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Hi 👋 

We’re back again with another reading list of some of the best longform journalism across the internet ✨

And welcome to the penultimate TLR edition of 2024! Though technically, this is the last newsletter of the year that I’ll be making new recommendations. (See the quick reminder of our year-end sending schedule below.)

But no room for sorrow. The list this week is incredible (as always!) and next week’s rundown is going to be massive.

Here’s a quick peek at the rest of the picks below:

• A guy who cleans up the physical and emotional wreckage of a plane crash.

• The craziest prison-break story.

• On your (and my) professional demise.

A quick reminder before we jump into the list: Our publishing schedule for December will be the tiniest bit different. Here’s how the month will look:

• December 16 (today) - TLR as usual.

• December 23 - TLR’s 2024 wrap-up.

• December 30 - Year-end break, meaning no newsletter.

Back to regular programming on January 6!

Happy reading and see you again next Monday!

PS - Thanks to 1440 Media for supporting this week’s edition! I believe that they are the best reading partner for TLR. Much like we do here, 1440 Media pulls news from a large variety of sources from across the political spectrum, in turn giving you a plurality of different insights and viewpoints. 1440 Media allows you to form your own opinions. They believe in your capacity to think.

Please consider clicking the link below and giving them a visit. It’s a great and free way to support TLR!

Story in Spotlight

I made a quick note in last week’s TLR, saying that there was another electric vehicle story coming up. I was referring to this one. And what an absolutely insane story it is.

Where I live, EVs are still emerging. More novelty than necessity; a nice-to-have for most, a status symbol for those who can afford it. But still, the claims of the industry have caught on well. Much of the online chatter about EVs is laudatory. People seem to genuinely, unquestioningly believe that EVs are good for the environment. That they’re the next frontier in sustainable development. Cutting-edge tech that will help humanity avert the worst of the climate catastrophe.

The refrain has echoed so loudly that despite being massively skeptical about it, I’ve found my convictions about EVs be shaken. Maybe I’m completely off-base here. Mabye they are good for the planet.

Thank God for stories like these.

Because the reality is that EVs are so much dirtier than we realize. As this story uncovers, the EV tech needs a massive upfront carbon payment for the promise (a vague promise, might I add) of lower carbon consumption in the long-run. And yes, sure, this calculus sounds well and good, and probably even smart. What’s a few degrees more of heating if we can ensure a more environmentally-friendly automobile industry?

But this is such a privileged, short-sighted view of things. Being realistic: We’re in the midst of the climate crisis now. We don’t have the luxury of destroying the planet even further for some future trade-off that we don’t even know will work. Doing so dooms millions upon millions of people in poor, majority Black and brown countries to die very violent deaths. Climate genocide.

I’m not sure the proponents of EVs understand this.

And all of this is not even to mention the social and cultural damages of the EV industry. Entire communities—families, women, kids, the elderly—are being squeezed and starved, left for dead. People who for millennia have acted as sustainable stewards over lands are being killed for these EV companies to dig up the land they live on and mine the metals underneath.

It’s disgusting. And it’s equally disgusting that people who should know better are cheering this on.

Sorry I’m being so worked up about this. I just feel really strongly about it.

Very, very long. But also very important. We all need to take a long, hard look at the true costs of our “sustainability” efforts. 1 hour or more. 

The Longform List

🏪 Everyday Purchases | Slate, Free

This one turned out to be a very pleasant surprise.

It takes a very unfortunate fact of American life—mass shootings—and covers it in what I think is the most unique and heart-warming way I’ve seen so far.

This is, of course, not to say anything about the narrative stories that focus on the families of the victims, or on the perpetrators, or on the system that allows the crisis to continue. Those are all very important stories. But I’m sure there are already too many of those, and not quite enough of these kinds types of stories. Those that look at how a shooting can shake a community to its core, and at the people who persevere.

This story follows a Bangladeshi family who, by some twist of fate, found themselves running a 7/11 that quickly became a cornerstone of a Maine town, a reliable source of everyday needs for people who have just enough to get by. Then came the shooting that tore the town to shreds. That’s when the immigrant family discovered that their humble 7/11 was more than a source of sustenance to their regulars—but that it was also a source of comfort and calm.

Such an incredible story of community. Loved every second of it.

Very long, but also a very worthwhile time investment. Commit an hour for this.

🧬 This Father Built a Gene Therapy for his Son. Now Comes the Harder Part: Saving Others’ Children, Too | STAT News, $

A quick disclaimer before anything else: STAT very recently laid off 11 highly talented healthcare and biopharma reporters. For those of us who work in that niche space, it’s a very sobering reminder of how squeezed our ranks are. That even if we write of multi-billion deals between pharma companies on a near-daily basis, our own little industry is facing down an existential threat. Please consider subbing to STAT and other outfits like it to get your fix of quality health journalism.

