The Audio Long Read
Three times a week, The Audio Long Read podcast brings you the Guardian’s exceptional longform journalism in audio form. Covering topics from politics and culture to philosophy and sport, as well as investigations and current affairs.
Get every episode summarized
Each time The Audio Long Read publishes, we email you a written briefing from the transcript — the topics, who appeared, and any specific claims, with the ad reads skipped.
Email me new episodesFree for 3 shows. No card needed.
Episodes (375)
Bland, easy to follow, for fans of everything: what has the Netflix algorithm do...
The Audio Long Read
From the archive: Forgetting the apocalypse: why our nuclear fears faded – and w...
The Audio Long Read
‘The forest had gone’: the storm that moved a mountain
The Audio Long Read
Life in a ‘sinking nation’: Tuvalu’s dreams of dry land
The Audio Long Read
From the archive: Sewage sleuths: the men who revealed the slow, dirty death of...
The Audio Long Read
Very British bribery: the whistleblower who exposed the UK’s dodgy arms deals wi...
The Audio Long Read
‘People pay to be told lies’: the rise and fall of the world’s first ayahuasca m...
The Audio Long Read
From the archive: ‘We were all wrong’: how Germany got hooked on Russian energy
The Audio Long Read
Dancing with Putin: how Austria’s former foreign minister found a new home in Ru...
The Audio Long Read
Don’t call it morning sickness: ‘At times in my pregnancy I wondered if this was...
The Audio Long Read
From the archive: ‘We need to break the junk food cycle’: how to fix Britain’s f...
The Audio Long Read
The rise and fall of the British cult that hid in plain sight
The Audio Long Read
Best of 2025 … so far: ‘The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the...
The Audio Long Read
Best of 2025 … so far: ‘Look, they’re getting skin!’: are we right to strive to...
The Audio Long Read
The go-between: how Qatar became the global capital of diplomacy
The Audio Long Read
Best of 2025 … so far: an English gentleman, a crooked lawyer: the secrets of St...
The Audio Long Read
Best of 2025 … so far: Kahane’s ghost: how a long-dead extremist rabbi continues...
The Audio Long Read
Starmer v Starmer: why is the former human rights lawyer so cautious about defen...
The Audio Long Read
Best of 2025 … so far: The savage suburbia of Helen Garner: ‘I wanted to dong Ma...
The Audio Long Read
Best of 2025 … so far: ‘I am not who you think I am’: how a deep-cover KGB spy r...
The Audio Long Read
How Pakistan fell in love with sushi
The Audio Long Read
Best of 2025 … so far: ‘The ghosts are everywhere’: can the British Museum survi...
The Audio Long Read
Best of 2025 … so far: the great abandonment: what happens to the natural world...
The Audio Long Read
The Shining: my trip to the G7 horror show with Emmanuel Macron
The Audio Long Read
Are we witnessing the death of international law?
The Audio Long Read
From the archive: Bicycle graveyards: why do so many bikes end up underwater?
The Audio Long Read
Poison in the water: the town with the world’s worst case of forever chemicals c...
The Audio Long Read
‘A relentless, destructive energy’: inside the trial of Constance Marten and Mar...
The Audio Long Read
From the archive: how two BBC journalists risked their jobs to reveal the truth...
The Audio Long Read
The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull, a disputed femur and a bitter feud over h...
The Audio Long Read
Horse racing and erotica: how I survived the fickle world of freelance writing
The Audio Long Read
From the archive: The sludge king: how one man turned an industrial wasteland in...
The Audio Long Read
Sold to the Trump family: one of the last undeveloped islands in the Mediterrane...
The Audio Long Read
How does woke start winning again?
The Audio Long Read
From the archive: The death of the department store
The Audio Long Read
‘Do you have a family?’: midlife with no kids, ageing parents – and no crisis
The Audio Long Read
Why does Switzerland have more nuclear bunkers than any other country?
The Audio Long Read
From the archive: ‘You can’t be the player’s friend’: inside the secret world of...
The Audio Long Read
My husband and son suffered strokes, 30 years apart. Shockingly little had chang...
The Audio Long Read
‘The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the world’s biggest YouTub...
The Audio Long Read
From the archive: ‘A nursery of the Commons’: how the Oxford Union created today...
The Audio Long Read
‘Outdated and unjust’: can we reform global capitalism?
The Audio Long Read
Extremely loud and incredibly scouse: how Jamie Carragher conquered football pun...
The Audio Long Read
From the archive: Burying Leni Riefenstahl: one woman’s lifelong crusade against...
The Audio Long Read
‘You can let go now’: inside the hospital where staff treat fear of death as wel...
The Audio Long Read
An English gentleman, a crooked lawyer: the secrets of Stephen David Jones
The Audio Long Read
From the archive: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: three days with a giant of African literatu...
The Audio Long Read
Death, divorce and the magic of kitchen objects: how to find hope in loss
The Audio Long Read
Missing in the Amazon: the disappearance – episode 1
The Audio Long Read
A deadly mission: how Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira tried to warn the world abo...
The Audio Long Read