This autumn marks 10 years since we launched the Guardian long read. Looking back now, it is hard to remember how counterintuitive the idea seemed at the time – this was a moment when more and more people were wondering whether readers still had the appetite for anything longer than a few hundred words, or even 140 characters. Creating a dedicated space within the Guardian for multiple pieces of 5,000 (or more) words a week – many of which would take months, even years, to produce – seemed like a quixotic project. Thankfully, our readers felt otherwise, embracing our deeply researched stories about everything from the “cruel, paranoid, failing” Home Office and the battle against Islamic State to the strange world of competitive ploughing and the rise of hygge.
Just a few months after the long read launched, our audio team had the brilliant idea of launching the audio 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 swimming lengths in the pool.)
Since then, we’ve produced well over 1,000 audio long reads. It would take you about two months to listen to all of them, if you spent 12 hours a day doing nothing else. While I wholeheartedly endorse this use of your time, below we have picked just five of our favourites.
We also have a range of 10th anniversary content in the audio long read feed, which started earlier this week with a roundtable discussion between the editors about the past, present and future of the section. And for the next 10 weeks, we’ll be highlighting a favourite 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 out now
Sheridan Smith and Joanne Froggatt lead the cast of this dangerously bingeable untrue crime drama. A serial killer strikes once a decade, and as a forensic psychologist, a detective and a local newspaper journalist talk about the case, it becomes clear not everyone’s accounts are reliable. It’s a scripted story, but it sounds like convincing true crime thanks to the actors’ skilful delivery and refreshingly low-key realism. Hannah Verdier
Single Ladies in Your Area
Widely available, episodes weekly
Brace yourself for infectious hysteria: this raucous gigglefest hears comedians Harriet Kemsley and Amy Gledhill wrestle with being single in their 30s. Does true love lurk at rodeo nights? How do you find a partner to please your picky two-year-old daughter? Is true love washing someone’s skidmark-filled pants? All will be revealed. Alexi Duggins
World of Secrets: Al Fayed, Predator at Harrods
BBC Sounds, all episodes out now
This Mohamed Al Fayed exposé series may have slightly stilted narration, but the astonishing testimony of the victims is a real gut-punch. From staff who were grabbed by the crotch, raped or made to have their ovaries checked by the in-house doctor, it’s horrific listening – and a testimony to the bravery of those speaking out. AD
From Now On
Widely available, episodes weekly
Host Lisa Phillips is an ex-model who, at 21, was abused by Jeffrey Epstein on his private island. Here, she tells her story and uses it to help other survivors of abuse. Part confessional, part interviews with guests – including former cult members – it veers from courageous soulbearing to deeply insightful psychological help book. AD
Proper Tasty Pub Quiz
Widely available, episodes weekly
Each week, award-winning chef Tom Kerridge and broadcaster pal Chris Stark invite you to take part in a pub quiz at Kerridge’s gastro-watering hole, The Butcher’s Tap and Grill in Chelsea. They’ll have a celebrity guest answering questions and having a foodie chat, too, starting these first couple of episodes with Jamie Redknapp and Pixie Lott. Hollie Richardson
There’s a podcast for that
This week, Charlie Lindlar chooses five of the best Guardian audio long reads, from Archie Bland’s essay on the rise and fall of “banter” to Michael Aylwin’s devastating retelling of his wife’s struggle with Alzheimer’s
The age of banter
This rendition of a 2017 long read by Archie Bland transports us back to the heyday of LadBible and Dapper Laughs. There, we examine an era of brash, cruelty-as-the-point comedy and ask: what on earth was that about? Archie meets a group of “party pilgrims” who took an overnight boat from Ayia Napa to Syria, takes a walk through the history of the lad mag, and interrogates the peak of this bizarre culture: Richard Keys and Andy Gray’s departure from Sky over sexist comments that were, in the immortal words of “Keysy”, “just banter”. “Is it time to get off the banter bus?” the piece asks. Yes, obviously – but this fine piece is worth one last ride.
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How Alzheimer’s undid my dazzling, creative wife in her 40s
In August this year, Guardian journalist Michael Aylwin penned a stunning read on his wife Vanessa and her struggle with Alzheimer’s. Aylwin reckons with the early signs of Vanessa’s dementia, her strength as the disease ate at her, and recalls how their relationship transformed as it took hold. It is a tough but necessary read that lays bare the truth of illness, the strain it places on a marriage, and the damage done by not talking frankly about its effects. Michael’s description of his “dazzling and creative” wife and her “brutal and unanswerable” deterioration is only more moving heard in his own words.
My four miscarriages: why is losing a pregnancy so shrouded in mystery?
This 2020 long read explores perhaps the most private of burdens: fertility. After experiencing four consecutive miscarriages, journalist Jennie Agg resolved to investigate the language we use to describe losing a pregnancy, the state of miscarriage care, and whether anything could have been done to change what happened to her. Agg writes with elegance – “to be pregnant again after previous miscarriages is to live at the fork of two alternative lives” – and Emma Powell matches her with a gripping reading of her profound words. For even more, Agg went even deeper on 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 the Tesco meal deal. Lunch used to look so different – so how did we end up with the sandwich monoculture? Tracing the packaged sandwich back to its 1980s roots, writer Sam Knight ponders how Marks & Spencer egg and cress triangles grew into an £8bn industry where “sandwich people” preempt, and often dictate, what you have for lunch. Knight reads his story in this episode with the same wonder and whimsy as he wrote the source material.
Cotton Capital: the backlash – how slavery research came under fire
As part of the Guardian’s 2023 series investigating the newspaper’s founders and their historic links to slavery, Samira Shackle dug into a series of similar studies taking place at universities and other public institutions – and the grim backlash that followed. Shackle meets bold historian Nicolas Bell-Romero, and follows him on his quest to understand Cambridge’s problematic past – not just how it gained from slavery but how, in Shackle’s words, “its scholarship might have reinforced, validated or challenged race-based thinking”. A vital piece of reporting, made more compelling in audio form. To catch up on the rest of the Cotton Capital project, visit the project homepage or sign up to our 15-week newsletter series.
Why not try …
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From Warhammer to, er, wild turkey conservation, take a deep dive into unusual hobbies in Niche to Meet You.
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Learn how a five-year-old boy from Cuba sparked a “mini cold war”, in Chess Piece: The Elián González Story.
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The Deserter, a new “audio feature” from the New York Times, features Sarah A Topol’s epic report of a Russian military officer on the run, with narration from Liev Schreiber.
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