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The Audio Long Read

The Audio Long Read podcast is a selection of the Guardian’s long reads, giving you the opportunity to get on with your day while listening to some of the finest longform journalism the Guardian has to offer, including in-depth writing from around the world on current affairs, climate change, global warming, immigration, crime, business, the arts and much more. The podcast explores a range of subjects and news across business, global politics (including Trump, Israel, Palestine and Gaza), money, philosophy, science, internet culture, modern life, war, climate change, current affairs, music and trends, and seeks to answer key questions around them through in depth interviews explainers, and analysis with quality Guardian reporting. Through first person accounts, narrative audio storytelling and investigative reporting, the Audio Long Read seeks to dive deep, debunk myths and uncover hidden histories. In previous episodes we have asked questions like: do we need a new theory of evolution? Whether Trump can win the US presidency or not? Why can't we stop quantifying our lives? Why have our nuclear fears faded? Why do so many bikes end up underwater? How did Germany get hooked on Russian energy? Are we all prisoners of geography? How was London's Olympic legacy sold out? Who owns Einstein? Is free will an illusion? What lies beghind the Arctic's Indigenous suicide crisis? What is the mystery of India's deadly exam scam? Who is the man who built his own cathedral? And, how did the world get hooked on palm oil? Other topics range from: history including empire to politics, conflict, Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Gaza, philosophy, science, psychology, health and finance. Audio Long Read journalists include Samira Shackle, Tom Lamont, Sophie Elmhirst, Samanth Subramanian, Imogen West-Knights, Sirin Kale, Daniel Trilling and Giles Tremlett.

While preparing your breakfast

Nice duration for a walk

‘Like a cheese grater raking across my nipple’: why I kept trying to breastfeed for so long
Best of 2024 … so far: ‘Scars on every street’: the refugee camp where generations of Palestinians have lost their futures
Food, water, wifi: is this the future of humanitarian aid?
Revolution in the air: how laughing gas changed the world
After I was assaulted, I posted a photo of my injuries. The reaction I craved was not pity, but anger
The true cost of El Salvador’s new gold rush
How child labour in India makes the paving stones beneath our feet
Disappearing tongues: the endangered language crisis
Radioactive waste, baby bottles and Spam: the deep ocean has become a dumping ground
200 cats, 200 dogs, one lab: the secrets of the pet food industry
Power grab: the hidden costs of Ireland’s datacentre boom
What we talk about when we talk about giving up
The tyranny of the algorithm: why every coffee shop looks the same
‘Ukraine fatigue’: why I’m fighting to stop the world forgetting us
‘Scars on every street’: the refugee camp where generations of Palestinians have lost their futures
‘Weapons of mass migration’: how states exploit the failure of migration policies
The ghosts haunting China’s cities
America’s undying empire: why the decline of US power has been greatly exaggerated
‘I remember the silence between the falling shells’: the terror of living under siege as a child
Special Edition: Behind the scenes at the Long Read
From the archive: What I have learned from my suicidal patients
‘A hidden universe of suffering’: the Palestinian children sent to jail
‘You may have been poisoned’: how an independent Russian journalist became a target
Justice for Neanderthals! What the debate about our long-dead cousins reveals about us
Empire of dust: what the tiniest specks reveal about the world
‘The Eurocentric fallacy’: the myths that underpin European identity
‘Ruzzki not welcome’: the Russian exiles getting a hostile reception in Georgia

