The Audio Long Read
Episodes
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...
Starmer v Starmer: why is the former human rights lawyer so cautious about defending human rights?
18 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Many of his supporters hoped the prime minister would restore the UK’s commitment to international law. Yet Labour’s record over the past year has...
Best of 2025 … so far: The savage suburbia of Helen Garner: ‘I wanted to dong Martin Amis with a bat’
15 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: ‘I am not who you think I am’: how a deep-cover KGB spy recruited his own son
13 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...
How Pakistan fell in love with sushi
11 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Once upon a time, Pakistanis scorned raw fish. Now sushi is everywhere from Ramadan meals to wedding buffets – and it all started with one man and a...
Best of 2025 … so far: ‘The ghosts are everywhere’: can the British Museum survive its omni-crisis?
08 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: the great abandonment: what happens to the natural world when people disappear?
06 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 Shining: my trip to the G7 horror show with Emmanuel Macron
04 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Deeply unpopular in France, President Macron relishes the international stage, where he projects himself as the leader best placed to handle Trump. Se...
Are we witnessing the death of international law?
01 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A growing number of scholars and lawyers are losing faith in the current system. Others say the law is not to blame, but the states that are supposed ...
From the archive: Bicycle graveyards: why do so many bikes end up underwater?
30 Jul 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...
Poison in the water: the town with the world’s worst case of forever chemicals contamination
28 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When a small Swedish town discovered their drinking water contained extremely high levels of Pfas, they had no idea what it would mean for their healt...
‘A relentless, destructive energy’: inside the trial of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon
25 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How did the daughter of an aristocrat end up at the Old Bailey with her partner, charged with killing their two-week-old baby? By Sophie Elmhirst. Rea...
From the archive: how two BBC journalists risked their jobs to reveal the truth about Jimmy Savile
23 Jul 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 curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull, a disputed femur and a bitter feud over humanity’s origins
21 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When fossilised remains were discovered in the Djurab desert in 2001, they were hailed as radically rewriting the history of our species. But not ever...
Horse racing and erotica: how I survived the fickle world of freelance writing
18 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Gabrielle Drolet had always dreamed of being a writer. But when disability closed down most of her opportunities, a strange career began By Gabrielle ...
From the archive: The sludge king: how one man turned an industrial wasteland into his own El Dorado
16 Jul 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...
Sold to the Trump family: one of the last undeveloped islands in the Mediterranean
14 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner have spent more than $1bn on an Albanian island that will be a luxury resort – once the unexploded ordnan...
How does woke start winning again?
11 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
British progressives have suffered major setbacks in recent years, in both public opinion and court rulings. Was a backlash inevitable, and are new ta...
From the archive: The death of the department store
09 Jul 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...
‘Do you have a family?’: midlife with no kids, ageing parents – and no crisis
07 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In my 40s, I found myself with a life that didn’t look like it was ‘supposed’ to. What was I doing? On trips to South Korea with my mother, an a...
Why does Switzerland have more nuclear bunkers than any other country?
04 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Switzerland is home to more than 370,000 nuclear bunkers – enough to shelter every member of the population. But if the worst should happen, would t...
From the archive: ‘You can’t be the player’s friend’: inside the secret world of tennis umpires
02 Jul 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...
My husband and son suffered strokes, 30 years apart. Shockingly little had changed
30 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I was told my husband would never talk again, while physiotherapy was dismissed entirely. My son was failed in similar ways, but for the brilliance of...
‘The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the world’s biggest YouTube star
27 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
He’s spent 24 hours immersed in slime, two days buried alive – and showered vast amounts of cash on lucky participants. But are MrBeast’s videos...
From the archive: ‘A nursery of the Commons’: how the Oxford Union created today’s ruling political class
25 Jun 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...
‘Outdated and unjust’: can we reform global capitalism?
23 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
President Trump’s tariffs have plunged the world economy into chaos. But history counsels against despair – and the left should seize on capitalis...
Extremely loud and incredibly scouse: how Jamie Carragher conquered football punditry
20 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Football coverage no longer stops after the final whistle. And in this new era, the former Liverpool defender reigns supreme By Kieran Morris. Read by...
From the archive: Burying Leni Riefenstahl: one woman’s lifelong crusade against Hitler’s favourite film-maker
18 Jun 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...
‘You can let go now’: inside the hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain
16 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In a Danish palliative care unit, the alternative to assisted dying is not striving to cure – offering relief and comfort to patients and their fami...
