting.

We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year. Here is the best in crime reporting.

We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in essays. Jennifer Baker Publishing professional, contributing editor to Electric Literature, creator/host of the Minorities in Publishing podcast, editor of Everyday People: The Color of Life—A Short Story Anthology. Lesson Plan: This Is […]

Here’s every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email.

Bert’s Market was a grocery store in my hometown of central Florida that I remember for three reasons: It was always freezing, the place reeked because they butchered their meat on site, and it’s where I learned where the meat we ate came from. One day, my sisters and I were with our dad at […]

Jacqueline Alnes explores identity and privilege in these six stories about moving house.

Workaholics burn the midnight oil, while the rich and powerful fail up.

Where do we start? How long do you have?

Are you happy and well-rested, or did you just find a great new snail collagen sheet mask?

Jacqueline Alnes shares her own dating app experiences and nine stories about the pitfalls of finding a partner online.

Alison Fishburn shares seven longreads on how humans experience the death of their pets.

Jacqueline Alnes considers the wealth, privilege, racism, and violence inherent in our relationships with U.S. National Parks.

A reading list on alcoholism, for both the hopeful and the cynical.

“How does pervasive ableism affect the way our society continues to be architected?”

Either Martin Mull or Frank Zappa or Elvis Costello once said writing about music is as pointless as dancing about architecture. Which doesn’t account for how I’ve danced to all these books.

An elegy and reading list for Toni Morrison, the Nobel Laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who died Monday, August 5, 2019.

Longreads editor-in-chief Mike Dang shares some of his favorite long-form writing by Asian American journalists.

“In workshop, what, if anything, can be written on a syllabus or spoken aloud in class to ensure that each and every participant’s work is read with care?”

Summer’s almost over. Alison Fields curated a list of beach-based books to make you feel like you’re still breathing in that sweet sea air.

In this reading list, Jeanne Bonner ruminates on the joys of writing by hand and keeping a notebook.

Here’s a 📖 list for 🗺️Emoji Day.

What kinds of relationships exist between humans and animals, and what well-intentioned actions from humans bring harm?

“I have spent innumerable afternoon hours with the essays below, each writer’s words a lifeline pulling me from the deep.”

The best way to learn what being a sex worker is like is to listen to sex workers.

A late bloomer as far as relationships go, my first encounter with heartbreak came from the track. It was junior year. The district meet: all big Texas sky and girls next to me adjusting hair ties and heat waves shimmering ahead. At that point in my life, I had devoted myself entirely to running. I […]

“I am leaving this state very soon, and it’s filled me with the kind of ache for understanding that so often accompanies a goodbye, a sense that I can never know quite enough.”