On your way to work

10 years of the long read: How the sandwich consumed Britain (2017)
‘For me, there was no other choice’: inside the global illegal organ trade
10 years of the long read: Man v rat: could the long war soon be over? (2016)
Morality and rules, and how to avoid drowning: what my daughters learned at school in China
10 years of the long read: Farewell to America (2015)
The cocaine kingpin’s wildest legacy: what can be done with Pablo Escobar’s marauding hippos?
No god in the machine: the pitfalls of AI worship
From the archive: The unravelling of a conspiracy: were the 16 charged with plotting to kill India’s prime minister framed?
On board the Creed cruise: the unfathomable return of the ‘worst band of the 90s’
A Chinese-born writer’s quest to understand the Vikings, Normans and life on the English coast
Ukraine’s death-defying art rescuers
From the archive: Death on demand: has euthanasia gone too far?
‘A diagnosis can sweep away guilt’: the delicate art of treating ADHD
Best of 2024 … so far: Solar storms, ice cores and nuns’ teeth: the new science of history
‘It comes for your very soul’: how Alzheimer’s undid my dazzling, creative wife in her 40s
My family and other Nazis
From Nobel peace prize to civil war: how Ethiopia’s leader beguiled the world
From the archive: ‘As borders closed, I became trapped in my Americanness’: China, the US and me
‘If there’s nowhere else to go, this is where they come’: how Britain’s libraries provide much more than books
‘How do I heal?’: the long wait for justice after a black man dies in police custody
From the archive: The elephant vanishes: how a circus family went on the run
Dirty waters: how the Environment Agency lost its way
Inside Mexico’s anti-avocado militias
From the archive: Can computers ever replace the classroom?
The man who turned his home into a homeless shelter
From low-level drug dealer to human trafficker: are modern slavery laws catching the wrong people?
From the archive: How globalisation has transformed the fight for LGBTQ+ rights
César Aira’s unreal magic: how the eccentric author took over Latin American literature
From the archive: ‘The Silicon Valley of turf’: how the UK’s pursuit of the perfect pitch changed football
Mother trees and socialist forests: is the ‘wood-wide web’ a fantasy?
Guatemala’s baby brokers: how thousands of children were stolen for adoption
From the archive: Trump’s useful thugs: how the Republican party offered a home to the Proud Boys
‘Super cute please like’: the unstoppable rise of Shein
‘A new abyss’: Gaza and the hundred years’ war on Palestine
From the archive: The age of perpetual crisis – how the 2010s disrupted everything but resolved nothing
Solar storms, ice cores and nuns’ teeth: the new science of history
Solidarity and strategy: the forgotten lessons of truly effective protest
From the archive: How Hindu supremacists are tearing India apart
What is the real Hamas?
Rage, waste and corruption: how Covid changed politics
From the archive: The mystery of the Gatwick drone
‘What’s the worst that could happen?’: Love in the sickle cell capital of the world
From the archive – Out of thin air: the mystery of the man who fell from the sky
From the archive: ‘Is anybody in there?’ Life on the inside as a locked-in patient
‘It was so wrong’: why were so many people imprisoned over one protest in Bristol?
From the archive – Operation Condor: the cold war conspiracy that terrorised South America
From the archive: ‘A chain of stupidity’: the Skripal case and the decline of Russia’s spy agencies
From the archive: How maverick rewilders are trying to turn back the tide of extinction
‘Farming is a dirty word now’: the woman helping farmers navigate a grim, uncertain future
From the archive: Penthouses and poor doors: how Europe’s ‘biggest regeneration project’ fell flat
‘They were dying, and they’d not had their money’: Britain’s multibillion-pound equal pay scandal
From the archive: The air conditioning trap: how cold air is heating the world
From the archive: From Lagos to Winchester – how a divisive Nigerian pastor built a global following
Sanctuary: I grew up during The Troubles and have been seeking a place of peace ever since
From the archive: The bells v the boutique hotel: the battle to save Britain’s oldest factory
From the archive: ‘I just needed to find my family’: the scandal of Chile’s stolen children – podcast
We have a tool to stop Israel’s war crimes: BDS
From the archive: Inside the bizarre, bungled raid on North Korea’s Madrid embassy
From the archive: How Nespresso’s coffee revolution got ground down
Four bike rides, four years in the life of Black Britain: ‘On the road, we found ourselves again’
Too much stuff: can we solve our addiction to consumerism?
From the archive – Dark crystals: the brutal reality behind a booming wellness craze
Last love: a romance in a care home
Best of 2023: No coach, no agent, no ego: the incredible story of the ‘Lionel Messi of cliff diving’
Best of 2023: The strange survival of Guinness World Records
Best of 2023: Proust, ChatGPT and the case of the forgotten quote
Best of 2023: Dark waters: how the adventure of a lifetime turned to tragedy
Nitrogen wars: the Dutch farmers’ revolt that turned a nation upside-down
From the archive: The rise and fall of French cuisine
A violent murder, a child on death row
From the archive: ‘We the people’: the battle to define populism
The Netanyahu doctrine: how Israel’s longest-serving leader reshaped the country in his image
‘I stopped counting how many friends died’: life after the contaminated blood scandal
Inside the Taliban’s luxury hotel
The mass protest decade: why did the street movements of the 2010s fail?
‘Incoherence and inconsistency’: the inside story of the Rwanda deportation plan
From the archive: The last of the Zoroastrians
The insider: how Michael Lewis got a backstage pass for the fall of Sam Bankman-Fried
‘We are just getting started’: the plastic-eating bacteria that could change the world
The trials of Robert Habeck: is the world’s most powerful green politician doomed to fail?
From the archive: ‘In our teens, we dreamed of making peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Then my friend was shot’
From the archive: Cholera and coronavirus: why we must not repeat the same mistakes
‘Our health data is about to flow more freely, like it or not’: big tech’s plans for the NHS
From the archive: Was the Millennium Dome really so bad? The inside story of a (not so) total disaster
‘A huge heart’: the insatiable activism of Zimbabwean exile Patson Muzuwa
From the archive: ‘A body drifted past the window’: surviving the Ladbroke Grove train crash
From the archive: ‘Mama Boko Haram’: one woman’s extraordinary mission to rescue ‘her boys’ from terrorism
‘Voters are unhappier with the NHS than they’ve been for 30 years. As a GP, I feel the same’
Proust, ChatGPT and the case of the forgotten quote
From the archive: The invisible city: how a homeless man built a life underground
The evolution of Steve Albini: ‘If the dumbest person is on your side, you’re on the wrong side’
‘Move forward. Flap around a little!’ How learning to swim in my 50s set me free
From the archive: A scandal in Oxford: the curious case of the stolen gospel

While commuting on public transport

While gardening or doing yard work