The Guardian Long Read, Issue 4

The Guardian Long Read compiles some of the newspaper’s finest long-form journalism. In an age of shrinking attention spans and AI, this magazine offers 100 pages and 55,000 words of thoroughly reported writing. Its ten carefully selected articles are the kind of work that can’t be reduced to bite-sized snippets; they demand to be read in full. The texts also give the design team a chance to adapt the daily newspaper’s design language to a new format, and commission new illustration to accompany the stories—a point of pride that editor David Wolf draws attention to in this edition’s opening letter.

In this issue:
This vibrant fourth issue for Summer 2026 features a seasonal cover illustration by Klaus Kremmerz, celebrating the luxury of unhurried holiday reading. Delving deeper into The Guardian’s archives of 1,500 long read articles, the ten featured stories showcase outstanding and often prescient journalism from across the past decade—the oldest story here is from nine years ago, whilst the most recent appeared just a few months back.

Mark Blacklock investigates the mystery of Humphrey Smith’s vacant watering hole empire; novice English teacher Peter C. Baker navigates the AI-in-the-classroom divide; Atul Dev profiles Narendra Modi’s formidable right hand man; and, Kieran Morris meets the player behind the football legend that he fabricated as a teenager.