Sinopsis
The Guardian's Audio Long Reads podcasts are a selection of the Guardians long read articles which are published in the paper and online. It gives you the opportunity to get on with your day whilst listening to some of the finest journalism the Guardian has to offer: in-depth writing from around the world on immigration, crime, business, the arts and much more.
Episodios
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From the archive: The Blackstone rebellion: how one country took on the world’s biggest commercial landlord
08/10/2025 Duración: 44minWe 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
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‘We’ve done it before’: how not to lose hope in the fight against ecological disaster
06/10/2025 Duración: 29minSome 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
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From bank robber to scholar: the Knoxville dropout fighting to change how we see addiction
03/10/2025 Duración: 31minKirsten 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
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From the archive: Divine comedy: the standup double act who turned to the priesthood
01/10/2025 Duración: 45minWe 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
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‘A climate of unparalleled malevolence’: are we on our way to the sixth major mass extinction?
29/09/2025 Duración: 30minChurning 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
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Bland, easy to follow, for fans of everything: what has the Netflix algorithm done to our films?
26/09/2025 Duración: 40minWhen 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
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From the archive: Forgetting the apocalypse: why our nuclear fears faded – and why that’s dangerous
24/09/2025 Duración: 44minWe 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
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‘The forest had gone’: the storm that moved a mountain
22/09/2025 Duración: 46minOn 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
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Life in a ‘sinking nation’: Tuvalu’s dreams of dry land
19/09/2025 Duración: 42minWith 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
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From the archive: Sewage sleuths: the men who revealed the slow, dirty death of Welsh and English rivers
17/09/2025 Duración: 42minWe 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
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Very British bribery: the whistleblower who exposed the UK’s dodgy arms deals with Saudi Arabia
15/09/2025 Duración: 51minWhen 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
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‘People pay to be told lies’: the rise and fall of the world’s first ayahuasca multinational
12/09/2025 Duración: 49minAlberto 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
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From the archive: ‘We were all wrong’: how Germany got hooked on Russian energy
10/09/2025 Duración: 32minWe 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
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Dancing with Putin: how Austria’s former foreign minister found a new home in Russia
08/09/2025 Duración: 34minKarin 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
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Don’t call it morning sickness: ‘At times in my pregnancy I wondered if this was death coming for me’
05/09/2025 Duración: 30minThe 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
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From the archive: ‘We need to break the junk food cycle’: how to fix Britain’s failing food system
03/09/2025 Duración: 33minWe 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
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The rise and fall of the British cult that hid in plain sight
01/09/2025 Duración: 51minPhilippa 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
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Best of 2025 … so far: ‘The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the world’s biggest YouTube star
29/08/2025 Duración: 37minEvery 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
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Best of 2025 … so far: ‘Look, they’re getting skin!’: are we right to strive to save the world’s tiniest babies?
27/08/2025 Duración: 45minEvery 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
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The go-between: how Qatar became the global capital of diplomacy
25/08/2025 Duración: 43minThe 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