The Best of Longreads
20+ most popular Longreads articles, as voted by our community.
Sharing and publishing the best longform stories since 2009. An @automattic publication and the sister site of @Atavist. @longreads@mastodon.world
Longreads on Addiction
Breaking the Family Silence on Alcoholism
Alicia Lutes contemplates her family’s history of addiction, her mother’s failing liver, and the effect it’s all had on her generation.
When Running Toward Yourself Looks Like Running Away
Amber Leventry recalls how getting sober forced them to confront and reveal important truths about their identity.
Longreads on Books
The Depths to Which We Go
Making sense of absence in the ever-dissolving karst of Missouri.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week's installment features stories by Lee van der Voo, Adam Gopnik, Surabhi Ranganathan, Masha Udensiva-Brenner, and Mikey O'Connell.
Longreads on Brain
How to Survive a Car Crash in 10 Easy Steps
A journalist navigates a world forever changed by her traumatic brain injury.
Longreads on Food
Life in the Slow Lane
Olivia Potts| Longreads | November, 2022 | 16 minutes (4,649 words) It’s six in the morning, and Robert Booth has already been on the road for three hours. Sitting alongside him in the cab of his…
Longreads on Memory
What It’s Like to Lose Your Short-Term Memory : Longreads
An exclusive excerpt from the new memoir by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee.
Longreads on Reading
Longreads on Religion
Losing My Religion at Christian Camp
Katy Hershberger recalls the way her decade at Christian summer camp both shaped and condemned her views of faith and girlhood.
I Had To Leave My Mother So I Could Survive
Elisabet Velasquez reckons with a lifetime of disharmony with her religious, mentally ill mother.
Longreads on Spirituality
The (Loud) Soundtrack to My Struggle with Faith
After being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Anna Gazmarian grapples with her evangelical upbringing, and finds solace in screamo music.
Mountains, Transcending
“Ever since I was five years old,” wrote opera singer–turned–Buddhist lama Alexandra David-Néel, “I craved to go beyond the garden gate, to follow the road that passed it by, and to set out for the…
Longreads on Transgender
Finding a Path in a Broken System
Thailand is a top destination for gender confirmation surgery. Its success is a symptom of Western failure.
Longreads on Writing
Ten Outstanding Short Stories to Read in 2022
Longtime contributor Pravesh Bhardwaj read and and shared 276 short stories on the #longreads Twitter hashtag in 2021. Here are his favorites.
30 Years of Writing on the Internet
2024 marks the blog's 30th anniversary. Is it time to give popular online writing—from blogs to tweets and newsletters—the critical attention it deserves?
Popular
These are some all-time favorites with Refind users.
“I Had to Face the Blues Every Day”
Soul and gospel singer Candi Staton let no hardship stand in the way of her voice, one that helped define the music of her generation.
The Strangely Beautiful Experience of Google Reviews
Glimpses of humanity in an unlikely corner of the internet.
Queens of Infamy: Isabella of France
Married off at age 12, Isabella put up with her husband’s shenanigans over decades. Eventually, the She-Wolf of France had had enough.
Eating Alone
We’re eating alone more often than in any previous generation. But why should a meal on our own be uninspired? Why shouldn’t the French saying “life is too short to drink bad wine”…
Stranger Things: A Reading List of Unsolved Mysteries
Tales of odd phenomena stoke our imagination even as they tease us.
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