Longreads
@longreads.com
Sharing and publishing the best longform stories at longreads.com since 2009. Sister site of @atavist.com.
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Submit to us: https://longreads.com/submissions
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Longreads
@longreads.com
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Best of 2025 - Longreads
Welcome to December, readers! Once again, we’re revisiting the favorite nonfiction stories that defined our year—the pieces that moved us, reframed our thinking, or even nudged us to action. Each week...
longreads.com
We're sharing our favorite #longreads of 2025 over the next two weeks.
Bookmark our Best of 2025 page to catch up on the latest year-end essays and lists of notable editors' picks:
longreads.com/best-of-2025...
Bookmark our Best of 2025 page to catch up on the latest year-end essays and lists of notable editors' picks:
longreads.com/best-of-2025...
"But amid trial and trauma—or perhaps even despite them—many of these stories dare to hope."
Next up in our Best of 2025 series, editor Krista Stevens reflects on the stories she could not stop thinking about this year.
longreads.com/2025/12/10/h...
Next up in our Best of 2025 series, editor Krista Stevens reflects on the stories she could not stop thinking about this year.
longreads.com/2025/12/10/h...
A Year in Reading: When the Going Gets Tough - Longreads
These are the stories I couldn't stop thinking about—the ones that ask us to sit with darkness and still find reasons to keep going.
longreads.com
December 10, 2025 at 2:31 PM
"But amid trial and trauma—or perhaps even despite them—many of these stories dare to hope."
Next up in our Best of 2025 series, editor Krista Stevens reflects on the stories she could not stop thinking about this year.
longreads.com/2025/12/10/h...
Next up in our Best of 2025 series, editor Krista Stevens reflects on the stories she could not stop thinking about this year.
longreads.com/2025/12/10/h...
We're sharing our favorite #longreads of 2025 over the next two weeks.
Bookmark our Best of 2025 page to catch up on the latest year-end essays and lists of notable editors' picks:
longreads.com/best-of-2025...
Bookmark our Best of 2025 page to catch up on the latest year-end essays and lists of notable editors' picks:
longreads.com/best-of-2025...
Best of 2025 - Longreads
Welcome to December, readers! Once again, we’re revisiting the favorite nonfiction stories that defined our year—the pieces that moved us, reframed our thinking, or even nudged us to action. Each week...
longreads.com
December 9, 2025 at 6:55 PM
We're sharing our favorite #longreads of 2025 over the next two weeks.
Bookmark our Best of 2025 page to catch up on the latest year-end essays and lists of notable editors' picks:
longreads.com/best-of-2025...
Bookmark our Best of 2025 page to catch up on the latest year-end essays and lists of notable editors' picks:
longreads.com/best-of-2025...
"Digital twins are palliatives — they treat the symptoms, not the causes, of flagging productivity growth."
Max Hancock for @thedriftmag.com: www.thedriftmag.com/model-employ...
Max Hancock for @thedriftmag.com: www.thedriftmag.com/model-employ...
Model Employees
The Dawn of Digital Twins
www.thedriftmag.com
December 9, 2025 at 6:48 PM
"Digital twins are palliatives — they treat the symptoms, not the causes, of flagging productivity growth."
Max Hancock for @thedriftmag.com: www.thedriftmag.com/model-employ...
Max Hancock for @thedriftmag.com: www.thedriftmag.com/model-employ...
"We are surrounded by more than darkness, and transformed by more than violence." Next up in our "Best of 2025" series, Brendan Fitzgerald considers his year in reading longreads.com/2025/12/09/w...
A Year in Reading: When We Are Redefined - Longreads
From bull rides to military parades, the world transforms us in surprising ways. The best stories get close enough to document our transformation.
longreads.com
December 9, 2025 at 5:35 PM
"We are surrounded by more than darkness, and transformed by more than violence." Next up in our "Best of 2025" series, Brendan Fitzgerald considers his year in reading longreads.com/2025/12/09/w...
"We need to figure out what’s the analogue to healthy soil for an economy."
Christine Ro interviews John Fullerton for @atmosmag.bsky.social: atmos.earth/climate-solu...
Christine Ro interviews John Fullerton for @atmosmag.bsky.social: atmos.earth/climate-solu...
