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Longreads @longreads.com · 1h

"Yet as the tide of fiascoes rose around him, Benedict Arnold was becoming—I will say this as clinically and dispassionately as possible—ravishing." @caity.bsky.social for @theatlantic.com

You Have No Idea How Hard It Is to Be a Reenactor

Benedict Arnold’s boot wouldn’t come off, and other hardships from my weekend in the Revolutionary War.

www.theatlantic.com

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Longreads @longreads.com · 4h

"'It was truly so idiotic and looked like it was written by a disturbed child.' —CDC employee"

Zoë Schiffer, Leah Feiger, Vittoria Elliott, Makena Kelly, Kate Knibbs, David Gilbert, Molly Taft, Aarian Marshall, Paresh Dave, and Jake Lahut for @wired.com:

The Story of DOGE, as Told by Federal Workers

WIRED spoke with more than 200 federal workers in dozens of agencies to learn what happened as the Department of Government Efficiency tore through their offices.

www.wired.com

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Longreads @longreads.com · 5h

"He would sometimes speak to another child through the walls — usually, they’d talk about what they’d do when they were free — but their conversations always petered off."

Rebecca Cadenhead for @mlk50.com: mlk50.com/2025/10/01/n...

No school, no fresh air and isolated

David spent eight months incarcerated at the Youth Justice and Education Center. Center portrait by Kevin Wurm / MLK50 / CatchLight Local / Report for

mlk50.com

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Longreads @longreads.com · 23h

"Ultimately, the internet fueled a great democratization of knowledge and experience around food."

@jayasaxena.com for @eater.bsky.social: www.eater.com/food-culture...

Nobody Wants to Be a Foodie

How “foodie” went from badge of honor to cringey term to pejorative smear and all the way back again.

www.eater.com

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Longreads @longreads.com · 1d

"In most states you can move mid-lease if your landlord is instantly able to rent the place to someone else, but this has never happened in the history of mankind." —Jane Stern for @parisreview.bsky.social

www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/09...

Speaking Apartment by Jane Stern

September 30, 2025 – "Reading apartment ads is like trying to understand a list of ingredients on the back of a can written in a language you don’t understand, or maybe like trying to find a mate on a...

www.theparisreview.org

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Longreads @longreads.com · 1d

"Looking back, it is difficult for David to recall exactly how he spent most of his time in that cell. How does one describe a period characterized by absence?" —Rebecca Cadenhead, @reportforamerica.bsky.social corps member, for @mlk50memphis.bsky.social

No school, no fresh air and isolated

David spent eight months incarcerated at the Youth Justice and Education Center. Center portrait by Kevin Wurm / MLK50 / CatchLight Local / Report for America; Image of the Shelby County Youth and …

mlk50.com

Reposted by Longreads

nancyforde.com @nancyfjorde.bsky.social · 1d

Shoutout to Frost and #wetlands: 10K years of dead plant matter giving me/my WIP so much life.

"a place of... decomposition where... vegetation liquifies slowly into peat...also a place of...becoming... No one knows why Frost didn’t commit suicide in the swamp; instead he found a way to keep going"

Longreads @longreads.com · 1d

"They don’t confront us like mountains, comfort us like oceans, or envelop us like forests; they don’t seem to want to have anything to do with us at all. Swamps hide. Swamps demur."

longreads.com/2025/10/02/t...

Swamp People - Longreads

Finding refuge and resilience in America’s most reviled landscapes.

longreads.com

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Longreads @longreads.com · 1d

"A nation, like a body, can be marked before it recognizes the wound."

For @atavist.com, Masha Hamilton looks for America on Interstate 95. Read an excerpt from our sister magazine's new story: longreads.com/2025/10/07/a...

"Are We Breaking Apart, Or Is There Enough Left to Bind Us?" - Longreads

Conversations and revelations about an ailing nation along Interstate 95.

longreads.com

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Longreads @longreads.com · 1d

"They don’t confront us like mountains, comfort us like oceans, or envelop us like forests; they don’t seem to want to have anything to do with us at all. Swamps hide. Swamps demur."

longreads.com/2025/10/02/t...

Swamp People - Longreads

Finding refuge and resilience in America’s most reviled landscapes.

longreads.com

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Reposted by Longreads

Candy McSlashin’ @amcglashen.bsky.social · 5d

I’m having trouble reading anything other than books these days, but it was a total pleasure to immerse myself in this brilliant @longreads.com essay by Ashley Stimpson. longreads.com/2025/10/02/t...

Swamp People - Longreads

Finding refuge and resilience in America’s most reviled landscapes.

longreads.com

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Longreads @longreads.com · 5d

The quoted bit is from @provenself.bsky.social's response to your piece. Check out #2 here:

longreads.com/2025/10/03/t...

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week - Longreads

Showcasing stories from Nicholas Hune-Brown, Nick Sturm, Samanth Subramanian, Kristin Idaszak, and Sy Safransky.

longreads.com

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Longreads @longreads.com · 5d

"For generations, wild bears were killed to harvest this gold-colored liquid from their gallbladder."

Ryley Graham for @earthislandjournal.bsky.social: www.earthisland.org/journal/inde...

Bringing Vietnam’s Bile Bear Industry to an End

As wildlife advocates fight to free the last captives of Vietnam’s bile farms, rescued bears find dignity in the country’s sanctuaries.

www.earthisland.org

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Longreads @longreads.com · 5d

Get five of our favorite stories delivered to your inbox on Fridays. Sign up here:

longreads.com/newsletter/?...

