25 brilliant pieces to read

To bring you joy, make you cry or simply broaden your mind

I am always reading, forever trying to find a new long read to dive into. I don’t want 300 word pieces dashed off just before deadline, I want lengthy stories which meander around and take me at least half an hour or more to get through, storytelling which transports me to a world I don’t yet know. These pieces are fewer and farther between, since they cost a lot of money and take a lot of time. But you can still find them (The Guardian’s Long Read is a good resource, so is the Long Reads website), or scroll magazine archives if you run out of road. I try to note down the best ones, since the best writing can always be reread many times without disappointment. I thought it would be fairly easy to list some of my favourites here for you, since I’ve got one short week until my book deadline, but it turns out that compiling this list took me over two hours. Whoops! Anyway, here are some of the essays and stories I've loved. Please tell me yours.

Here Is New York (1949). This article is just one of many by E.B. White that I think about a lot. If you enjoy it, I highly recommend The Essays Of E.B. White (which you can buy here for a mere £3.98). His musings on country life are some of the most joyful I’ve ever read. And if his name seems familiar, it’s because he also wrote Charlotte’s Web!