Longreads

"In some cases, the damage is immediately apparent. Lightning, in addition to being very bright and very loud, is very hot—the air around it can hit temperatures about five times hotter than the surface of the sun—and so it can singe or burn people." —Jacob Stern for The Atlantic

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/04/lightning-strike-survivors-body-mind/686057/

#Lightning #LightningStrike #LightningStrikeSurvivor

"It was an encounter that started off well before veering profoundly off course." —Jesse Barron for Granta https://granta.com/transference-in-the-afternoon/?src=longreads #therapy #psychoanalysis #transference #reporting #journalism #longreads

"Though I don’t go to visit my mother’s grave, I like to think of the devil here, on a sunny hillside in a small town in Kansas visiting his son."

Traci Brimhall for Virginia Quarterly Review: https://www.vqronline.org/fall-2025/essays/devils-crown

#Longreads #Essay #Grief #Death #Motherhood

"I spoke to a playwright making $10,000 a month, a multitalented chemist who at various points found gigs demonstrating poker and singing for AI."

Josh Dzieza for The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/cs/features/877388/white-collar-workers-training-ai-mercor/

#Longreads #AI #Journalism #Technology #Work #Labor #Data #AITraining

"You could forget them in a closet, or you could embark on a quest, a trial of perseverance and devotion, ending in a cold and faraway stretch of ocean." — Maggie Shipstead for The New York Times Magazine https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/16/magazine/antartica-ashes-dying-wish.html/?src=longreads #travel #family #antarctica #journalism #longreads

"But after a dramatic pause, the computer flashed a bunch of red exes and a message: THE PLAY IS NOT VALID. Cam threw his hands behind his head in disbelief." —Stefan Fatsis for Defector

https://defector.com/competitive-scrabble-is-a-lexical-shitshow

#Scrabble #ScrabbleTournament #Lexicon #Dictionary

We've got your weekend reading ready! In this week's Top 5:
• Lost soul (Rolling Stone)
• Copy that (Art Forum)
• Missing beats (Defector Media)
• Muzzled watchdogs (The New Yorker)
• Ramblin' man (Texas Monthly)

https://longreads.com/2026/03/13/longreads-top-5-601/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

"I am not, as a rule, a two-finger typist; usually, my wrists rest where they please. This morning, the keyboard refuses me, and I cannot rest them, not even on the supposedly ergonomic padded strip. The instant skin touches surface, a bright sting strikes, then fades to a low hum." —Jan Steyn for The Dial

https://www.thedial.world/articles/news/gout-jan-steyn

#Gout #Inflammation #Pain #Disease #Translation #History #Language

"All of the experts I spoke with agreed that the charges were scientifically impossible. They also agreed that what really happens there is hard to explain." — Kaitlyn Tiffany for The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/03/haarp-weather-conspiracies/686264/?src=longreads #weather #conspiracy #science #haarp #journalism

"Practically overnight, we took an ancient vice—long regarded as soul-rotting and civilizationally ruinous—put it on everyone’s phone, and made it as normal and frictionless as checking the weather. What could possibly go wrong?" —McKay Coppins for The Atlantic

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/04/online-sports-betting-app-addiction/686061/

#Betting #SportsBetting #Gambling #GamblingAddiction #Journalism

"I’ve wandered into the heart of a fabled forest whose inhabitants both control and are controlled by their landscape, fates entwined." In a new feature, Kendra Atleework explores the Black Forest on the cusp of transformation. https://longreads.com/2026/03/12/into-the-darkness/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social #travel #climate #forest #trees #germany #history #journalism

"Pixar isn’t just dithering about diversity; it has become visibly scared of children themselves." —Eli Cugini for The Baffler

https://thebaffler.com/latest/problem-child-cugini/?src=longreads

#longreads #pixar #amination #diversity #films #reading

"Everything we can save is worth saving. Everything we can do is worth doing. We’ve already lost a lot, but we don’t have to lose everything. We don’t have to surrender." @RebeccaSolnit speaks with David Marchese for The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/magazine/rebecca-solnit-interview.html

#RebeccaSolnit #Interview #ClimateChange #Activism

"I thought about the circumstances that had brought me to Myanmar. I'd wanted to learn from journalists standing up to unimaginable repression."

