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Longreads features

Failure To Lawn

On what a dying patch of turfgrass can teach us about water scarcity, ecological repair, and the lies we tell ourselves about success.

The Secret Door

“When we read, we make believe. We aren’t duped or ensorcelled. Deep down we decide. We make ourselves believe.”

Was It Worth It?

“I didn’t think about those nachos even once. I had never experienced anything like it. Is this, I asked my friends, how it feels to be normal?”

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Recent editors’ picks

Librarians on Horseback

Kirsten Chervenak | Oxford American | April 14, 2026 | 2,965 words

“The New Deal project that preserved Kentucky’s recipes.”

Made in the USA

Suzy Hansen | The New York Review of Books | May 19, 2026 | 5,212 words

“Pete Hegseth is the product of an essentially American ethos—which means we have no choice but to ask what to do with him, and what to do with ourselves.”

The Cartoonist Who Mocked the Madness of Modernism

Gabriele Neri | The MIT Press Reader | May 26, 2026 | 1,761 words

“With biting satire, Alan Dunn captured how 20th-century architectural trends left everyday Americans astonished, baffled, and enraged.”

Hard Rain

Wyatt Williams | Harper’s Magazine | May 22, 2026 | 8,568 words

“The battle over weather modification.”

Darde Ghorbat

Yasmin Roshanian | Off Assignment | May 5, 2026 | 2,175 words

“The pain of alienation.”

You Must Remember This

Jonathan Weiner | The American Scholar | June 1, 2026 | 6,524 words

“On the nature of autobiographical memory.”

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Weekly Top 5

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Stories from Mina Tavakoli, Lindsey Adler, Joshua Jackson, Ben Tarnoff, Paloma Karr, and Jon Greenaway.

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Introducing the Longreads Story Recommender.

The Longreads questionnaire

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Excerpts from The Atavist Magazine, our sister publication

Open Season

Colorado’s San Luis Valley was a wildlife poacher’s paradise. Then an undercover federal agent arrived.

The Good Catholics of Buffalo

With thousands of US soldiers dying in Vietnam, a righteous group of young New Yorkers embarked on a secret mission to bring the war machine to its knees.

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Longreads reading lists

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