Show overview
The Audio Long Read has been publishing since 2024, and across the 2 years since has built a catalogue of 318 episodes, alongside 2 trailers or bonus episodes. That works out to roughly 200 hours of audio in total. Releases follow a several-times-a-week cadence.
Episodes typically run thirty-five to sixty minutes — most land between 32 min and 43 min — and the run-time is fairly consistent across the catalogue. The publisher flags most episodes as explicit, so expect adult themes or strong language throughout. It is catalogued as a EN-GB-language Society & Culture show.
The show is actively publishing — the most recent episode landed 2 days ago, with 59 episodes already out so far this year. The busiest year was 2025, with 158 episodes published. Published by The Guardian.
From the publisher
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.
Latest Episodes
View all 318 episodes‘Lawrence is karma’: the gangster who became an icon of Modi’s India
From the archive: How western travel influencers got tangled up in Pakistan’s politics
The impossible promise: are we witnessing the return of fascism?
‘I see it as trafficking’: the brutal reality of life as a foreign student in the UK
No cults, no politics, no ghouls: how China censors the video game world
Where Duolingo falls down: how I learned to speak Welsh with my mother
‘Any other child would have died’: the miraculous survival of Nada Itrab
From the archive: the impossible job: inside the world of Premier League referees
Inside China’s robotics revolution
Endo dreams of sushi: a trip around Japan with one of the world’s greatest chefs
From the archive: The high cost of living in a disabling world
Teacher v chatbot: my journey into the classroom in the age of AI
35,000 pints of stolen Guinness, 950 wheels of pilfered cheese: can the UK’s cargo theft crisis be stopped?
From the archive: Foreign mothers, foreign tongues: ‘In another universe, she could have been my friend’
How the US far right bought into the myth of white South Africa’s persecution
AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is far more worrying
From the archive: Freedom without constraints: how the US squandered its cold war victory
My maddening battle with chronic fatigue syndrome: ‘On my worst days, it feels almost demonic’
Apocalypse no: how almost everything we thought we knew about the Maya is wrong
For many years the prevailing debate about the Maya centred upon why their civilisation collapsed. Now, many scholars are asking: how did the Maya survive? By Marcus Haraldsson. Read by Diana Bermudez. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>
From the archive: the butcher’s shop that lasted 300 years (give or take)
EWe 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 2020: Frank Fisher, now 90, was a traditional high street butcher his whole working life – as were three generations of his family before him. How does a man dedicated to serving his community decide when it’s time to hang up his white coat? By Tom Lamont. Read by Jonathan Andrew Hume. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>