Danny Fenster and Amy Kurzweil, The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/cs/features/820915/notes-burmese-prison-comic/

#Longreads #Comic #Illustration #Myanmar #Burmese #Prison #Incarceration #Journalists #Journalism

In this week's Longreads Questionnaire, Julian Brave NoiseCat shares the writers who inspire him, what's shaped him most, and where he does his best thinking.

https://longreads.com/2026/03/11/questionnaire-julian-brave-noisecat/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#Longreads #Writing #Creativity #Reading #Storytelling #Writers #Authors #Indigenous #Native

"I met my neighbors, a few of them at least, and gave them my attention, which, it has been said, is the simplest expression of love."

Jeffrey McWhorter for Texas Monthly: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/photos-walking-dallas-in-one-day/

#Longreads #Photography #Texas #Dallas #Cities #Urban #StreetLife

"Little wound up as an unidentified bag of bones behind a factory in a small town called Twinsburg years later. He was a John Doe until late 2021, when forensic genealogy revealed his identity. His murder, though, remains unsolved." —Brenna Ehrlic for @RollingStone

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ojays-frankie-little-murder-samuel-dixon-serial-killer-1235514736/

#Murder #ColdCase #Cleveland #FrankieLittleJr

"Almost every person I asked knew next to nothing. They had either never heard of it or were only vaguely aware of the details." —Dylan Alphenaar for Collegetown Magazine https://www.collegetownmagazine.com/articles/the-shooting-of-two-cornell-freshmen-1983-42-years-later?src=longreads #truecrime #longreads #reporting #journalism

"There are plants and then there are plants that make you sink to your knees and weep." —Charlie McCann for The Economist's 1843 Magazine https://www.economist.com/1843/2026/03/06/my-road-trip-with-the-do-gooding-cactus-smugglers?src=longreads

"Some people measure home by a skyline or sound; I measure it by what gets into my sinuses."

Ana Marie Cox for Texas Highways: https://texashighways.com/culture/finding-a-sense-of-place-in-the-discomfort-of-cedar-fever/

#Longreads #Essay #Texas #Home #Belonging #Pollen #Allergies

"I couldn’t wipe chatbots from their world, any more than I can wipe phones. All I could do was decide how much I would steer students toward them and how much I would nudge them toward other experiences." —Peter C Baker for @theguardian.com

https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2026/mar/03/cheating-machine-or-powerful-assistant-the-ai-anxieties-of-a-trainee-teacher/?src=longreads

#longreads #teaching #teachers #AI #learning #writing

In this week's Top 5:

• Eschatology, Texas style
• Dancing like nobody’s watching
• The men, the myths, the legends
• Monumental responses
• Notes fit for a King

#longreads

https://longreads.com/2026/03/06/longreads-top-5-600/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

"Perhaps we already have reached that 'point of no return' at which the pursuit of realism . . . is offering a set of diminishing returns." —Patrick R. Crowley for Artforum https://www.artforum.com/features/patrick-r-crowley-mimesis-1234743983/?src=longreads #artificialintelligence #generativeAI #cloning #realism #slop #essay #longreads

What is Rebecca Solnit really good at? "Fact-checking. Birthday cakes. Remembering obscure scraps of information prompted by the conversation at hand (even if I can’t remember essential things that I should, like appointments and the names of anyone I haven’t gotten to know really well)." https://longreads.com/2026/03/04/questionnaire-rebecca-solnit/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social #interviews #longreads #writing #creativity

"He sensed tension between the band members and Guzmán, and he noticed that the individual Sailors seemed to be scraping by."