In many ways, this story points to a similar frustration: That despite the billions of dollars flowing through the biopharma industry (and into the pockets of top execs yearly), life-saving and life-changing gene therapies for rare diseases remain criminally under-funded.

This is especially enraging after you hear a pharma CEO talk about how they’re developing the next revolutionary treatment for a rare disease. But then they price it at millions of dollars a dose, and oh, they’ll only be able to work on rare diseases that aren’t too rare. Gotta think of the bottom line, after all.

It’s all such a huge farce.

Long, but also very infuriating. And heart-rending for the parents and kids involved. If emotions drive your reading speed, you’ll finish this in a heartbeat. I took maybe 30 minutes.

🛬 The Man Who Cleans Up After Plane Crashes | GQ, $

Noticed that I’ve been reading more stories about plane crashes recently, so I thought this would be a great time to dig through my archives and look for this one, which follows Robert Jensen, whose job it is to swoop in after an incident and clean up the remains of the aircraft and the victims.

Turns out, though, that’s not the whole of it. Not by a mile.

Because, as this story shows, Jensen cleans up more than just the physical wreckage, but he also has to tend to the emotional ruin that follows an accident. Over years in his line of work, Jensen has had to deal with many grieving families, all of whom have different ways of coping with loss. And he’s learned that there’s not one sure-fire way to ease their pain. In fact, there may not be a way at all to achieve that.

Instead, Jensen has learned that he just has to give them some semblance of control back (say, defering to them about decisions regarding their loved ones’ belongings), and being careful but honest about death. It’s a really difficult balancing act, the story shows, but it’s a line that people in Jensen’s line of work (and the airline industry more broadly, if you ask me) should know how to expertly tread.

Very long. But not as difficult as I expected. Emotional, though. I’d say 45 focused minutes. 

🕵🏻 The Havana Job | Medium (Truly*Adventurous), $

This one get recommended to me by a reader, and boy am I glad they sent this my way. It makes me feel kind of sad, though, that the Medium I’m experiencing today doesn’t come close to this type of journalism.

(I’ll take this opportunity to remind you that you are all free to recommend me a story for these lists. Just get in touch however).

I want to preface my little blurb here by saying that I find it really hard to drum up empathy for spies—CIA or otherwise. I just feel very strongly about interfering in the governance of other countries, no matter how dysfunctional their administration might be. That’s simply not what proponents of democracy and human rights do.

So I was already reading this story at an emotional distance. I didn’t resonate deeply (if at all) with any of the main characters, and I don’t think I built any substantial emotional ties with the narrative. It was quite the opposite actually: I had to actively work at not being outraged at their CIA work in the first place.

BUT STILL this story managed to floor me. Which I think just speaks to how crazy the entire affair is. I also want to commend the writer, because this is some of the most confident prose I’ve read. Ever. It’s quick and punchy and exciting and it makes no pretense at being professional. I love it. I want to write like that.

Very, very long. But also very, very gripping. I find it hard to imagine that this story won’t hook you and keep you trapped. Might still take you an hour.  

🐾 Cradle and All | Mother Jones, Free

This was also recommended to me by a reader, who said that this story bares the dirty realities of adoption that many proponents of the practice seem to gloss over.

And while I was doing my usual quick research on the story, I came across many more posts arguing essentially the same thing: That many of these so-called activists keep on advocating for couples to put their kids up for adoption if they can’t feasibly care for them—without acknowledging the harrowing truths of the practice. (The posts were heated, too. I didn’t know that was a flashpoint for American civil society.)

And harrowing they are, indeed. I don’t know if this story just happened to zoom in on one especially distressing case, but the pain that this one family went through wiht Utah’s adoption machinery is… astounding. It’s impressive how there are virtually no safeguards against abuse by this industry, and how it plays such a parasitic role in exploiting families in crisis.

Pretty long. And can get very difficult to read, too, particularly for readers who are more empathetic than usual. I’d say 45 minutes, distractions and breaks included.

📉 Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think | The Atlantic, $

It’s been a while since I first read this, but last week was the perfect time for me to revisit this essay.

By default, I’m pretty much always working on one thing or another. That’s just the nature of being a freelance writer with a (thankfully 🙏) bustling practice. But the past few weeks have been extra hectic for me. The holiday rush is extra crazy this year.

It’s really easy to get lost in the pressure of a deadline and the ambition of a career. At least, it is for me. And this essay really helps pull me down from that hyper-focused state and remind me that while a job and a career are big things, they’re not the only things that matter in life. In fact, no matter how much I try and fight it, my professional demise will come—and it’ll come sooner than I want it to.

There’s not much point in trying to fend it off, as this essay argues. Instead, I can use the youth and energy that I have now to prepare for it. The writer suggests several ways to do this (and I really do recommend that you read this essay in its entirety), but what sticks out to me is to not see the end of my career as the death of my professional persona.

Instead, I should start as early as now to condition myself to consider it as a chance to reinvent myself, to explore new avenues of vocation. Find new outlets for my expertise and skills. And as I enter a new decade of my life, I’m going to try and be more mindful of that.

Very, very long. But if you have an unhealthy relationship with work like I do, you’ll love this one. I’d say 50 minutes if you can stay focused. More than an hour otherwise.

🏔️ The Sludge King: How One Man Turned an Industrial Wasteland Into His Own El Dorado | The Guardian, Free

This is one of those moving and complicated Robin Hood-type stories where you don’t really know who you’re rooting for.

I love these types of stories because in my experience, they get very close to exposing some crucial contradictions of our modern, hyper-capitalist society. As in: You know, deep in your bones, that this person is doing the right thing. That they’re acting in the interest of justice. But then somehow what they’re doing is also illegal? Where’s the mismatch there?

Of course, these aren’t clean-cut characters. No one ever is, after all. And, by definition, these Robin Hood-types will always be morally gray. But instead of focusing on the grayness, maybe we should ask why we think they’re so morally gray. Anyway, I digress.

On this specific article: I appreciate it for striving to tell this story in the first place, and the writer does a really good job of bearing out the facts in a gripping and interesting way. I will say that I do have some reservations about how the story painted the Sludge King as this sort of supervillain cartoon character, and the Roma community as this group of hapless, easily-duped people. Meanwhile, the police and other forces of the state—who I’m sure have had a hand in perpetuating the poverty and disenfranchisement of the Roma—are presented as the good guys.

Might need to question some underlying assumptions there.

Not excessively long, plus the writer has a very compelling storytelling style. Not a difficult read. Probably 25 minutes. 

🌱 The Hideaway | Hazlitt, Free

Yet again, an essay that I have deeply mixed feelings about.

I’m putting this here because I think it makes an earnest attempt at talking about climate justice, which I am a massive proponent of. I am of the belief that it is the most fair way forward for us amid the climate emergency.

That said, the writer felt like she was too afraid to actually go into the messy, controversial details of climate justice. The hard truths and inconveniences and concessions of climate justice. Instead, the writer just kept on skirting around it but spends most of the essay in this weird middle ground, where she expertly maximizes her privilege of not being in immediate danger of climate catastrophes. Ironically, this is the same thing she criticizes the main guy in the story for. I hope that’s an intentional exercise in the essay, but I’m not holding my breath.

The result is that this essay feels… limp. It tries to tear into the doomer POV, rightly pointing out that it’s defeatist and makes people want to not do anything anymore. But then the essay doesn’t really do anything by way of action, too. It just keeps on pondering and pondering and pondering, but doesn’t provide anything remotely actionable.

Not long. Maybe 20 minutes?

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Bonus Reco!

Since this will technically be the last chance I’ll have this year to recommend new stories to you, I decided to cap it off with a read that should hopefully help us be more mindful of this genre that we all enjoy.

Just to clarify: This is not to shame our tastes or preferences. I just think that it’s always important to understand the realities of the media (all types of media) that we consume. I’m confident that TLR’s reader base will be smart and mature enough to appreciate that, too.

This essay hit me hard. As a recovering longform writer myself (my career in this very specific subniche of journalism never really took off), these were the exact internal conflicts that I was grappling with. And which eventually just pushed me out of the field completely.

I would find myself wishing for something horrible to happen so I could jump into it and… what? Tell a story? Like the writer of this essay, I never really truly believed that my longform pieces could affect some real, profound change in society or policy. I believe strongly in the value of keeping record—or writing down history as it happens, so to speak—but unlike the writer of the essay, I don’t believe that benefit of narrative journalism is worth its emotional (often financial and physical) tolls.

Of course, that’s just me, and the equation may look different for you.

Regardless, this essay presents a very clear-eyed look at the contradictions of longform journalism. Contradictions that, some might argue, are merely semantic, but which I think can pretty much become fatal for a field that purports to champion justice and democracy and human rights.

I have to say, practicing narrative journalism myself really helped me gain a much more holistic and unfiltered view of the Media as it were. Warts and all. So many warts. So many flaws and faults and pitfalls. So much hypocrisy. A view without all the platitudes and motherhood statements, without much of the the subconscious influence involved in reading about the Media from the Media.

And I just wanted to end the year by helping TLR readers move even just a little bit closer to that.

Not long at all. I’d say 10 minutes.

Thanks for reading! Please, please reach out if you have feedback, suggestions, or questions. Alternatively, you can fill out this super quick survey form. I promise it won’t even take five minutes of your time, and it’ll be a HUGE help!

ALSO: I know some of the stories I recommend might be behind paywalls, and maybe I can help you with access to those. Send me a message and let’s see what we can do 😊

Until next Monday! 👋