What If the Economy Was Modeled After Ecology? | Atmos
By treating economies as living systems, we can build financial frameworks that regenerate rather than exploit.
atmos.earth
December 8, 2025 at 9:17 PM
"We need to figure out what’s the analogue to healthy soil for an economy."
Christine Ro interviews John Fullerton for @atmosmag.bsky.social: atmos.earth/climate-solu...
Christine Ro interviews John Fullerton for @atmosmag.bsky.social: atmos.earth/climate-solu...
"Dropping prerecorded, improvised solos into carefully worked-out backdrops was, in theory, a supreme creative balance of control and spontaneity." @musicclerk.bsky.social on Steely Dan for @nybooks.com
www.nybooks.com/online/2025/...
www.nybooks.com/online/2025/...
The Dude Ranch Above the Sea | Philip Clark
As a teenager, growing up in New Jersey during the 1960s, the pianist Donald Fagen routinely took a bus into Manhattan to hear his jazz heroes in the
www.nybooks.com
December 8, 2025 at 7:49 PM
"Dropping prerecorded, improvised solos into carefully worked-out backdrops was, in theory, a supreme creative balance of control and spontaneity." @musicclerk.bsky.social on Steely Dan for @nybooks.com
www.nybooks.com/online/2025/...
www.nybooks.com/online/2025/...
"An ability to see through zealotry and self-involvement, to reject the solipsism of self-actualization and the crassness of materialism, is a positive response, and often a generative one." —Amanda Fortini on Generation X for T Magazine
Is Gen X Actually the Greatest Generation?
How one era changed everything about the culture — and why we’re so nostalgic for its creations.
www.nytimes.com
December 8, 2025 at 5:35 PM
"An ability to see through zealotry and self-involvement, to reject the solipsism of self-actualization and the crassness of materialism, is a positive response, and often a generative one." —Amanda Fortini on Generation X for T Magazine
"Politics and economics were set aside in favor of granular stories—ones that reveal the overlooked gears of society, the jobs we rarely think about." —Carolyn kicks off our "Best of" package with a look at her year in reading.
longreads.com/2025/12/08/c...
longreads.com/2025/12/08/c...
A Year in Reading: Backrooms, Backcountry, and Back Home - Longreads
From two side of the world—these are the stories shining a light on the overlooked corners often holding the pieces together.
longreads.com
December 8, 2025 at 2:45 PM
"Politics and economics were set aside in favor of granular stories—ones that reveal the overlooked gears of society, the jobs we rarely think about." —Carolyn kicks off our "Best of" package with a look at her year in reading.
longreads.com/2025/12/08/c...
longreads.com/2025/12/08/c...
Here's what we've got in our weekly Top 5:
* Appeal of the surreal @equatormag.bsky.social
* Decoding AI dreck (NYT Magazine)
* Goop relations @nplusonemag.com
* Learning to think @bostonreview.bsky.social
* Pigeon racing pitfalls @parisreview.bsky.social
longreads.com/2025/12/05/l...
* Appeal of the surreal @equatormag.bsky.social
* Decoding AI dreck (NYT Magazine)
* Goop relations @nplusonemag.com
* Learning to think @bostonreview.bsky.social
* Pigeon racing pitfalls @parisreview.bsky.social
longreads.com/2025/12/05/l...
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week - Longreads
In this edition: the appeal of the surreal, decoding AI dreck, goop relations, learning to think, and pigeon racing pitfalls
longreads.com
December 5, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Here's what we've got in our weekly Top 5:
* Appeal of the surreal @equatormag.bsky.social
* Decoding AI dreck (NYT Magazine)
* Goop relations @nplusonemag.com
* Learning to think @bostonreview.bsky.social
* Pigeon racing pitfalls @parisreview.bsky.social
longreads.com/2025/12/05/l...
* Appeal of the surreal @equatormag.bsky.social
* Decoding AI dreck (NYT Magazine)
* Goop relations @nplusonemag.com
* Learning to think @bostonreview.bsky.social
* Pigeon racing pitfalls @parisreview.bsky.social
longreads.com/2025/12/05/l...
"Did women have no choice, Wilcox wondered, but to wander the world hoping never to step on a landmine of a man?"
Read an excerpt from Christa Hillstrom's @atavist.com story about a nurse's quest to document the life and death of every woman killed by a man in the US.
longreads.com/2025/12/04/f...
