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Best Articles

Best Article Sports

Federer as Religious Experience

On the joy of watching Roger play live at Wimbledon.

David Foster Wallace Play Aug 2006 30min Permalink

Best Article Sports

Still Life

On October 17, 1973, John McClamrock was paralyzed playing high school football. Doctors doubted he would make it through the night. But he and his mother refused to give up—for more than three decades.

Skip Hollandsworth Texas Monthly May 2009 30min Permalink

Best Article World

Out of Thin Air: The Mystery of the Man Who Fell From the Sky

In 2019, the body of a man fell from a passenger plane into a garden in south London. Who was he?

Sirin Kale Guardian Apr 2021 25min Permalink

Best Article Science

52 Blue

The story of the loneliest whale in the world.

Read more

The Longform Guide to Sea Creatures

Leslie Jamison The Atavist Magazine Aug 2014 50min Permalink

Best Article Arts World

Surviving the Crackdown in Xinjiang

As mass detentions and surveillance dominate the lives of China’s Uyghurs and Kazakhs, a woman struggles to free herself.

Raffi Khatchadourian New Yorker Apr 2021 1h10min Permalink

Best Article

Who Invented the High Five?

The origin story of a now-ubiquitous celebration.

Jon Mooallem ESPN Jul 2011 15min Permalink

Best Article Sex Health

I Spent My Life Consenting to Touch I Didn’t Want

A year of isolation made me consider all the casual, unwanted touch women endure — and why it’s so hard to refuse it.

Melissa Febos New York Times Magazine Apr 2021 20min Permalink

Best Article Tech

Secrets of the Little Blue Box

How phone phreakers, many of them blind, opened up Ma Bell to unlimited free international calling using a technical manual and a toy organ.

Ron Rosenbaum Esquire Oct 1971 55min Permalink

Best Article Sports

Water's Edge

On Bill May, considered to be the greatest male synchronized swimmer who ever lived, and his long quest for Olympic gold.

Taffy Brodesser-Akner ESPN Mar 2016 20min Permalink

Best Article History

Land-Grab Universities

Expropriated Indigenous land is the foundation of the land-grant university system.

Robert Lee, Tristan Ahtone High Country News Apr 2020 25min Permalink

Best Article Science

The Identity Hoaxers

What if people don’t just invent medical symptoms to get attention—what if they feign oppression, too?

Helen Lewis The Atlantic Mar 2021 Permalink

Best Article Crime

The Poet

She escaped a crazed psychopath at 16. Decades later, as the BTK serial killer terrorizes Wichita, she has to run for her life again. The identity of her tormentor is too chilling to believe.

Corey Mead Truly*Adventurous Mar 2021 40min Permalink

Best Article

I Wanted to Know What White Men Thought About Their Privilege. So I Asked.

The author teaches a college class about what it means to be white in America, but interrogating that question as a black woman in the real world is much harder to do.

Claudia Rankine New York Times Magazine Jul 2019 25min Permalink

Best Article Sports Health

The Most Amazing Bowling Story Ever

In a Plano bowling alley one night, Bill Fong came so close to perfection that it nearly killed him.

Michael J. Mooney D Magazine Jun 2012 20min Permalink

Best Article

The Lyman Family’s Holy Siege of America

A Manson-contemporary cult group rises out of a jug band, builds a fortress in the Boston ghetto, bullies control of a community newspaper, swallows a successful actor, fractures, splits for California, and attempts to describe to the reporter the enigma that is Mel Lyman.

David Felton Rolling Stone Dec 1971 3h55min Permalink

Best Article Health Media

5 Pandemic Mistakes We Keep Repeating

The assumptions made by public officials, and the choices made by media, too often backfired.

Zeynep Tufekci The Atlantic Feb 2021 25min Permalink

Best Article

This Old Man

Love, loss, and life at 93.

Roger Angell New Yorker Feb 2014 20min Permalink

Best Article Crime

Love and Fire

Serial arson in rural Virginia: a love story.

Read more

Previously: The Longorm Guide to Fire.

Monica Hesse Washington Post Apr 2014 30min Permalink

Best Article Science Health

The Forgotten Sense

Could the pandemic teach us why our sense of smell matters?

Brooke Jarvis New York Times Magazine Jan 2021 35min Permalink

Best Article Politics

The Race to Dismantle Trump’s Immigration Policies

Trump transformed immigration through hundreds of quiet measures. Before they can be reversed, they have to be uncovered.

Sarah Stillman New Yorker Feb 2021 30min Permalink

Best Article Crime Tech

A Vast Web of Vengeance

Outrageous lies destroyed Guy Babcock’s online reputation. When he went hunting for their source, what he discovered was worse than he could have imagined.

Kashmir Hill New York Times Jan 2021 15min Permalink

Best Article Travel

The Kenyan Maasai Who Once Hunted Lions Are Now Their Saviors

A decade ago, scientists worried the lion could go extinct in Kenya by 2020. But today the area’s lion population is thriving thanks to an extraordinary group.

Andrew Dubbins The Daily Beast Jan 2021 30min Permalink

Best Article Business

Stock Manipulator, S.E.C. Nemesis—and 15

Using several email addresses and a lot of exclamation points, teenager Jonathan Lebed worked finance message boards in the morning before school and made almost a million bucks. Then he made the head of the S.E.C. look like a fool.

Read more

Previously: Michael Lewis on the Longform Podcast

Michael Lewis New York Times Magazine Feb 2001 35min Permalink

Best Article Health

How I Helped My Dad Die

His body wrecked by ALS, the author’s father insisted that his death, like his life, was his to control.

Esmé E Deprez Bloomberg Businessweek Jan 2021 20min Permalink

Best Article

Been Down So Long It Looks Like Debt to Me

An American family’s struggle for student loan redemption.

M.H. Miller The Baffler Jul 2018 20min Permalink

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