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Longreads
@longreads.com
4.5K followers 370 following 1.1K posts
Sharing and publishing the best longform stories at longreads.com since 2009. Sister site of @atavist.com.

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Longreads @longreads.com · Oct 15
We’ve curated nearly 14,000 stories in the past 16 years and published hundreds of original pieces. Today, we’re kicking off a member drive to keep the stories coming.

Won’t you join us?

longreads.com/2025/10/15/2...
Announcing Our 2025 Member Drive - Longreads
It's easy to think that thoughtful longform journalism is an endangered species. We refuse to believe that—and we need your help.
longreads.com
longreads.com
"It was fine for me to lie by omission in order to report a story. But this was something different: I was no longer going to pretend to be a believer. I was going to pretend to believe." —Chandler Fritz for @countyhwy.bsky.social
Jesus Christ is Born in Texas | Chandler Fritz
America's Only Newspaper
www.countyhighway.com
December 2, 2025 at 5:35 PM
longreads.com
"I’ve learned the same lesson about desire again and again. Doing something I’ve dreamed of doesn’t necessarily check something off the list as much as it adds several more items to it."

For Longreads, Diana Saverin confronts the costs of motherhood.

longreads.com/2025/12/02/e...
What Is a Body For? - Longreads
One desire felt like it would make me more of who I already was, and the other would unmake me entirely.
longreads.com
December 2, 2025 at 4:06 PM
longreads.com
"I found Fisher’s approach totally uncynical. His mission statement is simple and, in its simplicity, quite radical: We should enter conversations not to prove but to learn something." —Lamorna Ash for @thedialmag.bsky.social

www.thedial.world/articles/new...
Why Are We So Afraid of Conversation? — The Dial
A glut of self-help books promises to teach us to do it better.
www.thedial.world
November 26, 2025 at 7:28 PM
longreads.com
"It’s easy to project our fantasies onto a past that we can’t quite remember. The ad is seductive but transparent. We don’t believe the copy, but appreciate its innocence." —M.P. Kennedy for @publicbooks.bsky.social
Cool Enchantment - Public Books
The ad is seductive but transparent. We don’t believe the copy but appreciate its innocence.
www.publicbooks.org
November 26, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Reposted by Longreads
markarms.bsky.social
I will never get tired of seeing Hanif Abdurraqib's writing show up at @longreads.com. Kudos @provenself.bsky.social and team on this series.

longreads.com/2025/11/20/s...

#longreads
40 Years Later: Sade, “Promise” - Longreads
"Promise" isn’t necessarily about love, or even about surrender, but about giving your heart over, repeatedly, and enduring the failures that come with the exchange.
longreads.com
November 25, 2025 at 7:52 PM
longreads.com
"I look at that, and I have affection for a young man. It’s a Saturday night, and I’m at a typewriter with the fucking headphones on. I’m putting in the work. I’m doing it."— @themountaingoats.bsky.social's John Darnielle to Grayson Haver Currin for @GQmagazine.bsky.social
The Story John Darnielle Lived to Tell
When he was a teenager, the Mountain Goats founder never expected to live to 21. He has since become one of this century’s best songwriters. The lessons of his survival, life, and work feel endless.
www.gq.com
November 24, 2025 at 8:16 PM
longreads.com
"Being a foodie is no longer about experience and knowledge. Documentation is in; expertise is out, even if we can all cite Bourdain explaining that Sichuan food with Coke is the best way to cure a hangover." @aliciadkennedy.bsky.social @yalereview.bsky.social

yalereview.org/article/alic...
Alicia Kennedy: “Who Was the Foodie?”
Alicia Kennedy on Ruby Tandoh’s All Consuming , Marion Nestle’s What to Eat Now , and the evolution of the foodie
yalereview.org
November 24, 2025 at 7:20 PM
longreads.com
This week's Top 5:

