The Guardian's Audio Long Reads podcasts are a selection of the Guardian’s 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.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/the-audio-long-read
recommended podcasts
The girl in the box: the mysterious crime that shocked Germany
On 15 September 1981, 10-year-old Ursula Herrmann headed home by bike from her cousin’s house. She never arrived. So began one of Germany’s most notorious postwar criminal cases, which remains contentious to this day. By Xan Rice
Ship of horrors: life and death on the lawless high seas
From bullying and sexual assault to squalid living conditions and forced labour, working at sea can be a grim business – and one deep-sea fishing fleet is particularly notorious. By Ian Urbina
The myth of Eurabia: how a far-right conspiracy theory went mainstream
Once an obscure idea confined to the darker corners of the internet, the anti-Islam ideology is now visible in the everyday politics of the west. How did this happen? By Andrew Brown
Why can’t we agree on what’s true any more?
It’s not about foreign trolls, filter bubbles or fake news. Technology encourages us to believe we can all have first-hand access to the ‘real’ facts – and now we can’t stop fighting about it. • Read the text version here
Dark crystals: the brutal reality behind a booming wellness craze
Demand for ‘healing’ crystals is soaring – but many are mined in deadly conditions in one of the world’s poorest countries. And there is little evidence that this billion-dollar industry is cleaning up its act. • Read the text version here
The cult of Columbine: how an obsession with school shooters led to a murder plot
How two lonely outsiders met online and discovered their passion – planning a massacre at a shopping mall. By Rachel Monroe
Inside the bizarre, bungled raid on North Korea's Madrid embassy
In February, a gang of armed men took a North Korean official hostage and demanded that he defect. When he refused, their plan fell apart, and they fled. Who were they, and why did they risk everything on this wild plot? By Giles Tremlett
Athleisure, barre and kale: the tyranny of the ideal woman
How we became suckers for the hard labor of self-optimization. By Jia Tolentino
The race to create a perfect lie detector, and the dangers of succeeding
AI and brain-scanning technology could soon make it possible to reliably detect when people are lying. But do we really want to know? By Amit Katwala
The machine always wins: what drives our addiction to social media
Social media was supposed to liberate us, but for many people it has proved addictive, punishing and toxic. What keeps us hooked? By Richard Seymour