Read an excerpt from Christa Hillstrom's @atavist.com story about a nurse's quest to document the life and death of every woman killed by a man in the US.
longreads.com/2025/12/04/f...
The Nurse Who Names the Dead - Longreads
Inside a Texas nurse’s quest to document the life and death of every woman killed by a man in America.
longreads.com
December 5, 2025 at 2:42 AM
"Did women have no choice, Wilcox wondered, but to wander the world hoping never to step on a landmine of a man?"
Read an excerpt from Christa Hillstrom's @atavist.com story about a nurse's quest to document the life and death of every woman killed by a man in the US.
longreads.com/2025/12/04/f...
Read an excerpt from Christa Hillstrom's @atavist.com story about a nurse's quest to document the life and death of every woman killed by a man in the US.
longreads.com/2025/12/04/f...
"All we needed was a poem, a few hours each week, and trust in what we could do, in what we did do, together." @johannawinant.bsky.social @bostonreview.bsky.social
www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
The Claims of Close Reading - Boston Review
Literary studies have been starved by austerity, but their core methodology remains radical.
www.bostonreview.net
December 4, 2025 at 8:50 PM
"All we needed was a poem, a few hours each week, and trust in what we could do, in what we did do, together." @johannawinant.bsky.social @bostonreview.bsky.social
www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
Reposted by Longreads
“I believed my #worth depended..on my #physical #capabilities. I may not have said it explicitly back then, but I feared I would lose that worth if I gave those things up, if I did something as ordinary as having a #child.”: buff.ly/kI2Xud3
via @longreads.com
#SelfWorth #motherhood
via @longreads.com
#SelfWorth #motherhood
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.
buff.ly
December 4, 2025 at 11:30 AM
“I believed my #worth depended..on my #physical #capabilities. I may not have said it explicitly back then, but I feared I would lose that worth if I gave those things up, if I did something as ordinary as having a #child.”: buff.ly/kI2Xud3
via @longreads.com
#SelfWorth #motherhood
via @longreads.com
#SelfWorth #motherhood
Reposted by Longreads
This is one of the best pieces I've read about standing on the precipice of parenthood; the ambivalence about taking on the role of motherhood when you're ambivalent about womanhood in the first place -- and the transformation that happens once you leap and integrate your senses of self.
"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...
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 3, 2025 at 9:31 PM
This is one of the best pieces I've read about standing on the precipice of parenthood; the ambivalence about taking on the role of motherhood when you're ambivalent about womanhood in the first place -- and the transformation that happens once you leap and integrate your senses of self.
"It seems we've reached the point in our relationship with celebrities where we just want to throw stuff at them . . . Like sending a satellite through a blackhole or petting a squirrel. It just seems worth a try." — @misternagel.bsky.social for Dirt
Very Important People
Mike Nagel on not being famous.
dirt.fyi
December 3, 2025 at 5:35 PM
"It seems we've reached the point in our relationship with celebrities where we just want to throw stuff at them . . . Like sending a satellite through a blackhole or petting a squirrel. It just seems worth a try." — @misternagel.bsky.social for Dirt
"Just as the sun begins to peek over the flat horizon of Coon Rapids, Iowa, 1,383 pigeons fill the sky." —Oliver Egger for @parisreview.bsky.social
www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/11...
www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/11...
Homeward Bound: On Pigeon Racing by Oliver Egger
November 26, 2025 – “Imagine being blindfolded and loaded in a car, then dropped nearly four hundred miles from your house in a random field in rural Iowa and trying to get home before dark. Oh, and…
www.theparisreview.org
December 3, 2025 at 3:20 PM
"Just as the sun begins to peek over the flat horizon of Coon Rapids, Iowa, 1,383 pigeons fill the sky." —Oliver Egger for @parisreview.bsky.social
www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/11...
www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/11...
"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
"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
"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...
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
"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...
For Longreads, Diana Saverin confronts the costs of motherhood.
longreads.com/2025/12/02/e...
"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...
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
"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...
www.thedial.world/articles/new...
"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
"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
Reposted by Longreads
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
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
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
longreads.com/2025/11/20/s...
#longreads
"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
"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
"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...
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
"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...
yalereview.org/article/alic...
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...
* 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
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...
* 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...
"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
"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
"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...
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
"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...
longreads.com/2025/11/20/s...