The Audio Long Read

My maddening battle with chronic fatigue syndrome: ‘On my worst days, it feels almost demonic’

06 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

I suffered with my mystery illness for decades before gaining a diagnosis. Could retraining my brain be the answer? By Hermione Hoby. Read by Alby Bal...

Apocalypse no: how almost everything we thought we knew about the Maya is wrong

03 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

For many years the prevailing debate about the Maya centred upon why their civilisation collapsed. Now, many scholars are asking: how did the Maya sur...

From the archive: the butcher’s shop that lasted 300 years (give or take)

01 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

‘I felt betrayed, naked’: did a prize-winning novelist steal a woman’s life story?

30 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

His novel was praised for giving a voice to the victims of Algeria’s brutal civil war. But one woman has accused Kamel Daoud of having stolen her st...

What was Doge? How Elon Musk tried to gamify government

27 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Steeped in gaming and rightwing culture wars, Musk and his team of teenage coders set out to defeat the enemy of the United States: its people By Ben ...

From the archive: Are we really prisoners of geography?

25 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

Power without a throne: how Khalifa Haftar controls Libya

23 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

When Nato helped overthrow Gaddafi in 2011, there were hopes of a new beginning. More than a decade later, a former CIA asset runs the country – and...

Off Duty: The Crime

21 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

On the evening of 29 December 2011, Officer Clifton Lewis was moonlighting as a security guard at a Chicago minimart when two men walked in. They shot...

‘The children are not safe here’: the Nigerian couple fighting infanticide

20 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In a few isolated communities in central Nigeria, some babies are believed to be bad omens. Olusola and Chinwe Stevens run a thriving home for babies ...

From the archive: ‘Parents are frightened for themselves and for their children’: an inspirational school in impossible times

18 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

Access denied: why Muslims worldwide are being ‘debanked’

16 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Innocent people are being frozen out of basic banking services – and it all traces back to reforms rushed through after 9/11 By Oliver Bullough. Rea...

Shock, awe, death, joy and looting: how the Guardian covered the outbreak of the Iraq war

13 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In spring 2003, exuberance at the fall of Saddam was swiftly followed by a descent into deadly chaos. Whether moving independently or embedded with tr...

From the archive: ‘Iran was our Hogwarts’: my childhood between Tehran and Essex

11 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

‘Pretty birds and silly moos’: the women behind the Sex Discrimination Act

09 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the 50 years since equal rights for women were enshrined in UK law, the campaigners have been reduced to caricatures, or forgotten. But their strug...

‘What I see in clinic is never a set of labels’: are we in danger of overdiagnosing mental illness? -podcast

06 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Our current approach to mental health labelling and diagnosis has brought benefits. But as a practising doctor, I am concerned that it may be doing mo...

From the archive: China’s troll king: how a tabloid editor became the voice of Chinese nationalism

04 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

I used to report from the West Bank. Twenty years after my last visit, I was shocked by how much worse it is today

02 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Among the many people I met, there was a pervasive feeling of hopelessness and a sense that resistance is slowly becoming a memory By Ewen MacAskill. ...

Out of the ruins: will Aleppo ever be rebuilt?

27 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Years of civil war have turned whole areas of the city into rows of empty husks. But after the fall of Assad, Syrians have returned to their old homes...

From the archive: Why can’t we agree on what’s true any more?

25 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

A century in the Siberian wilderness: the Old Believers who time forgot

23 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In 1978, Soviet scientists stumbled upon a family living in a remote part of Russia. They hadn’t interacted with outsiders for decades. Almost half ...

Inside voice: what can our thoughts reveal about the nature of consciousness?

20 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Scientists and philosophers studying the mind have discovered how little we know about our inner experiences Written and read by Michael Pollan. Help ...

From the archive: ‘Who remembers proper binmen?’ The nostalgia memes that help explain Britain today

18 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

What technology takes from us – and how to take it back

16 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Decisions outsourced, chatbots for friends, the natural world an afterthought: Silicon Valley is giving us life void of connection. There is a way out...

The crisis whisperer: how Adam Tooze makes sense of our bewildering age

13 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Whether it’s the financial crash, the climate emergency or the breakdown of the international order, historian Adam Tooze has become the go-to guide...

From the archive: Do we need a new theory of evolution?

