At the time of this writing, Longreads editors have created nearly 650 recommendations in 2023, and just about every one of them can be considered a feature. However, you’ll find that the stories contained herein are features in the classic sense: marriages of deep reporting and indelible prose. Some are light, others emotionally taxing. Their […]
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Beloved Bother
A typo in my great-uncle’s obituary held the key to understanding him.
The Longreads Questionnaire, Featuring Neal Allen and Anne Lamott
The authors of the new book Good Writing share their insights on reading, writing, and their day-to-day life.
The Unappreciated Blog, Ghost Stories, and our Top 5
“To watch any ghost story set in a city like New York requires this kind of sensitivity, an awareness that every building is haunted, and that these hauntings happen in layers: as much as each generation tries to wipe out the traces of those who’ve come before, those memories are always there.” As we approach […]
Holding Space, Internet Community, and Our Top 5
In this edition: subsea storytelling, a preservation paradox, achieving serpentine symbiosis, an investigation into infinity, and a marijuana mystery.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Recommendations from Bobbie Johnson; Bee Wilson; Jia Tolentino; Isra Fejzullaj, Rina Chandran, and Michael Zelenko; and Matthew Ponsford.
Anatomy of Absolute Power
The people of Wilcox County, Alabama, remember a longtime sheriff as a god or a monster—it just depends on who you ask.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Highlighting stories from Alex Morris, Gordy Megroz, Patricia Marx, Leigh Claire La Berge, and Anne Casselman.
Our Top 5: Reads on the Brain, Wildfire, Power, and More
This newsletter is one of our favorite things we work on as a team: a culmination of our curation work and a show of appreciation for all the hardworking writers and journalists out there who entertain, provoke, and inform us each week. Each Top 5 also serves to chronicle what’s happening in our world at […]
The Art of the Steal
The Social Register was a who’s who of America’s rich and powerful—the heirs of robber barons, scions of political dynasties, and descendants of Mayflower passengers. It was also the perfect hit list for the country’s hardest-working art thief.


