Adrian Nicole LeBlanc on the Oakwood Toluca Hills, a vast complex of temporary rental apartments that hundreds of aspiring Hollywood families call home: Each year, between mid-January and May, when some 100-odd pilots are being cast, one-quarter of the Oakwood’s 1,151 furnished units are filled by families of child actors. “Home to the Famous, and […]
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Posted inEditor's Pick
The Watchdog That Didn’t Bark
An excerpt from Starkman’s new book, on the difference between access journalism and accountability journalism, and why the business press failed to do enough to shed light on the problems leading up to the financial crisis: Was the brewing crisis really such a secret? Was it all so complex as to be beyond the capacity […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Last Words
Researchers are attempting to identify suicidal people using data gleaned from suicide notes: A computer databank may sound like a soulless repository for something so personal. But Baker sees it as a place where important remnants of Brian’s life—his words—have a place. Working with a research team at CCHMC, Pestian is looking for clues in […]
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction
Budd & Leni
The story of Hollywood screenwriter Budd Schulberg’s unlikely collaboration with Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl.
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction
Untangling the Knot: My Search for Democracy in the Modern Family
Sabine Heinlein grew up in a family where everyone was treated as equals. It didn’t work out like they hoped.
Posted inProfiles & Interviews
‘It’s not too much of a stretch to say that this story fundamentally changed me as a person’
All reporters have pieces that stay with them, stories whose characters and components linger long after the last revisions have been rendered and the paper put to bed. For Jennifer Mendelsohn, Sean Bryant was that character. Mendelsohn first encountered Sean Bryant shortly after his death, nearly two decades ago. Transfixed by his short, vivid life and subsequent suicide, […]
About Us
Longreads, founded in 2009 by Mark Armstrong, is dedicated to finding and sharing the best longform nonfiction storytelling on the web. We publish personal and reported essays, criticism, reading lists, and occasional book excerpts, interviews, and more in-depth features. Longreads has been nominated for four National Magazine Awards (and won a 2020 ASME for Best Digital […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
The Things In Our Diaries: A Reading List
Age 7: Dear Diary, Today I went to Clarisse’s house. It was fun. Age 13: Dear Diary, We are leaving for Mom-mom’s funeral soon. Mom and Dad are fighting and THE WORLD IS FALLING OVER. Age 23 [written on this laptop, not my Moleskine]: I am fulfilling my daydream of feeling like a Privileged Artist […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Bad Blood
A Russian dissident is murdered with radioactive poison: The doctors treated Litvinenko with a heavy dose of antibiotics. And yet his body continued to break down. Three days after admission, he was being fed through a tube. His hair was falling out, and Marina gathered it in little bundles from his pillow and pajamas. As […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
There’s a Whole New Way of Killing Cancer: Stephanie Lee Is the Test Case
Stephanie Lee, a 36-year-old Iraq War widow with two children is diagnosed with terminal colon cancer and told she has just a few years to live. A group of pioneering cancer specialists at the Icahn Institute at Mount Sinai use genetic data to figure out alternative treatments to “the standard of care” that could give […]