11 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

Walking into disaster: the narcotrafficking scandal that blew up the BVI

09 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

When the new premier of the British Virgin Islands said he needed an armed security detail, his chief of police knew trouble was on its way By Edward ...

Trump’s assault on the Smithsonian: ‘The goal is to reframe the entire culture of the US’

06 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The president has vowed to kill off ‘woke’ in his second term in office, and the venerable cultural institution a few blocks from the White House ...

From the archive: the free speech panic: how the right concocted a crisis

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

‘We hate it. It’s desecration’: the real cost of HS2

02 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Ten years after I first followed the proposed route, I retraced my steps to see what life was like along the world’s most expensive, heavily delayed...

Death on the inside: as a prison officer, I saw how the system perpetuates violence

30 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A rise of murders is traumatising inmates and staff, and making life harder for staff. But even in prison, violence isn’t inevitable Written and rea...

From the archive: The King of Kowloon: my search for the cult graffiti prophet of Hong Kong

28 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

We published explosive stories about the president of El Salvador. Now we can’t go home

26 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Days before we ran interviews with gang leaders describing their alleged ties to Nayib Bukele’s government, we left the country to avoid arrest. We ...

‘We were forced to burn bodies’: will survivors of the Tadamon massacres see justice?

23 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

During the conflict, the Damascus suburb became a killing field. But some of Assad’s henchmen are still around – and even working with the new gov...

From the archive: The last humanist: how Paul Gilroy became the most vital guide to our age of crisis

21 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

‘The English person with a Chinese stomach’: how Fuchsia Dunlop became a Sichuan food hero

19 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The author has been explaining Sichuan cuisine to westerners for decades. But ‘Fu Xia’, as she’s known, has had a profound effect on food lovers...

The dangerous rise of Buddhist extremism: ‘Attaining nirvana can wait’

16 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Still largely viewed as a peaceful philosophy, across much of south-east Asia, the religion has been weaponised to serve nationalist goals By Sonia Fa...

From the archive: Kudos, leaderboards, QOMs: how fitness app Strava became a religion

14 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

Hard to digest: we still live in Fast Food Nation

12 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Twenty-five years after I revealed the practices of the industrial food giants, the profits – and dangers – of mass producing meat and milk have o...

‘I wish I could say I kept my cool’: my maddening experience with the NHS wheelchair service

09 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

After I was paralysed in a climbing accident, I discovered how inconsiderate, illogical and incompetent many wheelchair providers can be By Paul Sagar...

From the archive: The cartel, the journalist and the gangland killings that rocked the Netherlands

07 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

Inside the rise and fall of Podemos: ‘We believed we had a stake in the future’

05 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The leftist party exploded out of Spain’s anti-austerity protests in 2011 and upended Spain’s entrenched two-party system. I was instantly captiva...

Best of 2025: ‘A relentless, destructive energy’: inside the trial of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon

02 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Every Monday and Friday for the rest of December we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2025, in case you missed them, with an intr...

Best of 2025: ‘What reconciliation? What forgiveness?’: Syria’s deadly reckoning

29 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Every Monday and Friday for the rest of December we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2025, in case you missed them, with an intr...

Best of 2025: The human stain remover: what Britain’s greatest extreme cleaner learned from 25 years on the job

26 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Every Monday and Friday for the rest of December we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2025, in case you missed them, with an intr...

Best of 2025: Life in a ‘sinking nation’: Tuvalu’s dreams of dry land

22 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Every Monday and Friday for the rest of December we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2025, in case you missed them, with an intr...

Best of 2025: The real Scandi noir: how a filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark’s self-image

19 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Every Monday and Friday for the rest of December we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2025, in case you missed them, with an intr...

Best of 2025: Don’t call it morning sickness: ‘At times in my pregnancy I wondered if this was death coming for me’

17 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Each week for the rest of December we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2025, in case you missed them, with an introduction from ...

The snail farm don: is this the most brazen tax avoidance scheme of all time?

15 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Terry Ball – renowned shoe salesman, friend to former mafiosi – has vowed to spend his remaining years finding ways to cheat authorities he feels ...

The Birth Keepers: I choose this – episode one

13 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Free Birth Society was selling pregnant women a simple message. They could exit the medical system and take back their power. By free birthing. Bu...

