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tThis autumn marks 10 years since we launched The Guardian long read. Looking back now, it’s hard to remember how contradictory the idea seemed at the time: it was a time when more and more people were wondering whether readers still had an appetite for something longer than a few hundred words, or even 140 characters. . Creating a dedicated space within The Guardian for multiple 5,000 (or more) word articles per week (many of which would take months, even years to produce) seemed like a quixotic project. Fortunately, our readers felt otherwise and embraced our deeply researched stories on everything from the “cruel, paranoid and failed” Home Office and the battle against the Islamic State to the strange world of competitive plowing and the rise of hygge.
Just a few months after launching the Long Read, our audio team had the bright idea to launch the Long Read Podcast. The idea was simple: get a great voice actor to read the articles aloud. That was it. It turned out that listeners loved it. (A few years ago, I briefly met Ed Miliband, who told me he liked to listen to the podcast when he was swimming in the pool.)
Since then, we have produced over 1000 audio long readings. It would take you about two months to listen to them all, if you spent 12 hours a day doing nothing else. While I wholeheartedly support this use of your time, below we’ve selected just five of our favorites.
We also have a variety of 10th anniversary content in the audio long read feed, which began earlier this week with a roundtable between editors about the past, present and future of the section. And for the next 10 weeks, we’ll be highlighting a favorite audio long read for each year the podcast has been running, with a new introduction from the author.
David Wolf
Editor, Guardian long read
Picks of the week
The Margate Murders
Audible, all episodes now available
Sheridan Smith and Joanne Froggatt lead the cast of this faux and dangerously heist crime drama. A serial killer strikes once a decade, and as a forensic psychologist, a detective, and a local newspaper reporter discuss the case, it becomes clear that not all accounts are reliable. It’s a scripted story, but it plays like a compelling true crime thanks to the actors’ skillful acting and refreshingly understated realism. Hannah Verdier
Single ladies in your area
Widely available, weekly episodes.
Prepare for contagious hysteria – this raucous laughfest hears comedians Harriet Kemsley and Amy Gledhill struggle with being single in their 30s. Does true love lurk on rodeo nights? How do you find a partner who will please your fussy two-year-old daughter? Is true love washing someone’s skid-marked pants? Everything will be revealed. Alex Duggins
A world of secrets: Al Fayed, predator at Harrods
BBC Sounds, all episodes now available
This series of revelations about Mohamed Al Fayed may have a somewhat forced narrative, but the surprising testimony of the victims is a real punch. From staff who were grabbed by the crotch, raped or forced to have their ovaries examined by the internal doctor, it is a horrible listen and a testament to the bravery of those speaking. ADVERTISEMENT
From now on
Widely available, weekly episodes.
Host Lisa Phillips is a former model who, at age 21, was abused by Jeffrey Epstein on his private island. Here, she tells her story and uses it to help other abuse survivors. Part confessional, part interviews with guests, including former cult members, it goes from brave soul bearer to deeply revealing psychological help book. ADVERTISEMENT
Proper Tasty Pub Test
Widely available, weekly episodes.
Every week, award-winning chef Tom Kerridge and his broadcaster friend Chris Stark invite you to take part in a pub quiz at Kerridge’s gastropub, The Butcher’s Tap and Grill in Chelsea. They will have a celebrity guest who will answer questions and also have a food chat, starting these first episodes with Jamie Redknapp and Pixie Lott. Hollie Richardson
There’s a podcast for that.
This week, Charlie Lindlar choose five of the best Guardian Audio Long Readsfrom Archie Bland’s essay on the rise and fall of “jokes” to Michael Aylwin’s devastating account of his wife’s battle with Alzheimer’s.
The era of jokes
This interpretation of a long read by Archie Bland from 2017 takes us back to the heyday of LadBible and Dapper Laughs. There, we looked at an era of cheeky, cruel comedy and asked: what was that all about? Archie meets a group of “party pilgrims” who took a night boat from Ayia Napa to Syria, traces the history of lad mag magazine and interrogates the heyday of this strange culture: the departure of Richard Keys and Andy Gray from Sky for sexist. comments that were, in the immortal words of “Keysy,” “just jokes.” “Is it time to get off the prank bus?” asks the piece. Yes, obviously, but it’s worth giving this excellent piece one last walk.
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How Alzheimer’s Destroyed My Dazzling, Creative Wife of 40 Years
In August this year, Guardian journalist Michael Aylwin wrote a surprising read about his wife Vanessa and her struggle with Alzheimer’s. Aylwin takes into account the early signs of Vanessa’s dementia, her strength as the disease consumed her, and remembers how their relationship transformed as it grew stronger. It is a tough but necessary read that lays bare the truth of the illness, the strain it places on a marriage, and the damage caused by not speaking candidly about its effects. Michael’s description of his “dazzling and creative” wife and her “brutal and incontestable” deterioration is even more moving when heard in his own words.
My four miscarriages: why is losing a pregnancy so mysterious?
This 2020 long read explores perhaps the most private of burdens: fertility. After suffering four consecutive miscarriages, journalist Jennie Agg decided to investigate the language we use to describe pregnancy loss, the state of miscarriage care, and whether anything could have been done to change what happened to her. Agg writes elegantly – “to become pregnant again after previous miscarriages is to live at the fork of two alternative lives” – and Emma Powell accompanies her with a gripping reading of her profound words. For even more information, Agg delved even deeper into the urgent need for better miscarriage care in this 2021 episode of Today in Focus.
How the sandwich consumed Britain
It may be hard to believe, but there was a time before Pret a Manger, Greggs and Tesco’s food business. Lunch used to look very different, so how did we end the sandwich monoculture? Tracing the packaged sandwich back to its roots in the 1980s, writer Sam Knight reflects on how Marks & Spencer’s egg and watercress triangles grew into an £8bn industry where “sandwich people ” preempts, and often dictates, what is eaten for lunch. Knight reads his story in this episode with the same wonder and whimsy with which he wrote the source material.
Cotton capital: the reaction – How slavery research came under fire
As part of The Guardian’s 2023 series investigating the newspaper’s founders and their historical links to slavery, Samira Shackle delved into a series of similar studies being carried out at universities and other public institutions, and into the grim reaction that followed. Shackle meets the bold historian Nicolas Bell-Romero and follows him on his quest to understand Cambridge’s troubled past: not only how it benefited from slavery but how, in Shackle’s words, “its scholarship might have reinforced, validated or challenged the racial thought”. . A vital report, made more convincing in audio format. To catch up on the rest of the Cotton Capital project, visit the project homepage or subscribe to our 15-week newsletter series.
Why not try it…?
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Learn how a five-year-old Cuban boy unleashed a “mini cold war” in Chess piece: the story of Elián González.
The deserterA new “audio article” from the New York Times, features Sarah A. Topol’s epic account of a Russian military officer on the run, with narration by Liev Schreiber.
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