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Sharing and publishing the best longform stories at longreads.com since 2009. Sister site of @atavist.com.
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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...
"On the wall next to it, a sign read: 'When you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher wall.'"
@shannonheffernan.bsky.social and Julieta Martinelli for @themarshallproject.org/Latino USA/Futuro Investigates: www.themarshallproject.org/2025/12/05/i...
@shannonheffernan.bsky.social and Julieta Martinelli for @themarshallproject.org/Latino USA/Futuro Investigates: www.themarshallproject.org/2025/12/05/i...
The Small House Offering Aid in the Shadow of an ICE Detention Center
Amid rising ICE arrests, volunteers provide aid — a meal, a bed, gas money — to anyone visiting someone detained in remote rural Georgia.
www.themarshallproject.org
December 15, 2025 at 6:57 PM
"On the wall next to it, a sign read: 'When you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher wall.'"
@shannonheffernan.bsky.social and Julieta Martinelli for @themarshallproject.org/Latino USA/Futuro Investigates: www.themarshallproject.org/2025/12/05/i...
@shannonheffernan.bsky.social and Julieta Martinelli for @themarshallproject.org/Latino USA/Futuro Investigates: www.themarshallproject.org/2025/12/05/i...
"Would they rather see the ashes or a faithful copy? Eighty per cent of respondents said the ashes." —Lou Stoppard for @economist.com
The grab list: how museums decide what to save in a disaster
Billions of dollars’ worth of art is imperilled by climate change. Curators will have to make sacrifices
www.economist.com
December 15, 2025 at 6:21 PM
"Would they rather see the ashes or a faithful copy? Eighty per cent of respondents said the ashes." —Lou Stoppard for @economist.com
Our 2025 Best of series continues today with our Top 10 Original Stories. Here are the Longreads pieces that our readers loved most this year.
longreads.com/2025/12/15/b...
longreads.com/2025/12/15/b...
Best of 2025: Our Most Popular Originals of the Year - Longreads
Our 10 most-read Longreads essays of 2025.
longreads.com
December 15, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Our 2025 Best of series continues today with our Top 10 Original Stories. Here are the Longreads pieces that our readers loved most this year.
longreads.com/2025/12/15/b...
longreads.com/2025/12/15/b...
"I wonder about inertia and all the forces that push back on these men as hard as they try to push into the direction of their desires." —Rebecca E. Williams in the Georgia Review
St. John the Wondermaker - The Georgia Review
Feet are comprised of fifty-two bones, one for every week of the year, a quarter of the total number of bones in an entire human body. There are around 8,000 nerves and 125,000 sweat glands in each…
www.thegeorgiareview.com
December 12, 2025 at 8:16 PM
"I wonder about inertia and all the forces that push back on these men as hard as they try to push into the direction of their desires." —Rebecca E. Williams in the Georgia Review
In this week's Top 5 :
• Adobo vision (@theatlantic.com)
• A tragic machine (@thefern.org)
• Just Blaze (@oxfordamerican.bsky.social )
• The souls of others (@hazlitt.bsky.social)
• The non-demise of film (@nybooks.com)
longreads.com/2025/12/12/t...
• Adobo vision (@theatlantic.com)
• A tragic machine (@thefern.org)
• Just Blaze (@oxfordamerican.bsky.social )
• The souls of others (@hazlitt.bsky.social)
• The non-demise of film (@nybooks.com)
longreads.com/2025/12/12/t...
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week - Longreads
Recommending stories from Yasmin Tayag, Elliott Woods, David Ramsey, Larissa Diakiw, and A.S. Hamrah.
longreads.com
December 12, 2025 at 4:23 PM
In this week's Top 5 :
• Adobo vision (@theatlantic.com)
• A tragic machine (@thefern.org)
• Just Blaze (@oxfordamerican.bsky.social )
• The souls of others (@hazlitt.bsky.social)
• The non-demise of film (@nybooks.com)
longreads.com/2025/12/12/t...
• Adobo vision (@theatlantic.com)
• A tragic machine (@thefern.org)
• Just Blaze (@oxfordamerican.bsky.social )
• The souls of others (@hazlitt.bsky.social)
• The non-demise of film (@nybooks.com)
longreads.com/2025/12/12/t...
"I’ve wondered what might happen if I narrow my lens: apply constraints to my days, focus on the choices that actually shape my world."
