“It felt like a homecoming but in retrospect seems more like a goodbye: a last great musical act before leaving that period of my life. It felt romantic, anyway, to record in a barn. We set the drums next to the tractor, tried to coax the chickens into cooing for the microphone, and had a […]
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Best of 2022: Features
As part of Best of Longreads, our annual labor of love, we pored over all the stories we’ve picked in 2022 to create these year-end lists. The following features all embody the strong voice and excellent writing that made us fall in love with narrative journalism. Sweeping, hard-hitting, and emotional, each immerses us in a […]
Notes from Lviv
In a series of diary-like dispatches, Matt Gallagher shares a riveting on-the-ground account of training civilians for combat in the Ukrainian city of Lviv. All-day lane rotations between trainers on urban movement, dismounted recon ops, and advanced room defense. They’re getting better. Petro’s a leader. So is Symon, the law student. So is Ivan, a […]
On Different Kinds of Love (and Our Top 5)
“Give me the complicated, the missed connections, the big gestures, the bittersweet endings. Give me the struggle, because it’s the struggle that makes it love.” Yes, today is that day. Dreadful for some of us, but delightful for others. (Especially all the excited school-age kids exchanging “Be My Valentine” messages—which, these days, are no longer […]
A Colorful Addition and the Week’s Top 5
“Humans are besotted with color and we always have been. We love it so much we will breathe it, eat it, drink it, and look at it until our eyes roll back in our heads. We will paint with it, paint the world with it, paint ourselves with it. We will go to the ends […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, our editors recommend stories by Caitlin Dickerson, Samira Shackle, Mitchell S. Jackson, Roberto José Andrade Franco, and Ian Dille.
Best of 2022: Reader Favorites
You’ve heard from the Longreads’ editors, now it’s the turn of our readers.
Pondering Parenthood, Meals for One, and Five Excellent Reads
“When faced with a dilemma I can’t solve, my usual strategy is to read. I order a bunch of books and immerse myself in other people’s experiences. It allows my thoughts to coalesce around a few themes; from there, I can see where I agree and where I diverge. To paraphrase Joan Didion, I read […]
Keanu Reeves Knows the Secrets of the Universe
“Guy’s always working—sixty-eight movies in thirty-five years. Playing killing machines, doofuses, romantics, messiahs, and devils. But always Keanu. Which always means something more.”


