Success! Your account was created and you’re signed in.
Tuesdays and Thursdays, we'll send you our latest originals and all our editor's picks—and Fridays, go even deeper with our Top 5 of the Week.
When you search for the term "longreads," you're looking for a great story to sink into. For 15 years, Longreads has published and curated the best longform writing on the web—and we wouldn’t exist without the support of readers like you. Make a one-time donation today and ensure that quality journalism continues to flourish.
Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle and Readmill users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. *** 1. Is There Hope for the Survivors of the Drug Wars? Monica Potts | American Prospect | March 24, 2014 | 32 minutes […]
Atossa Araxia Abrahamian is a writer and an editor. Taxes aren’t boring—they’re just supremely difficult to write about in a compelling way. These three stories stand out because they illustrate the far-reaching consequences of different countries’ tax policies through a few very influential people: 1. “Marty Sullivan figured out how the world’s biggest companies avoided […]
Every week, Syracuse University professor Aileen Gallagher helps Longreads highlight the best of college journalism. Here’s this week’s pick: You may have already read this week’s #college #longreads pick because someone posted it on Facebook or Twitter. Indiana University senior Jessica Contrera paid homage to the end of the local Waffle House with hours of […]
An investigation into America’s underground market for adopted children. Using online forums like Yahoo and Facebook groups, parents often advertise their unwanted children—who have a tendency to have been adopted abroad and have special needs—and give custody rights to strangers in a practice called “private re-homing,” which has little or no government regulation: “As the […]
On the book trail with author Neil Gaiman: “Gaiman owes a lot to his fans. Once shrugged off as merely goth kids who liked comics, they’re now as diverse as the characters in his stories. “Gaiman spends a lot of time on Twitter forging relationships, albeit fleeting ones, with his nearly 1.9 million fans. He […]
In 1970, Lynn Povich and 45 other women sued Newsweek for discrimination. Here is what the workplace was like for them.
In 1970, Lynn Povich and 45 other women sued Newsweek for discrimination. Here is what the workplace was like for them.
Noga Arikha | Lapham’s Quarterly | 2009 | 13 minutes (3,200 words) Download .mobi (Kindle) Download .epub (iBooks) I. In 1727, a lady named Helen Morrison placed a personal advertisement in the Manchester Weekly Journal. It was possibly the first time a newspaper was ever used for such a purpose. As it happens, Morrison was […]
Matthew McNaught | Syria Comment | June 2013 | 18 minutes (4,615 words) Matthew McNaught taught English in Syria between 2007 and 2009. He now works in mental health and sometimes writes essays and stories. This piece first appeared in Syria Comment, and our thanks to McNaught for allowing us to republish it here. 1. Here is a […]
How Facebook, computer scientists at MIT, and members of Anonymous are finding ways to address cyberbullying: “Lieberman is most interested in catching the egregious instances of bullying and conflict that go destructively viral. So another of the tools he has created is a kind of air-traffic-control program for social-networking sites, with a dashboard that could […]
