“With this 11-a-side tournament, these young men would be the first to carry their nation onto an international stage. It seemed fitting that it would happen here in Springdale, home to the largest population of Marshallese anywhere outside the islands.” This week at Longreads, I’ve been thinking about our sense of place. It’s something I […]
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The Uncanniest Valley (and the Rest of Our Top 5)
In this edition: Concrete memories, grief science, captive cats, relentless pain, and myth meets reality.
When Baking and Real Estate Collide
For The New Yorker, Anna Wiener explores the cuisine-real-estate business model and traces the rise of Tartine, the artisanal San Francisco bakery known for its delicious breads and pastries and hip, airy spaces. How did this beloved spot in the Mission become a world-renowned brand? And is this food empire really what it seems? Certain […]
The Value of Revival
“Aaron somehow hailed a taxi. My brother was staining the pavement crimson, but this cab driver, this stranger, stopped. He helped Aaron carry my brother to the cab’s back seat. He surely lost money later that night while toweling blood from cushion crevices.” Did you know that more than one-third of web pages that existed […]
The (Un-)Happiest Place on Earth and the Week’s Top 5
“I left Trip House at 8:12 on Saturday morning, having not been murdered, and drove to the Magic Kingdom. The woman at the ticket window asked if I’d come to Disney World to celebrate anything special, and I laughed. If I answered that question truthfully — using unmagical words like ‘genital,’ ‘student loan,’ and ‘gentrification’ […]
It’s So Sublime, and Our Top 5
“When I listened, I didn’t know if it was something I entered, or something that entered me. If it was within me or if it was me. Do you remember being 16 and loving a song? Of course you do. It felt like that. It felt like everything.” This week, we’re featuring “On (the) Sublime,” […]
The Long Afterlife of a Terrible Crime
“Decades after her mother was killed, Regina Alexander reached out to the son of the people who did it.”
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 […]
“They Just Need a Safe Place to Be:” How Public Transit Became the Last Safety Net In America
“The surge in homelessness on transit systems creates a conundrum for agencies used to the old way of doing things.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, our editors recommend notable features and essays by Jason Fagone and Alexandria Bordas, Jennifer Senior, Lachlan Summers, Lupita Limón Corrales, and Anna Wiener.


