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Longreads
@longreads.com
4.7K followers 380 following 1.2K posts
Sharing and publishing the best longform stories at longreads.com since 2009. Sister site of @atavist.com.

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longreads.com
In our Weekly Top 5:
* Gambling's grip @harpers.bsky.social
* Of plumes and poachers @bittersouth.bsky.social
* Bemoaning Americans in Rome @thedialmag.bsky.social
* Magical history tour @texasmonthly.bsky.social
* Fake poultry flinger @slate.com

longreads.com/2026/01/23/t...
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week - Longreads
In this edition: gambling's grip, a story of plumes and poachers, bemoaning American tourists in Rome, a magical history tour, and a fake poultry flinger.
longreads.com
January 23, 2026 at 2:49 PM
longreads.com
"We’ll never see the world, or even Bexar County, the same way, but I do love driving around Texas, especially with you." —Dorothy Guerrero and Stephen Harrigan for
@texasmonthly.bsky.social

www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/...
Will Dad and I Ever See Texas the Same Way?
Decades after their last family road trip, a father and daughter with very different ideas about their home state get behind the wheel again.
www.texasmonthly.com
January 22, 2026 at 8:16 PM
longreads.com
"Green death appears to be a direct means of reducing, or even absolving, the guilt of contributing to anthropogenic climate change."

Hannah Gould and Georgina Robinson for @aeon.co: aeon.co/essays/dying...
Dying to be green: are new eco funerals a false promise? | Aeon Essays
Many people today want to commit their remains to rejuvenating the planet. But are these green deaths just greenwashing?
aeon.co
January 21, 2026 at 7:12 PM
longreads.com
"And why not a rubber chicken, America’s trusty totem of self-parody? It’s not as if I could beat the Earth’s best powerlifters, breath-holders, or yo-yo artists. Desperate times called for farcical measures." — @byardduncan.bsky.social for @slate.com
I Was Having a Millennial Midlife Crisis. Until I Picked Up the Most Unhinged Hobby Imaginable.
Desperate times called for farcical measures.
slate.com
January 21, 2026 at 5:35 PM
longreads.com
"He was keenly aware that certain men wanted him dead, simply because his job was protecting local birds whose plumage had become more valuable than gold in the Gilded Age lust for exotic millinery." —Mike Kane for @bittersouth.bsky.social

bittersoutherner.com/issue-no12/p...
Plume — THE BITTER SOUTHERNER
A Tale of Murder & Martyrdom in the Everglades
bittersoutherner.com
January 20, 2026 at 9:34 PM
longreads.com
"I often glance south, to where the huge cargo ships seem monumental and still, as if the arrangement were permanent, as if the vessels were knights and bishops resting on water as solid and stable as a chessboard." — @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social for Aperture
Richard Misrach on the Eerie Grandeur of Global Trade
Rebecca Solnit considers the photographer’s recent work tracing histories of shipping routes and their impact on the natural environment.
aperture.org
January 20, 2026 at 12:05 PM
longreads.com
"Holst, Elgar, Ireland and Vaughan Williams all wrote for brass band, but rarely more than once." —Rachel Armitage for @lrb.co.uk

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Rachel Armitage · Diary: Brass Bands
Many brass bands were started by factory owners in the belief that music would give their workers purpose, strengthen...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 19, 2026 at 8:08 PM
longreads.com
"On another occasion, Suzy listened to her stepmother discuss how to make a prison shank." —Steven Kurutz for @nytimes.com
She Tried to Kill a President. He Loved Her Anyway.
A retired widower married Sara Jane Moore, who shot at President Ford in 1975. It tore his family apart.
www.nytimes.com
January 19, 2026 at 5:35 PM
longreads.com
"Watching Gilmore Girls helps me remember what it felt like to have a man love me like I was his own daughter, even when he had no biological imperative to do so." —@peggycarouthers.bsky.social for @electricliterature.com

electricliterature.com/i-rewatch-gi...
I Rewatch “Gilmore Girls” to Remember my Stepfather - Electric Literature
I find echoes of the man who raised me every time I watch the iconic mother-daughter show
electricliterature.com
January 16, 2026 at 10:42 PM
longreads.com
"By all appearances, the only thing ICE is screening for is a desire to work for ICE: a very specific kind of person perfectly suited for the kind of mission creep we are currently seeing."

@laurajedeed.bsky.social @slate.com

slate.com/news-and-pol...
You’ve Heard About Who ICE Is Recruiting. The Truth Is Far Worse. I’m the Proof.
What happens when you do minimal screening before hiring agents, arming them, and sending them into the streets? We're all finding out.
slate.com
January 16, 2026 at 7:48 PM
Reposted by Longreads
kottke.org
By All Measures. “Our scales are too imbalanced; we are unable to think the unthinkable. It goes without saying that it can be paralyzing, demoralizing, to be an individual acting as part of the collective, globe-sized world.” [longreads.com]
By All Measures - Longreads
Our problems are too vast, our distance from them too great. How do we navigate our derangement of scale?
longreads.com
January 15, 2026 at 9:24 PM
Reposted by Longreads
katherinegroo.bsky.social
my colleague, ben cohen, just published a wonderful essay on scale...and so many other things. it is a beautiful thing to read right now longreads.com/2026/01/13/s...
By All Measures - Longreads
Our problems are too vast, our distance from them too great. How do we navigate our derangement of scale?
longreads.com
January 15, 2026 at 10:25 PM
longreads.com
This week's Top 5 #longreads:

