The Audio Long Read

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 Silverman. Read by Nezar Alderazi. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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, from 2022: to eat in the modern world is often to eat in a state of profound sensory disengagement. It shouldn't have to be this way By Bee Wilson. Read by Lucy Scott. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 low-level opportunists, or were bigger forces at work? By Philip Oltermann. Read by Daniela Denby Ashe. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

Economic insecurity, race riots, incendiary media … Claude McKay was one of the few Black journalists covering a turbulent period that sounds all too familiar to us today By Yvonne Singh. Read by Karl Queensborough. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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, from 2021: the arrest of a Tibetan New York city cop on spying charges plays into the community's long-held suspicions that the People's Republic is watching them By Lauren Hilgers. Read by Emily Woo Zeller. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 Charlotte Higgins and Hettie O'Brien. The Guardian long read magazine is available to order at theguardian.com/longreadmag In this issue, you'll find pieces on how MrBeast became the world's biggest YouTube star, how Emmanuel Macron deals with Donald Trump, and shocking revelations at the British Museum. Plus: what's behind our rampant steroid use?. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 saved at the last bell By Peter Betts. Read by Andrew McGregor. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

A colossal volcanic eruption in January 2022 ripped apart the underwater cables that connect Tonga to the world – and exposed the fragility of 21st-century life By Samanth Subramanian. Read by Raj Ghatak. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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, from 2022: Kenya's great lakes are flooding, in a devastating and long-ignored environmental disaster that is displacing hundreds of thousands of people By Carey Baraka. Read by Reice Weathers. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 since the pandemic. To his fans, he's part newscaster, part professor, part friend By Lauren Hilgers. Read by G Cheng. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 By Tom Lamont. Read by Elis James. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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, from 2022: forensic scientist Angela Gallop has helped to crack many of the UK's most notorious murder cases. But today she fears the whole field – and justice itself – is at risk By Imogen West-Knights. Read by Lucy Scott. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 age of stupid, accelerated by big tech. But might there be a way out? By William Davies. Read by Dan Starkey. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

In the 1970s, the radical leftwing German terrorist organisation may have spread fear through public acts of violence – but its inner workings were characterised by vanity and incompetence By Jason Burke. Read by Noof Ousellam. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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, from 2022: Thanks to a savvy California lawyer, Albert Einstein has earned far more posthumously than he ever did in his lifetime. But is that what the great scientist would have wanted? By Simon Parkin. Read by Ruth Lass. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 of feeling that has only recently begun to fracture By Mark Mazower. Read by Kerry Shale. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 race By Chang Che. Read by Vincent Lai. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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, from 2022: I assumed I would be part of the first generation to have full agency over my reproduction – but I was wrong By Edna Bonhomme. Read by Nerissa Bradley. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

Over a few brutal days in March, as sectarian violence and revenge killings tore through parts of Syria, two friends from different communities tried to find a way to survive By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad. Read by Mo Ayoub. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

The late Kenyan novelist and activist believed erasing language was the most lasting weapon of oppression. Here, Aminatta Forna recalls the man and introduces his essay on decolonisation By Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o with introduction by Aminatta Forna. Read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith and Aminatta Forna. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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, from 2022: the giant asset management firm used to target places where people worked and shopped. Then it started buying up people's homes. In one country, the backlash was ferocious By Hettie O'Brien. Read by Evelyn Miller. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 humanity can come together to avert disaster By Kate Marvel. Read by Norma Butikofer. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 stop treating addiction as a disease By Xi Chen. Read by Katherine Fenton. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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, from 2022: Josh and Jack used to interrogate life via absurdist jokes and sketches. But the questions they had just kept getting bigger – and led them both to embark upon a profound transformation By Lamorna Ash. Read by Katie Lyons. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 by Lincoln Conway. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

When the streaming giant began making films guided by data that aimed to please a vast audience, the results were often generic, forgettable, artless affairs. But is there a happy ending? By Phil Hoad. Read by Adam Sims. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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, from 2022: The horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made the whole world afraid of the atomic bomb – even those who might launch one. Today that fear has mostly passed out of living memory, and with it we may have lost a crucial safeguard By Daniel Immerwahr. Read by Christopher Ragland. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 Jonah Goodman. Read by Evelyn Miller. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 go? By Atul Dev. Read by Mikhail Sen Check out Between Moon Tides documentary at theguardian.com. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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, from 2022: A tide of effluent, broken laws and ruthless cuts is devastating the nation's waterways. An academic and a detective have dredged up the truth of how it was allowed to happen – but will anything be done? By Oliver Bullough. Read by Peter Searles. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 one of its most closely guarded secrets By David Pegg. Read by Shane Zaza. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

Alberto Varela claimed he wanted to use sacred plant medicine to free people's minds. But as the organisation grew, his followers discovered a darker reality. By Sam Edwards. Read by Sid Sagar. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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, from 2022: Germany has been forced to admit it was a terrible mistake to become so dependent on Russian oil and gas. So why did it happen? By Patrick Wintour. Read by Andrew McGregor. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 Petersburg. The scandal revealed a dark truth about the ties between Vienna and Moscow By Amanda Coakley. Read by Avena Mansergh-Wallace. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

The Victorians called it ‘pernicious vomiting of pregnancy', but modern medicine has offered no end to the torture of hyperemesis gravidarum – until now. By Abi Stephenson. Read by Nicolette Chin. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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, from 2021: From ultra-processed junk to failing supply chains and rocketing food poverty, there are serious problems with the way the UK eats. Will the government ever act? By Bee Wilson. Read by Elinor Coleman. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 By Barbara Speed. Read by Robyn Addison. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 from the editorial team to explain why we've chosen it. This week, from June: 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 simply very savvy clickbait – or acts of avant garde genius? Written and read by Mark O'Connell. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 from the editorial team to explain why we've chosen it. This week, from January: doctors are pushing the limits of science and human biology to save more extremely premature babies than ever before. But when so few survive, are we putting them through needless suffering? By Sophie McBain. Read by Chloe Pirrie. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 driving this project? By Nesrine Malik. Read by Sulin Hasso. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 from the editorial team to explain why we've chosen it. This week, from June: with his brilliant mind and impeccable credentials, it's little wonder that wealthy clients trusted him with their fortunes. Then they started to get suspicious By Hettie O'Brien. Read by Simon Vance. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

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 from the editorial team to explain why we've chosen it. This week, from April: 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 government By Joshua Leifer. Read by Kerry Shale. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod