How did an obscure district in a neglected state become India’s byword for digital deceit? By Snigdha Poonam. Read by Mikhail Sen. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

Saudi Arabia’s investment in Twitter increased its influence in Silicon Valley while being used at home to shut down critics of the regime By Jacob Silverman. Read by Nezar Alderazi. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

We 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 2022: to eat in the modern world is often to eat in a state of profound sensory disengagement. It shouldn’t have to be this way By Bee Wilson. Read by Lucy Scott. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

Between 2022 and 2023, as many as 170 rare and valuable editions of Russian classics were stolen from libraries across Europe. Were the thieves merely low-level opportunists, or were bigger forces at work? By Philip Oltermann. Read by Daniela Denby Ashe. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

Economic insecurity, race riots, incendiary media … Claude McKay was one of the few Black journalists covering a turbulent period that sounds all too familiar to us today By Yvonne Singh. Read by Karl Queensborough. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

We 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 2021: the arrest of a Tibetan New York city cop on spying charges plays into the community’s long-held suspicions that the People’s Republic is watching them By Lauren Hilgers. Read by Emily Woo Zeller. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

To celebrate the launch of the new Guardian Long Read magazine this week, join the long read editor David Wolf in discussion with regular contributors Charlotte Higgins and Hettie O’Brien. The Guardian long read magazine is available to order at theguardian.com/longreadmag In this issue, you’ll find pieces on how MrBeast became the world’s biggest YouTube star, how Emmanuel Macron deals with Donald Trump, and shocking revelations at the British Museum. Plus: what’s behind our rampant steroid use?. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

Before Peter Betts died in 2023, he wanted to pass on what he had learned over many years of negotiating at Cops – including how Paris 2015 was saved at the last bell By Peter Betts. Read by Andrew McGregor. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

A colossal volcanic eruption in January 2022 ripped apart the underwater cables that connect Tonga to the world – and exposed the fragility of 21st-century life By Samanth Subramanian. Read by Raj Ghatak. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

We 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 2022: Kenya’s great lakes are flooding, in a devastating and long-ignored environmental disaster that is displacing hundreds of thousands of people By Carey Baraka. Read by Reice Weathers. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

Once a stalwart of Hong Kong’s journalism scene, Wang Jian has found a new audience on YouTube, dissecting global politics and US-China relations since the pandemic. To his fans, he’s part newscaster, part professor, part friend By Lauren Hilgers. Read by G Cheng. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

From murder scenes to whale blubber, Ben Giles has seen it – and cleaned it – all. In their stickiest hours, people rely on him to restore order By Tom Lamont. Read by Elis James. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

We 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 2022: forensic scientist Angela Gallop has helped to crack many of the UK’s most notorious murder cases. But today she fears the whole field – and justice itself – is at risk By Imogen West-Knights. Read by Lucy Scott. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

If the first term of Donald Trump provoked anxiety over the fate of objective knowledge, the second has led to claims we live in a world-historical age of stupid, accelerated by big tech. But might there be a way out? By William Davies. Read by Dan Starkey. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

In the 1970s, the radical leftwing German terrorist organisation may have spread fear through public acts of violence – but its inner workings were characterised by vanity and incompetence By Jason Burke. Read by Noof Ousellam. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

We 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 2022: Thanks to a savvy California lawyer, Albert Einstein has earned far more posthumously than he ever did in his lifetime. But is that what the great scientist would have wanted? By Simon Parkin. Read by Ruth Lass. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

In the early years, American Jewish support for Israel was a fraught issue. The turning point was the six-day war of 1967, which solidified a strength of feeling that has only recently begun to fracture By Mark Mazower. Read by Kerry Shale. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

In 2020, after spending half his life in the US, Song-Chun Zhu took a one-way ticket to China. Now he might hold the key to who wins the global AI race By Chang Che. Read by Vincent Lai. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

We 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 2022: I assumed I would be part of the first generation to have full agency over my reproduction – but I was wrong By Edna Bonhomme. Read by Nerissa Bradley. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>

Over a few brutal days in March, as sectarian violence and revenge killings tore through parts of Syria, two friends from different communities tried to find a way to survive By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad. Read by Mo Ayoub. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>