• ICE fighter, @spiegel.de
• Tectonic researcher, @highcountrynews.org
• Prairie preserver, @noemamag.com
• Regal grandmother, Southlands (@boyceupholt.bsky.social)
• Wild timekeeper, @emergencemagazine.bsky.social

longreads.com/2026/01/16/t...
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week - Longreads
In this edition: ICE fighter, tectonic researcher, prairie preserver, regal grandmother, wild timekeeper.
longreads.com
January 16, 2026 at 4:51 PM
longreads.com
"Only in the last 200 years did farmers transform these acres into neat cornfields." —Christian Elliott for
@noemamag.com

www.noemamag.com/where-the-pr...
Where The Prairie Still Remains | NOEMA
Are pioneer cemeteries key to the Iowa prairie’s revival, or its final resting place?
www.noemamag.com
January 15, 2026 at 8:16 PM
longreads.com
"In 2019, Husel was accused of prescribing fatal doses of fentanyl to critically ill patients in one of the largest homicide cases in Ohio history." —Jonathan Gleason for
@yalereview.bsky.social

yalereview.org/article/jona...
Jonathan Gleason: An Excerpt from “Field Guide to Falling Ill”
An Ohio murder trial causes a writer to question what makes a good death.
yalereview.org
January 15, 2026 at 6:19 PM
longreads.com
"Every prospective member of BUSAR must pass Herrington’s winter-survival class. The final exam requires students to build a fire in the woods after having been submerged in a frigid creek." —Paige Williams for @newyorker.com
The Backcountry Rescue Squad at America’s Busiest National Park
In the Great Smoky Mountains, an auxiliary team of élite outdoorsmen answers the call when park-goers’ hikes, climbs, and rafting adventures go wrong.
www.newyorker.com
January 15, 2026 at 12:05 PM
longreads.com
"Barry Lopez describes migration as the land breathing. He sees it as one great breath, the light and animals drawn north, inhaled, held, then released south with an exhale." –adam amir for @emergencemagazine.bsky.social

emergencemagazine.org/feature/seas...
Seasoning a Kid: A Search for a Practice of Place – adam amir
Filmmaker adam amir takes his young son Rumi out to meet each season with annual practices welcoming the return of snow, migrating animals, blossoms, and berries.
emergencemagazine.org
January 14, 2026 at 6:47 PM
longreads.com
"My cousin Matt and I joke that we come from a short line of Asian rednecks. Like me, he and his brothers are half Japanese.

In Alabama, we’re just anomalies."

Kim Cross for Southlands: southlandsmag.com/the-persimmo...
The Persimmon Tree at Stand Five
My Japanese-American grandma spent her final years on a hunting preserve in Alabama. She taught me how to be comfortable as an anomaly in the South.
southlandsmag.com
January 14, 2026 at 4:53 PM
longreads.com
"A massive man sat down behind me and whispered in my ear: 'I’ll give you some advice, this is a small town…' He patted me on the shoulder. 'Better take off a few minutes before the end of the game.'" —Jonah Lemm for @spiegel.de
Taking On Ice: A Lone Louisiana Lawyer's Fight against Trump's Deportations
Louisiana is home to a higher concentration of migrant detention centers than almost anywhere else in the country. Many in the region don't seem to mind too much. Lawyer Christopher Kinnison, though,…
www.spiegel.de
January 14, 2026 at 3:20 PM
longreads.com
"Rolexes, Cartiers and Audemars Piguets spilled across counters like fish in a market. The event looked less like a luxury convention than a treasure hunt for children on a sugar high." —Emma Irving for @economist.com
A vintage watch broke auction records. Then the rumours started
As demand for luxury watches has rocketed, the business has become beset by skulduggery
www.economist.com
January 13, 2026 at 8:16 PM
longreads.com
"Frankly, I’m surprised you’re even interviewing me. Geologists generally treat me as a nonentity. I’m an un-rock, a cipher, just an irregular surface."

Marcia Bjornerud for @highcountrynews.org: www.hcn.org/issues/58-1/...
Meet the oldest rock in the West - High Country News
An urban geologist goes to downtown Seattle and finds a rangeof rocks rivaling any assembled by plate tectonics.
www.hcn.org
January 13, 2026 at 6:08 PM
longreads.com
"Hopelessness comes from the scalar mismatch between we individuals, who are wee individuals, and the problems of an 8,000-mile-diameter earth." B.R. Cohen confronts our derangement of scales, with help from a scientist who works on the Doomsday Clock.
By All Measures - Longreads
Our problems are too vast, our distance from them too great. How do we navigate our derangement of scale?
longreads.com
January 13, 2026 at 5:35 PM
longreads.com
"I’ve always been good at picking Ethan out of a crowd. When you love someone, you know where they are." —Kristina Kasparian for @therumpus.net

therumpus.net/2025/12/30/r...
Rumpus Original Fiction: Center of Gravity - The Rumpus
I’ve always been good at picking Ethan out of a crowd. When you love someone, you know where they are. I can taste the roar and purr of the ice under his blades. I imagine his parents watching him as ...
therumpus.net
January 12, 2026 at 8:24 PM
longreads.com
"I’m sure if I met his real-life corollary, I’d be sneering at him. But what a blessing to, for a few minutes a day, ascend up out of your habit." —George Saunders to David Marchese for @nytimes.com / The New York Times Magazine
George Saunders Says Ditching These Three Delusions Can Save You
The celebrated author on the challenges of being kind, the benefits of meditation and the reality check of death.
www.nytimes.com
January 12, 2026 at 8:16 PM
Reposted by Longreads
historysraven.bsky.social
Bundyville, by @leahsottile.bsky.social @ryanjhaas.bsky.social @longreads.com and @opb.org, was realeased nearly eight years ago and it is as relevant today as it was then. And I’m not sure we’ve learned the lessons from either season
January 11, 2026 at 2:30 AM