* Metal medicine, @highcountrynews.org
* Hyped humanoids, @harpers.bsky.social
* Carnival crossroads, @bittersouth.bsky.social
* Divine defiance, @placesjournal.bsky.social
* Optimization obsession, @aeon.co

longreads.com/2025/11/21/t...
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week - Longreads
In this edition: metal medicine, hyped humanoids, carnival crossroads, divine defiance, and optimization obsession.
longreads.com
November 21, 2025 at 4:10 PM
longreads.com
"Everything means something: if you close a window, you are trying to protect the group. If you’re sleepy, it’s because the group is making you sleepy. You do not have food poisoning; you have group poisoning." — @lilyscherlis.bsky.social for n+1
Experiences in Groups | Lily Scherlis
The more experienced attendees explain that here, one’s individual experience is seen as a symptom of the group’s dynamics. If someone is physically ill, it is because the system needs to eject…
www.nplusonemag.com
November 20, 2025 at 5:35 PM
longreads.com
"Yes, all of these things fade, and you step into the sun which, in a moment, will become a storm. But surely you wouldn’t swear off the sun for the rest of your life, would you?" Hanif Abdurraqib on Sade's album "Promise," 40 years later.

longreads.com/2025/11/20/s...
40 Years Later: Sade, “Promise” - Longreads
"Promise" isn’t necessarily about love, or even about surrender, but about giving your heart over, repeatedly, and enduring the failures that come with the exchange.
longreads.com
November 20, 2025 at 4:27 PM
longreads.com
"The Moscow crew shipped off all those pizzas and 20 cases of Pepsi to the parliament building, to fortify Yeltsin and his supporters against the coup. Antoniadi had inserted Pizza Hut into a political crisis." —Kelly Jones & @joshuablevin.bsky.social for @slate.com
In 1990, One of the Great Forgotten Acts of American Subterfuge Unfolded. It Involved Pizza Hut.
A delicious caper of vodka bribes and world-altering salad bars.
slate.com
November 19, 2025 at 8:16 PM
longreads.com
"A printed diary held out the promise of total control over time, place and the self."

Elena Mary for @aeon.co: aeon.co/essays/victo...
Victorian diary-writers kicked off our age of self-optimisation | Aeon Essays
Our cursed age of self-monitoring and optimisation didn’t start with big tech: as so often, the Victorians are to blame
aeon.co
November 18, 2025 at 11:18 PM
longreads.com
America's liminal wetlands don't just persist, writes Ashley Stimpson. They insist. Today's inspiration for flagging resilience comes from a place you might not expect.

longreads.com/2025/10/02/t...
Swamp People - Longreads
Finding refuge and resilience in America’s most reviled landscapes.
longreads.com
November 18, 2025 at 3:21 PM
longreads.com
"We tried to pin down what it was about Fire in the Mountains that still had us sobbing intermittently a week out. Von Till nailed it: 'It made me dare to hope.'” @btoastie.bsky.social @highcountrynews.org

www.hcn.org/issues/57-11...
Heavy metal is healing teens on the Blackfeet Nation - High Country News
In response to youth suicides, teachers show students the power of headbanging at Fire in the Mountains festival.
www.hcn.org
November 17, 2025 at 9:23 PM
longreads.com
"I think of the strata of the city and how its new skyscrapers are built on the bones of the old docks."

@jesstraynor.bsky.social for @thedialmag.bsky.social: www.thedial.world/articles/new...
What US Tech Did to Ireland — The Dial
The country is alarmingly reliant on Meta, Google and Apple.
www.thedial.world
November 17, 2025 at 8:43 PM
longreads.com
"The shipworms are many things at once. They have carried different names — from maritime menace to indigenous delicacy to scientific marvel — yet none alone captures their multitude."