An English gentleman, a crooked lawyer: the secrets of Stephen David Jones
13 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With his brilliant mind and impeccable credentials, it’s little wonder that wealthy clients trusted him with their fortunes. Then they started to ge...
From the archive: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: three days with a giant of African literature
11 Jun 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...
Death, divorce and the magic of kitchen objects: how to find hope in loss
09 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As they pass through different hands, cooking utensils can magically connect us to loved ones who are no longer with us By Bee Wilson. Read by Colleen...
Missing in the Amazon: the disappearance – episode 1
06 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Three years ago British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian indigenous defender Bruno Pereira vanished while on a reporting trip near Brazil’s rem...
A deadly mission: how Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira tried to warn the world about the Amazon’s destruction
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Guardian journalist and the Brazilian Indigenous expert were killed while investigating the impact of deforestation. In this extract from the book...
From the archive: Alan Yentob: the last impresario
04 Jun 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 know what is happening, we cannot walk away’: how the Guardian bore witness to horror in former Yugoslavia
02 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
During the decade-long conflicts, the major powers dithered as Serb militias carried out their brutal campaigns of ethnic cleansing. Guardian reporter...
The ancient psychedelics myth: ‘People tell tourists the stories they think are interesting for them’
30 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The narrative of ancient tribes around the world regularly using ayahuasca and magic mushrooms in healing practices is a popular one. Is it true? By M...
From the archive: The lost Jews of Nigeria
28 May 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 thought we could change the world’: how an idealistic fight against miscarriages of justice turned sour
26 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When a no-nonsense lecturer set up a radical solution to help free the wrongfully convicted in the UK, he was hopeful he could change the justice syst...
‘All other avenues have been exhausted’: Is legal action the only way to save the planet?
23 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Monica Feria-Tinta is one of a growing number of lawyers using the courts to make governments around the world take action By Samira Shackle. Read by ...
From the archive: Super-prime mover: Britain’s most successful estate agent
21 May 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 year of hate: what I learned when I went undercover with the far right
19 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Working for Hope Not Hate, I infiltrated an extremist organisation, befriended its members and got to work investigating their political connections W...
‘I am not who you think I am’: how a deep-cover KGB spy recruited his own son
16 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For the first time, the man the KGB codenamed ‘the Inheritor’ tells his story By Shaun Walker. Read by James Faulkner. Help support our independen...
From the archive: What lies beneath: the truth about France’s top serial killer expert
14 May 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...
‘Why would he take such a risk?’ How a famous Chinese author befriended his censor
12 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Online dissent is a serious crime in China. So why did a Weibo censor help me publish posts critical of the Communist party? By Murong Xuecun. Read by...
The mystery of the nameless girl found dead in a Spanish border town
09 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On a summer morning in 1990, the body of a young woman appeared in a small town close to the frontier. For those who saw her, finding her identity bec...
From the archive: Food fraud and counterfeit cotton: the detectives untangling the global supply chain
07 May 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...
From acid house to ancient rites: Jeremy Deller’s enormous, collaborative, unsellable art
05 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The artist Jeremy Deller can’t really draw or paint. Instead of making things, he makes things happen. And later this year, he is planning to unleas...
What happens when the US declares war on your parents? The Black Panther Cubs know
02 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Black Panthers shook America awake before the party was eviscerated by the US government. Their children paid a steep price, but also emerged with...
From the archive: The last phone boxes: broken glass, cider cans and – amazingly – a dial tone
30 Apr 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...
Many life-saving drugs fail for lack of funding. But there’s a solution: desperate rich people
28 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Each year, hundreds of potentially world-changing treatments are discarded because scientists run out of cash. But where big pharma or altruists fear ...
In search of the South Pacific fugitive who crowned himself king
25 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Noah Musingku made a fortune with a Ponzi scheme and then retreated to a remote armed compound in the jungle, where he still commands the loyalty of h...
From the archive: ‘I pleaded for help. No one wrote back’: the pain of watching my country fall to the Taliban
23 Apr 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 real Scandi noir: how a filmmaker and a crooked lawyer shattered Denmark’s self-image
21 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Black Swan follows a repentant master criminal as she sets up corrupt clients in front of hidden cameras. But is she really reformed – and is th...