‘DeepSeek is humane. Doctors are more like machines’: my mother’s worrying reliance on AI for health advice

12 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Tired of a two-day commute to see her overworked doctor, my mother turned to tech for help with her kidney disease. She bonded with the bot so much I ...

From the archive: Is the IMF fit for purpose?

10 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

‘The police weren’t interested’: what’s driving the rise in private prosecutions?

08 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As the police and courts continue to struggle with the legacy of austerity, many people are seeking alternative routes to justice – but it could be ...

When I met Craig he was 13 and homeless. I still thought his life might turn around. I was tragically wrong

05 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I knew he was running away from something. It wasn’t until many years later that I discovered the truth Written and read by Pamela Gordon. Help supp...

From the archive: A day in the life of (almost) every vending machine in the world

03 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

‘They take the money and go’: why not everyone is mourning the end of USAID

01 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Donald Trump set about dismantling USAID, many around the world were shocked. But on the ground in Sierra Leone, the latest betrayal was not unex...

‘I knew in my head we were dying’: the last voyage of the Scandies Rose

28 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When a fishing boat left port in Alaska in December 2019 with an experienced crew, an icy storm was brewing. What happened to them shows why deep sea ...

From the archive: ‘If you decide to cut staff, people die’: how Nottingham prison descended into chaos

26 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

‘Scamming became the new farming’: inside India’s cybercrime villages

24 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How did an obscure district in a neglected state become India’s byword for digital deceit? By Snigdha Poonam. Read by Mikhail Sen. Help support our ...

Money talks: the deep ties between Twitter and Saudi Arabia

21 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Saudi Arabia’s investment in Twitter increased its influence in Silicon Valley while being used at home to shut down critics of the regime By Jacob ...

From the archive: how we lost our sensory connection with food – and how to restore it

19 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

The Pushkin job: unmasking the thieves behind an international rare books heist

17 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Between 2022 and 2023, as many as 170 rare and valuable editions of Russian classics were stolen from libraries across Europe. Were the thieves merely...

‘The jobless should lead the attack’: a radical Jamaican journalist in 1920s London

14 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Economic insecurity, race riots, incendiary media … Claude McKay was one of the few Black journalists covering a turbulent period that sounds all to...

From the archive: ‘We are so divided now’: how China controls thought and speech beyond its borders

12 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

Special Edition: Behind the scenes at the Long Read

11 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

To celebrate the launch of the new Guardian Long Read magazine this week, join the long read editor David Wolf in discussion with regular contributors...

Counting down to zero: the final warning from a climate diplomat

10 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Before Peter Betts died in 2023, he wanted to pass on what he had learned over many years of negotiating at Cops – including how Paris 2015 was save...

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

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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

From the archive: A drowning world: Kenya’s quiet slide underwater

05 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

‘Americans are democracy’s equivalent of second-generation wealth’: a Chinese journalist on the US under Trump

03 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Once a stalwart of Hong Kong’s journalism scene, Wang Jian has found a new audience on YouTube, dissecting global politics and US-China relations si...

The human stain remover: what Britain’s greatest extreme cleaner learned from 25 years on the job

31 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From murder scenes to whale blubber, Ben Giles has seen it – and cleaned it – all. In their stickiest hours, people rely on him to restore order B...

From the archive: The queen of crime-solving

29 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

A critique of pure stupidity: understanding Trump 2.0

27 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

If the first term of Donald Trump provoked anxiety over the fate of objective knowledge, the second has led to claims we live in a world-historical ag...

‘Resistance is when I put an end to what I don’t like’: The rise and fall of the Baader-Meinhof gang

24 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1970s, the radical leftwing German terrorist organisation may have spread fear through public acts of violence – but its inner workings were ...

From the archive: Who owns Einstein? The battle for the world’s most famous face

22 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

The origins of today’s conflict between American Jews over Israel

20 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the early years, American Jewish support for Israel was a fraught issue. The turning point was the six-day war of 1967, which solidified a strength...

‘I have to do it’: why one of the world’s most brilliant AI scientists left the US for China

17 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 2020, after spending half his life in the US, Song-Chun Zhu took a one-way ticket to China. Now he might hold the key to who wins the global AI rac...