In today's Year in Reading essay, @cherilucasrowlands.com acknowledges her limits: longreads.com/2025/12/12/r...
In today's Year in Reading essay, @cherilucasrowlands.com acknowledges her limits: longreads.com/2025/12/12/r...
A Year in Reading: Restraint as Wisdom - Longreads
We live in a culture built on ignoring limits—of land, of bodies, of attention—and these stories kept returning me to that truth.
longreads.com
December 12, 2025 at 3:42 PM
"I’ve wondered what might happen if I narrow my lens: apply constraints to my days, focus on the choices that actually shape my world."
In today's Year in Reading essay, @cherilucasrowlands.com acknowledges her limits: longreads.com/2025/12/12/r...
In today's Year in Reading essay, @cherilucasrowlands.com acknowledges her limits: longreads.com/2025/12/12/r...
"Turning in isn’t turning away. It’s something more like attunement."
@provenself.bsky.social shares his year in reading, highlighting Sarah Miller on ayahuasca therapy @nplusonemag.com, @chriscolin3000.bsky.social on total darkness @nytimes.com, and other #longreads: longreads.com/2025/12/11/i...
@provenself.bsky.social shares his year in reading, highlighting Sarah Miller on ayahuasca therapy @nplusonemag.com, @chriscolin3000.bsky.social on total darkness @nytimes.com, and other #longreads: longreads.com/2025/12/11/i...
A Year in Reading: Inward Journeys - Longreads
Navigating a world in flux demands some understanding of who you really are, and some of my favorite pieces from this year speak to that need.
longreads.com
December 11, 2025 at 5:40 PM
"Turning in isn’t turning away. It’s something more like attunement."
@provenself.bsky.social shares his year in reading, highlighting Sarah Miller on ayahuasca therapy @nplusonemag.com, @chriscolin3000.bsky.social on total darkness @nytimes.com, and other #longreads: longreads.com/2025/12/11/i...
@provenself.bsky.social shares his year in reading, highlighting Sarah Miller on ayahuasca therapy @nplusonemag.com, @chriscolin3000.bsky.social on total darkness @nytimes.com, and other #longreads: longreads.com/2025/12/11/i...
"Associational memory constantly runs along my periphery, as if the past is a TV always on in another room. It sings on the sidelines, buzzes, crackles. Sometimes you listen, sometimes you ignore it . . . The past is persistent." —Larissa Diakiw for @hazlitt.bsky.social
hazlitt.net/longreads/so...
hazlitt.net/longreads/so...
Soul Blind | Hazlitt
On interrogating fear and what bats can teach about human connection.
hazlitt.net
December 11, 2025 at 3:13 PM
"Associational memory constantly runs along my periphery, as if the past is a TV always on in another room. It sings on the sidelines, buzzes, crackles. Sometimes you listen, sometimes you ignore it . . . The past is persistent." —Larissa Diakiw for @hazlitt.bsky.social
hazlitt.net/longreads/so...
hazlitt.net/longreads/so...
"In the Philippines, Jollibee is an institution; in America, it’s mostly just another chicken restaurant, and may never be destined to be anything more."
@yeahyeahyasmin.bsky.social for @theatlantic.com: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
@yeahyeahyasmin.bsky.social for @theatlantic.com: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
Can Jollibee Beat American Fast Food at Its Own Game?
A fast-growing Filipino chain is serving burgers and chicken that seem like typical American fare—until you taste them.
www.theatlantic.com
December 10, 2025 at 9:16 PM
"In the Philippines, Jollibee is an institution; in America, it’s mostly just another chicken restaurant, and may never be destined to be anything more."
@yeahyeahyasmin.bsky.social for @theatlantic.com: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
@yeahyeahyasmin.bsky.social for @theatlantic.com: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
"Sometimes righteous and sometimes wrongous. Sometimes he glimpsed the cosmic and sometimes he fell in the shit." —David Ramsey on Blaze Foley for @oxfordamerican.bsky.social
Ain’t It a Cold, Cold, World?
David Ramsey shares a collection of nineteen stories about country music singer-songwriter Blaze Foley.
oxfordamerican.org
December 10, 2025 at 8:16 PM
"Sometimes righteous and sometimes wrongous. Sometimes he glimpsed the cosmic and sometimes he fell in the shit." —David Ramsey on Blaze Foley for @oxfordamerican.bsky.social
"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
"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...