Kahane’s ghost: how a long-dead extremist rabbi continues to haunt Israel’s politics
18 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A violent fanatic and pioneer in bigotry, Meir Kahane died a political outcast 35 years ago. Today, his ideas influence the very highest levels of gov...
From the archive: The great betrayal: how the Hillsborough families were failed by the justice system
15 Apr 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...
My mother, the racist
14 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
She spent her life in northern France doing exhausting, back-breaking work – and yet she turned her anger against people who had done no wrongs to h...
The reluctant collaborator: surviving Syria’s brutal civil war – and its aftermath
11 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At 18, Mustafa was told his only way out of prison was to join the regime forces. After 14 years, his past as one of Assad’s fighters could get him ...
From the archive: Votes for children! Why we should lower the voting age to six
09 Apr 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 Rainham volcano: a waste dump is constantly on fire in east London. Why will no one stop it?
07 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Under Arnolds Field, tonnes of illegally dumped waste have been burning for years, spewing pollution over the area. Locals fear for their health – a...
It came from outer space: the meteorite that landed in a Cotswolds cul-de-sac
04 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Meteorite falls are extremely rare and offer a glimpse of the processes that formed our world billions of years ago. When a space rock came to an Engl...
From the archive: ‘The treeline is out of control’: how the climate crisis is turning the Arctic green
02 Apr 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...
Holidays in hell: summer camp with Russia’s forgotten children
31 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At the rural orphanage where I volunteered, the place resembled a Dickensian workhouse. The staff’s main tools were antipsychotics and violence. The...
The savage suburbia of Helen Garner: ‘I wanted to dong Martin Amis with a bat’
28 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Over 50 years, she has become one of the most revered writers in Australia. Is she finally going to get worldwide recognition? By Sophie Elmhirst. Rea...
From the archive: Is society coming apart?
26 Mar 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 Coventry experiment: why were Indian women in Britain given radioactive food without their consent?
24 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When details about a scientific study in the 1960s became public, there was shock, outrage and anxiety. But exactly what happened? By Samira Shackle. ...
My life as a prison officer: ‘It wasn’t just the smell that hit you. It was the noise’
21 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I saw first hand how prisons are having to use segregation units for acutely mentally ill inmates who should not be in prison at all Written and read ...
From the archive: The revolt against liberalism: what’s driving Poland and Hungary’s nativist turn?
19 Mar 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 ghosts are everywhere’: can the British Museum survive its omni-crisis?
17 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Beset by colonial controversy, difficult finances and the discovery of a thief on the inside, Britain’s No 1 museum is in deep trouble. Can it resto...
Turkey said it would become a ‘zero waste’ nation. Instead, it became a dumping ground for Europe’s rubbish
14 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When China stopped receiving the world’s waste, Turkey became Europe’s recycling hotspot. The problem is, most plastics can’t be recycled. And w...
From the archive: The end of Atlanticism: has Trump killed the ideology that won the cold war?
12 Mar 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...
Signature moves: are we losing the ability to write by hand?
10 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We are far more likely to use our hands to type or swipe than pick up a pen. But in the process we are in danger of losing cognitive skills, sensory e...
‘Here lives the monster’s brain’: the man who exposed Switzerland’s dirty secrets
07 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Inspired by Che Guevara, Jean Ziegler has spent the past 60 years exposing how Switzerland enabled global wrongdoing. His enemies accuse him of treaso...
From the archive: ‘In my 30 years as a GP, the profession has been horribly eroded’
05 Mar 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...
Massacre in the jungle: how an Indigenous man was made the public face of an atrocity
03 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2004, 29 people were killed by members of the Cinta Larga tribe in Brazil’s Amazon basin. The story shocked the country – but the truth of what...
Israel and the delusions of Germany’s ‘memory culture’
28 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Germany embraced Israel to atone for its wartime guilt. But was this in part a way to avoid truly confronting its past? By Pankaj Mishra. Read by Mikh...
From the archive: One drug dealer, two corrupt cops and a risky FBI sting
26 Feb 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...
Innit innit boys and Super Eagles: how Nigerian Londoners found their identity through football
24 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For the children of the Nigerian diaspora, displaced by war and split between two worlds, footballers from John Fashanu to Jay-Jay Okocha were a first...
The mysterious novelist who foresaw Putin’s Russia – and then came to symbolise its moral decay
21 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Victor Pelevin made his name in 90s Russia with scathing satires of authoritarianism. But while his literary peers have faced censorship and fled the ...