@crystalcchow.bsky.social for The Contrapuntal: thecontrapuntal.com/are-these-cl...
Are These Clams Key to Climate Adaptation? - The Contrapuntal
Shipworms are touted as tomorrow’s superfood and miracle medicine. But the story of these tiny molluscs illustrates an intricate ecological complexity that flashy green solutions often ignore.
thecontrapuntal.com
November 17, 2025 at 7:05 PM
longreads.com
"Actually preventing cancer—far preferable to curing it, if less interesting—would mean asking why our cancer rates are so high in the first place." —Sofi Thanhauser for @vqr.bsky.social
Profits and False Promises
In the eerie, quiet week between Christmas and New Year’s 2021, halfway through a Fulbright to Hungary, I went to a medical clinic in Budapest to have a lump in my breast examined. I wasn’t too…
www.vqronline.org
November 17, 2025 at 5:35 PM
longreads.com
"It could be yet another sign that, between the poorly understood lemurs and their shifting environment, some equilibrium is slipping." —Elizabeth Preston for @biographic.bsky.social

www.biographic.com/investigatin...
Investigating a Treetop Baby Boom
Why a sudden spike in pregnancies in one Madagascan lemur population might actually be a bad sign for the species.
www.biographic.com
November 17, 2025 at 1:38 PM
longreads.com
In this week’s Top 5:

Bear bones (Southlands)
Outstanding Outkast (@oxfordamerican.bsky.social)
Brightline’s brutality (@miamiherald.com)
Lasting lunches (@bittersouth.bsky.social)
Ruin ruminations (@thebaffler.com)

Become a Longreads member and read the Top 5 here:

longreads.com/2025/11/14/t...
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week - Longreads
This week we are celebrating stories from Anya Groner; Kiese Laymon; Brittany Wallman, Aaron Leibowitz, Shradha Dinesh, Susan Merriam, Daniel Rivero, and Joshua Ceballos; Jennifer Justus; and Robert…
longreads.com
November 14, 2025 at 4:39 PM
longreads.com
"The ruins lingered, and in lingering, they taught her the virtue of unproductive places and idle things, of empty spaces, left open for her to wander them and to ask: How did I get here, and how did all of this?" — @robrubsam.bsky.social for @thebaffler.com
Idle Things | Robert Rubsam
In “Things That Disappear,” Jenny Erpenbeck grapples with ruins, revealing the virtue of unproductive places and idle things.
thebaffler.com
November 13, 2025 at 10:42 PM
longreads.com
"Framed this way, the line between 'native' and 'invasive'—whether plant, animal, or human—becomes less about origin and more about behavior: do you exploit, or do you commune?"

Alexandra Martinez for @oxfordamerican.bsky.social: oxfordamerican.org/oa-now/subve...
Subversive Botanicals in Miami’s Art Underground
oxfordamerican.org
November 13, 2025 at 5:23 PM
longreads.com
"The cast of eccentric people here renews my hope one night and reaffirms all my doubts the next." —Michael Adno for @bittersouth.bsky.social
Life and Death at the County Fair — THE BITTER SOUTHERNER
A new kind of magazine for a new kind of South.
bittersoutherner.com
November 12, 2025 at 8:16 PM
longreads.com
"What began as a childhood wonder with masked men who looked like they could fly around the ring, evolved into a focus on Eddie. During a time when I lived in what felt like different worlds, he reminded me of home."

@randradefranco.bsky.social for @espn.com: www.espn.com/wwe/story/_/...
For the family of WWE legend Eddie Guerrero, his shadow still looms large
Twenty years after his death, the legendary WWE superstar still exists in the memories of his loved ones.
www.espn.com
November 12, 2025 at 7:21 PM
longreads.com
"Rana Pratap and his home-grown start-up was the first time a scammer had approached me rather than the other way around. Things had come full circle. Someone had tried to scam me; I was now part of the story." —Snigdha Poonam for @thedialmag.bsky.social
The Scammer Next Door — The Dial
In India, an era of glaring inequality is also a golden age of graft.
www.thedial.world
November 12, 2025 at 5:35 PM
longreads.com
"Beef Wellington is a dish designed to dazzle and comfort at once. It offered the perfect cover for Patterson’s plan, dressing intent to kill in the flaky drapery of a culinary showstopper." —Aaron Timms for @vittles.bsky.social

www.vittlesmagazine.com/p/death-by-d...
Death by Duxelles
How modern food culture played a decisive role in the Erin Patterson trial, by Aaron Timms. Illustration by Sing Yun Lee.
www.vittlesmagazine.com
November 12, 2025 at 4:06 PM