An excerpt from the new Atavist issue by Peter Ward—about the dark secret of a ShantyTok folk band:

https://longreads.com/2026/03/05/sea-shanty-wales-atavist/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#Longreads #Nonfiction #Journalism #Wales #Folk #Music #Slavery #Labor #ShantyTok #SeaShanty

"What caught me most off guard was that Lee didn’t just want to talk about something else or end the interview, which was close to running out of its allotted time. Instead, he really wanted to 'challenge' me, as he put it, on the ethics of asking him about this." —Nate Rogers for Defector Media https://defector.com/a-complimentary-profile-of-jason-lee-that-was-surprisingly-difficult-to-publish?src=longreads #celebrity #profile #journalism #longreads

"How do you write honestly about one of your heroes, about a man who has inspired and intimidated you in equal measure? Tom Junod’s name was once synonymous with Esquire . . . His byline sits atop some of the most profound and provocative stories that Esquire and GQ have ever published." —John Hendrickson for Esquire

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a70320859/tom-junod-interview-2026/

#Esquire #Profile #Writer #TomJunod

"Other transitions are fuzzier. When exactly did the medieval period give way to the Renaissance? When exactly is emerging adulthood overtaken by established adulthood?" — Shayla Love for The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/when-do-we-become-adults-really?src=longreads #science #history #life #longreads #understanding #growingup

"When I write to Youngblood in prison, he says the case against him was a lie. He insists he is innocent. His letters are written in neat, looping handwriting, their tone conspiratorial: 'There’s so much you do not know.… Write your hit piece. So be it. But you’d be wrong.'" — Matthew Bremner for Rolling Stone https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/kota-youngblood-12-million-fraud-1235511404/?src=longreads #truecrime #longreads #fraud #investigation

This week's Top 5:

* Subsea storytelling (Wired)
* Preservation paradox @hackernoon
* Serpentine symbiosis (Oxford American)
* Investigating infinity @QuantaMagazine
* Marijuana mystery @sfgate

https://longreads.com/2026/02/27/top-5-of-week-599/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#Longreads #WeeklyTop5 #EditorsPicks #Curation

"Imagine a border agent who has just opened a box of shark-like fins or a shipment of live parrots and needs to know whether the particular species is one that can legally be captured and transported."

Matthew Ponsford for MIT Technology Review: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/02/24/1132760/conservationists-making-rhinos-radioactive/

#Longreads #Wildlife #Conservation #AI #Technology #Trafficking #Poaching

"Why do these artificial companions lead us down such dangerous paths? One AI scholar recently argued that what happens when a human and a chatbot engage in conversation should be understood as co-hallucination." —Kristen French for Nautilus

https://nautil.us/why-youre-more-likely-to-develop-ai-psychosis-than-to-join-a-cult-1270352/ ?src=longreads

#longreads #AI #mentalhealth #hallucination #chatbots #writing #reading

A mysterious YouTube video gave thousands of people a place to breathe. Then it vanished. Find out what happened next in this moving essay from Bijan Stephen https://longreads.com/2026/02/26/internet-checkpoint-taia777-donkey-kong/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social #internet #culture #essay #longreads

"To understand the Archive is to understand the physical reality of digital memory. It is a story of 20,000 hard drives, 45 miles of cabling, and a vision that began in 1996. . . ."

Bruce Li for HackerNoon: https://hackernoon.com/the-long-now-of-the-web-inside-the-internet-archives-fight-against-forgetting

#Longreads #Internet #Web #Technology #Hardware #Servers #WaybackMachine #InternetArchive

"I consider it my business to help people understand that the networks we rely on are made of physical things, created and maintained by people, so that we can stop saying infrastructure is invisible as if the people are invisible too." —Jane Ruffino for Wired https://www.wired.com/story/say-goodbye-to-the-undersea-cable-that-made-the-global-internet-possible/?src=longreads #technology #communication #oceans #longreads #infrastructure #sharks

The NCAA has those commercials...about how most athletes go pro in something other than sports. But in Vegas, most of these students, many of them finance majors, will go pro in spreadsheeting." —Jesse Dougherty for The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/interactive/2026/college-excel-spreadsheet-championships/?src=longreads #sports #spreadsheets #excel #athletes #longreads

"Out of 365 days, why this one? I was afraid Tomm would’ve resented sharing the day with his nephew, or, worse, that I’d collapse their souls into one."