Subscribe to Longreads Newsletters - Longreads

Kickstart your weekend reading by getting the  week’s best Longreads delivered to your inbox  every Friday afternoon.

longreads.com

Longreads @longreads.com · 5d

Congratulations to Callie Holtermann! She won this week's audience award for "Zackery Died After Climbing on Top of a Subway Train. Who Is to Blame?" at @nytimes.com

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/s...

www.nytimes.com

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Longreads @longreads.com · 5d

5. "The Cat Who Woke Me Up" (Sy Safransky)

"I thought of my many cats, all of whom “woke me up” in one way or another. Because that’s what pets do, if we let them—they crack us wide open, embolden us, humble us."

www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/598...

The Cat Who Woke Me Up

The hierarchy that places humans above cats has broken down. I know, in a way I once didn’t, that cats and dogs and birds and bees and every living creature are conscious in a way that’s too hard for ...

www.thesunmagazine.org

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Longreads @longreads.com · 5d

4. "Blood-Blue Sky" (Kristin Idaszak)

"This essay honors these extraordinary creatures, which, despite the pivotal role they play in modern medicine, have no meaningful conservation effort around them."

theamericanscholar.org/blood-blue-s...

Blood-Blue Sky - The American Scholar

How horseshoe crabs and ecological grief connect with the wonders of the human heart

theamericanscholar.org

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Longreads @longreads.com · 5d

3. "Extremely Offline: What Happened When a Pacific Island Was Cut Off From The Internet" @samanthsubramanian.bsky.social

"What a remarkable engineering feat. How unsettling that this is what holds us together."

www.theguardian.com/news/2025/se...

Extremely offline: what happened when a Pacific island was cut off from the internet | Samanth Subramanian

A colossal volcanic eruption in January 2022 ripped apart the underwater cables that connect Tonga to the world – and exposed the fragility of 21st-century life

www.theguardian.com

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Longreads @longreads.com · 5d

2. "Good Riddance To ‘The Best American Poetry’" @nicksturm.bsky.social

"Lehman steered the franchise with a frustrating bothsidesism while also installing editors who themselves (if unwittingly) reinforced a monotonous sameness in the poems selected."

defector.com/good-riddanc...

Good Riddance To ‘The Best American Poetry’ | Defector

When David Lehman, a poet then working as a book critic for Newsweek, proposed the project for The Best American Poetry anthology, he was searching for a national platform. His first anthology project...

defector.com

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Longreads @longreads.com · 5d

1. “ Breakdown at the Racetrack” @nickhunebrown.bsky.social

"Given that Ontario props up racing because wagering alone is not enough to fund purses, the spate of carnage raises hard questions about precisely what the government is subsidizing."

thelocal.to/breakdown-at...

Breakdown at the Racetrack | The Local

Once a lucrative gambling business, Ontario's horse racing industry is now heavily subsidized by the government. As gamblers turn to online gaming, and ideas about animal welfare shift, a cluster of f...

thelocal.to

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Longreads @longreads.com · 5d

In our Weekly Top 5:

* Subsidizing carnage @thelocal.to
* “Best” American poetry @defector.com
* Frail fibers @theguardian.com
* A crabby savior @theamscho.bsky.social
* Feline fealty @thesunmagazine.bsky.social

longreads.com/2025/10/03/t...

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week - Longreads

Showcasing stories from Nicholas Hune-Brown, Nick Sturm, Samanth Subramanian, Kristin Idaszak, and Sy Safransky.

longreads.com

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Longreads @longreads.com · 6d

"How often Cirrus pulled me out of my gloomy thoughts, my preoccupations, my melancholic reveries, just by entering a room."

Sy Safransky for The Sun: www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/598...

The Cat Who Woke Me Up

The hierarchy that places humans above cats has broken down. I know, in a way I once didn’t, that cats and dogs and birds and bees and every living creature are conscious in a way that’s too hard for ...

www.thesunmagazine.org

1 2

Longreads @longreads.com · 6d

"A doctor told Alan he had six weeks to live, and two had passed in June when he finally asked his hospice nurse a question he had never before considered: Was there a better way for this to end?"

@milehighrobert.bsky.social for 5280: 5280.com/medical-aid-...

The Coloradans Exercising Their Right To Die—and a Doctor Who Helps Them Find Peace

More terminally ill Coloradans than ever are turning to Denver Health’s Medical Aid in Dying clinic. We spent the summer witnessing the quiet decisions and final moments of those who chose when—and ho...

5280.com

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Longreads @longreads.com · 6d

"But here’s the thing about swamps: They don’t go down easy. Swamps don’t protest, they insist. When pioneers in my home state of Ohio drained the Great Black Swamp, the morass returned every spring, seeping up from farm fields like a poltergeist."

longreads.com/2025/10/02/t...

Swamp People - Longreads

Finding refuge and resilience in America’s most reviled landscapes.

longreads.com

1 2

Longreads @longreads.com · 7d

"In a recent study, gastroenterologists who used A.I. to detect polyps during colonoscopies got significantly worse at finding polyps themselves."

@dhruvkhullar.bsky.social for @newyorker.com: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

If A.I. Can Diagnose Patients, What Are Doctors For?

Large language models are transforming medicine—but the technology comes with side effects.

www.newyorker.com

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Longreads @longreads.com · 7d

"I had a sense of obligation to these creatures that likely gave their lives for testing the device implanted in my heart."

Kristin Idaszak for The American Scholar: theamericanscholar.org/blood-blue-s...

Blood-Blue Sky - The American Scholar

How horseshoe crabs and ecological grief connect with the wonders of the human heart

theamericanscholar.org

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