Kenneth Watkins’s son, Kenny, was 6 days old when he was taken away by ACS, New York City’s child-welfare agency. Kenny was then placed with an affluent foster family. To regain custody, Watkins had to prove that being poor didn’t make him a bad father. Despite Watkins’ constant efforts, it took years to get Kenny […]
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Posted inEditor's Pick
Song of the Scientist
“Mukherjee was fascinated with cells early on. But then he was interested in so many things.”
Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Recommending excellent stories by Clint Rainey, Blythe Roberson, Mya Frazier, Katy Kelleher, and Jasper Nathaniel.
Posted inEditor's Pick
New Yorkers Never Came ‘Flooding Back.’ Why Did Rents Go Up So Much?
“Getting to the bottom of a COVID-era real estate mystery.”
Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Recommending stories by Pamela Colloff, Jasper Craven, Omer Bartov, Judith Sanders, and Lale Arikoglu.
Posted inFeature
Best of 2025: The Stories You Missed
In a year of exceptional reading, these overlooked stories refused to let us go.
Posted inQuestionnaire
The Longreads Questionnaire, Featuring Ibram X. Kendi
The Stamped and How to Be an Antiracist author on the superpower he’d like to have, the outlets he likes to read, and his latest work, Chain of Ideas.
Posted inUncategorized
Why Creative Work Still Matters and the Week’s Top 5
“The implication is that to exist within a community or to practice a craft out of passion and joy is not success. To many, maybe, that is true. But how limited is our potential, our community, our creativity when success is defined like that?” Does anyone remember that this week started out with an extra […]
Posted inQuestionnaire
The Longreads Questionnaire, Featuring Patrick Radden Keefe
The New Yorker staff writer and author of the new book London Falling on running, writing in the morning, a life-changing childhood trip, and more.
Posted inUncategorized
10 Short Stories, The Power of Music, and Our Top 5
“I always admired how my father could play so delicately with such brutal hands. They were rough, mired with patches of psoriasis, calloused from playing the charango and the guitar, and scarred, scarred all over.” I have fond memories of playing the violin when I was a child, and over the years I’ve considered returning […]
