Longreads

"There seems to be a sort of tether between that moment—be it with my brother in the tall grass by the lake, or speaking my final words to him through the phone held to his ear—and the still undetermined moment of my own passing." —@ds_waldman for @poetrymagazine poetryfoundation.org/articles/17841…

"Leave the bees mostly alone, and let them learn to solve the challenges of their volatile world. And they have." —Hannah Nordhaus for @NatGeo #longreads nationalgeographic.com/animals/articl…

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This week's Top 5: - Bottles ashore, @NewYorker - Benches awaiting, @PlacesJournal - Boundlessness disputed, @QuantaMagazine - Books aplenty, @cabinetmagazine - Batons bought, @thebafflermag longreads.com/2026/05/01/top…

"Matt John was right: This team *was* special. The Marshall Islands had never fielded a national soccer team." Read "The Wayfinders" by @jordanphickey ⚽ longreads.com/2026/04/21/mar…

"The wargames market was basically inaccessible to people that were part of the anti-war movement, unless it was couched in a way that wasn’t revisiting the atrocities that people were seeing on TV coming out of Vietnam." @docetist with @chengela & @clarabcollier for @asteriskmgzn asteriskmag.com/issues/14/shal…

@adalva Check out the full issue of Cake Zine's latest, "Steak Zine," here cakezine.com/products/steak…

"In my strange absence of flavor, their glossy enthusiasm was captivating. I suspect that I was outsourcing my own eating." Thrilled to copublish @adalva's essay on "Ozempic full," YouTube mukbang rabbit holes, and beating the buffet, with the good folks at Cake Zine. longreads.com/2026/04/29/oze…

"We have been raised on films that end with cathartic tears and hugs, and promises never to hurt each other again. In real life, that’s not where most of my friends are with their mothers." Rebecca Liu for @gdnlongread: theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2…

Every week on Substack, @paul_grech pulls together some of the best football writing. This is a brilliant article on the history & culture of @SoccerFedMI, the last nation to have an international football team. longreads.com/2026/04/21/mar…

"I’m a huge believer in inventing your own rituals before writing. They can be as weird as you want them to be so that when you go into a writing situation or practice it feels cool." —Lidia Yuknavitch longreads.com/2026/04/28/cnf…

"These books have not passed through a human; they remain ignorant of culture and society." —Sally O'Reilly for @cabinetmagazine cabinetmagazine.org/issues/70/orei…

“'I always tell people the ocean writes a story on the beach,' he said. 'My job is to read it.'” —Clint Buffington, collector of messages in bottles. @NewYorker newyorker.com/magazine/2026/…

"Like the subway and public library, benches are places that people who have nowhere to go, go." Gabrielle Bruney for @PlacesJournal: placesjournal.org/article/the-di…

"There are file traces everywhere, like so many ghosts in a vast bardo, which can sometimes be brought back to life." —@jcljules for @newyorker newyorker.com/magazine/2026/…

In the latest edition of our Top 5: —Death traps (@believermag) —Derring-do detectives (@nybooks) —Drivel inspection (@thedrift_mag) —Deforestation? Not in my back yard! (@inthesetimesmag) —Dissonance appreciation (@NewYorker) longreads.com/2026/04/24/the…

"Weatherbeaten sailors laugh about Tom’s incompetence, trading shipwreck stories of their own over their glasses of ouzo."—Andrew Printer for Narratively #longreads narratively.com/p/my-chaotic-a…

"But to look at KJ’s case and conclude we’re ready to program pre-implantation embryos is like declaring you’re fluent in a new language because you’ve tried Duolingo." @abbyvesoulis for @MotherJones: motherjones.com/politics/2026/…

On the ocean, wayfinding meant reading swells and stars. On a field in Springdale, Arkansas, it meant reading space, movement, and one another. Read @JordanPHickey's new @longreads story about the Marshall Islands' first-ever national soccer team. longreads.com/2026/04/21/mar…

What's on Vauhini Vara's desk? Cards for a climbing gym, a karate federation, and "the business card of a man I once met at a reading whose life story I promised myself I’d write but never did." Vara answers the @Longreads Questionnaire longreads.com/2026/04/22/que…