Dr. Helen Ouyang reports from front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City. “It’s no longer getting through this day or this week; we are in the deep now, the interminable. For doctors to survive this pandemic, we have to feel each moment — even if it makes each moment more difficult to […]
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Burgling the Rich, a Cat’s Life Lessons, and Our Top 5
“I learned to adore the way he sidled against me and to hate his momentary affection, just as he learned to detach from me in weariness and depend on me in hunger. Days with him were a quick education in a cat’s existence.” I once spent a year shadowing a musician I loved, whose body […]
Into the Darkness
Germany’s Black Forest faces a future of transformation. So do the people who have lived there for centuries.
By All Measures
Our problems are too vast, our distance from them too great. How do we navigate our derangement of scale?
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Featuring stories from Paul Kix, Matthieu Aikins, Matt Alt, Elisa Gabbert, and Sophie Elmhirst.
The Strange True Tale of ‘Castro’s No. 1 Killer’
Herman Marks, a drifter from Milwaukee, took a boat to Cuba with nothing but a Colt .45 revolver and $400 in cash. His plan? To join the revolution.
Longreads Best of 2021: All of Our No. 1 Story Picks
Here’s every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email.
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 […]
‘Some Things Never Leave You’: Christian Livermore on Poverty’s Indelible Marks
“For me, passing means trying to be anything other than what I was, and what I fear so desperately I always will be: poor white trash.”
600? Is That Even Possible?
We like to think Longreads furnishes more than simply emergency reading, and that’s certainly true this week.