A brother lost, a son born, and the strange arithmetic of love. A new #longreads
essay by Maria Zorn: https://longreads.com/2026/02/24/motherhood-grief-loss/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#Essay #Writing #Motherhood #Mothers #Parenting #Grief #Loss #Brother #Siblings

"I had the uncanny sense that I’d been drawn into the centre of a web that Charles had been carefully weaving for decades." —Jon Tattrie for The Walrus

https://thewalrus.ca/he-was-a-legendary-newsroom-colleague-turned-out-he-had-a-secret-past/

#Mystery #BlackFantasyAuthor

"But it turns out that a lot of my so-called thoughts . . . are preverbal, often showing up as images, sensations, or concepts, with words trailing behind as a kind of afterthought, belated attempts to translate these elusive wisps of meaning into something more substantial and shareable."

—Michael Pollan for @TheGuardian@mstdn.social

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/feb/19/inside-voice-what-can-our-thoughts-reveal-about-the-nature-of-consciousness

#Consciousness #TheBrain #BookExcerpt

"Some people are quiet because they’re afraid of things. She was quiet because she was industrious." —John Danaher to Laura Mallonee for her Texas Monthly profile of Helena Crevar https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/teenager-helena-crevar-best-female-jujitsu-grappler/?src=longreads #jiujitsu #brazilianjiujitsu #profiles #journalism #longreads

"Half a century had passed between the monk supposedly growing pot in the monastery garden and Fratis getting these seeds. Back to square one."—Lester Black for SFGATE

https://www.sfgate.com/cannabis/article/big-sur-holy-weed-21350979.php/?src=longreads

#longreads #bigsur #california #weed #cannabis #essay #writing

"If I stayed home I would never be able to see just how far human stupidity goes." —Françoise Ega, translated by Emma Ramadan, for The New York Review of Books https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/02/10/fill-it-with-reality/?src=longreads #diary #france #labor #longreads

This week's Top 5:

ㆍTwin Cities resistance (The Verge)
ㆍPsychedelic self-reinvention (Granta)
ㆍGuardians of the ranch (Smithsonian)
ㆍA file of fragments (VQR)
ㆍPantone’s political white (LARB)

https://longreads.com/2026/02/20/top-5-of-week-598/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#Longreads #Writing #Journalism #Reading #Essay

"No matter the circumstance, particularly in the Southern literary tradition, encounters between rattlesnakes and humans are nearly always a zero-sum game. Someone will always end up dead—sometimes a person, more often the snake." —Elsa Pearl for Oxford American

https://oxfordamerican.org/oa-now/rattlesnakes-at-my-door

#Snakes #TimberRattlesnake #Appalachia

"As the region reconstitutes itself along modern lines, the plateau is becoming, ironically, more wild. Strange and macabre scenes are common." —Chris Pomorski for Smithsonian Magazine #longreads

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-coyotes-threatened-livestock-central-texas-ranches-solution-unlock-ancient-ability-dogs-180988099/?src=longreads

#longreads #Texas #ranch #guardiandog #dogs #goats #sheep

"Given the American authorities’ current contempt for Denmark, despite our many years of faithful service in their wars, it might not have been the best idea to put most of our infrastructure in the pockets of tech bros in puffer vests." —Anna Juul for The Dial

https://www.thedial.world/articles/news/mail-postal-service-denmark

#Denmark #DigitalUnderclass #PostalService

"I came looking for history. Instead, it began asking something of me. Not remembrance—that was easy—but response."

Masha Hamilton traces her great-grandfather's escape from the 1917 Bisbee Deportation: https://longreads.com/2026/02/19/bisbee-deportation-vigilantes-miners/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

#Longreads #Essay #History #Deportation #Bisbee #Arizona #Strike #Miners