From the archive: ‘Infertility stung me’: Black motherhood and me

15 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

‘What reconciliation? What forgiveness?’: Syria’s deadly reckoning

13 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Over a few brutal days in March, as sectarian violence and revenge killings tore through parts of Syria, two friends from different communities tried ...

Take away our language and we will forget who we are: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and the language of conquest

10 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The late Kenyan novelist and activist believed erasing language was the most lasting weapon of oppression. Here, Aminatta Forna recalls the man and in...

From the archive: The Blackstone rebellion: how one country took on the world’s biggest commercial landlord

08 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

‘We’ve done it before’: how not to lose hope in the fight against ecological disaster

06 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Some days it can feel as if climate catastrophe is inevitable. But history is full of cases – such as the banning of whaling and CFCs – that show ...

From bank robber to scholar: the Knoxville dropout fighting to change how we see addiction

03 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Kirsten Smith was 19 when she first tried heroin; within a few years she was in prison. She says she willingly made bad choices and wants society to s...

From the archive: Divine comedy: the standup double act who turned to the priesthood

01 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

‘A climate of unparalleled malevolence’: are we on our way to the sixth major mass extinction?

29 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Churning quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the rate we are going could lead the planet to another Great Dying By Peter Brannen. Read...

Bland, easy to follow, for fans of everything: what has the Netflix algorithm done to our films?

26 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When the streaming giant began making films guided by data that aimed to please a vast audience, the results were often generic, forgettable, artless ...

From the archive: Forgetting the apocalypse: why our nuclear fears faded – and why that’s dangerous

24 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

‘The forest had gone’: the storm that moved a mountain

22 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On a small ledge in the Swiss mountains, 200 people were enjoying a summer football tournament. As night fell, they had no idea what was coming By Jon...

Life in a ‘sinking nation’: Tuvalu’s dreams of dry land

19 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

With sea levels rising, much of the nation’s population is confronting the prospect that their home may soon cease to exist. Where are they going to...

From the archive: Sewage sleuths: the men who revealed the slow, dirty death of Welsh and English rivers

17 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

Very British bribery: the whistleblower who exposed the UK’s dodgy arms deals with Saudi Arabia

15 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Ian Foxley found evidence of corruption while working at a British company in Riyadh, he alerted the MoD. He didn’t know he’d stumbled upon o...

‘People pay to be told lies’: the rise and fall of the world’s first ayahuasca multinational

12 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Alberto Varela claimed he wanted to use sacred plant medicine to free people’s minds. But as the organisation grew, his followers discovered a darke...

From the archive: ‘We were all wrong’: how Germany got hooked on Russian energy

10 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

Dancing with Putin: how Austria’s former foreign minister found a new home in Russia

08 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Karin Kneissl made headlines around the world when she invited the Russian president to her wedding in 2018. Five years later, she moved to St Petersb...

Don’t call it morning sickness: ‘At times in my pregnancy I wondered if this was death coming for me’

05 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Victorians called it ‘pernicious vomiting of pregnancy’, but modern medicine has offered no end to the torture of hyperemesis gravidarum – u...

From the archive: ‘We need to break the junk food cycle’: how to fix Britain’s failing food system

03 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, f...

The rise and fall of the British cult that hid in plain sight

01 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Philippa Barnes was a child when her family joined the Jesus Fellowship. As an adult, she helped expose the shocking scale of abuse it had perpetrated...

Best of 2025 … so far: ‘The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the world’s biggest YouTube star

29 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Every Wednesday and Friday in August we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2025, in case you missed them, with an introduction fro...

Best of 2025 … so far: ‘Look, they’re getting skin!’: are we right to strive to save the world’s tiniest babies?

27 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Every Wednesday and Friday in August we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2025, in case you missed them, with an introduction fro...

The go-between: how Qatar became the global capital of diplomacy

25 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The tiny, astonishingly wealthy country has become a major player on the world stage, trying to solve some of the most intractable conflicts. What’s...

Best of 2025 … so far: an English gentleman, a crooked lawyer: the secrets of Stephen David Jones

22 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Every Wednesday and Friday in August we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2025, in case you missed them, with an introduction fro...

Best of 2025 … so far: Kahane’s ghost: how a long-dead extremist rabbi continues to haunt Israel’s politics

20 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Every Wednesday and Friday in August we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2025, in case you missed them, with an introduction fro...