Hi 👋 

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

How is it already December?? I feel like I was just making my 2024 New Year’s checklist last month or something. It’s all still so fresh in my mind.

Now that we’re down to the wire, though, I realized that I really haven’t gotten far with my list. As in, not even halfway through. And some of the things I’ve left undone are relatively simple.

But whatever. I’m not going to beat myself up over it. I still achieved a lot this year—just that they were mostly unplanned. Foremost of my wins this year is running and maintaining The Lazy Reader, and cultivating a budding community of longform readers who enjoy the same things I do. I’m glad I took that very spontaneous jump earlier this year.

Before I get too sappy, here are some choice picks from this week’s list:

• A history of the first Thanksgiving celebration.

• This massive investigation about bleeding in the U.S.—a painfully under-appreciated public health crisis.

• A first-person perspective of trying to rebuild a deeply conservative town after a catastrophic flood.

Also: When I started TLR earlier this year, I allowed myself to hope for 1,000 subs by the end of 2024.

(It wasn’t really a goal becuase I didn’t want to pressure myself to chase growth too much. That’s a sure path to burnout).

But now we’re so so close. Just a few dozen new readers to go! So I’d be really, really, really thankful if you helped TLR hit a thousand by sharing this newsletter with colleagues, friends, family (or even strangers) who you know would enjoy a longread recommendation or two every week 🙏

Thanks so much for the support and for reading with me! 💖

See you again next Monday!

Story in Spotlight

This story was publsihed in 2006 and still easily beats out most True Crime stories today.

What a beast of a longread.

I’m typically not a fan of narratives where the writer is so deeply intertwined and extensively involved in the story. I think it compromises the journalistic integrity too much. And under normal circumstances, I’d feel the same way about this story, especially since the writer really does embed himself in the hunt for The Monster. At one point, he even goes with another journalist to scope out and interview a suspect.

The writer is unapologetic about it, too. Early on in the story, he openly admits that he and the Italian journalist he partnered with have their own theories about the perpetrator. And that they’ve done enough work on the case as to fall afoul of law enforcement (not to say anything of how corrupt and arrogant the police is). The Italian journalist got jailed. The writer of this article essentially cannot re-enter Florence.

And while I do still think that this is a massive breach of journalistic integrity, at some point I came to understand the story not as an investigation, but really as more of a first-person story about how two journalists grew to be obsessed with The Monster. Of course, that doesn’t excuse it at all, but it makes it a little bit more acceptable and understandable.

And I will admit that the writing in this story makes it much much easier to let its journalistic shortcomings slide. The prose here is absolutely masterful. I can’t even begin to express how much I loved the writing. It’s smooth and fast-paced. The cadence is comfortable and it carries you easily through the sentences and paragraphs. The structure is genius. The overall pacing and tension-building is perfect.

Douglas Preston needs to hold a writing class so I can be the first to sign up.

Very, very long. And can get gorey (and therefore difficult to read) in some parts. But definitely a very worthwhile time sink. You might need to commit 1 hour and 30 minutes for this, possibly more.

The Longform List

🦃 Native Intelligence | Smithsonian, Free

Thanksgiving was last week—so Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate!

I was originally planning to run a themed reading list for the occasion, but then I got too caught up in the year-end rush of my clients. I didn’t have enough time to cobble together a Thanksgiving list that I would be proud of. I’d already started, though, and this story was one of the shoo-ins for the supposed list.

In recent years, it’s become mainstream (thankfully, and about d*mn time) to question the bloody origins of Thanksgiving as a holiday. I know there has been pushback to this, but I am of the belief that if we live on stolen land, we need to acknowledge the provenance of our current privilege. At the very least. Ideally, we pay reparations, too, but that’s for another time.

This story helps us build that awareness. In many Thanksgiving stories (even those that are decidedly progressive), Natives are relegated as background characters; as context for the story of colonization. But they aren’t just that. As this story shows, Natives had a sophsiticated society with their own organized and intricate systems of knowledge, beliefs and technologies.

We need more of these types of stories. We need to start ascribing more humanity and agency to communities that have fallen victim to our expansionist tendencies.

Pretty long, but not novella-esque. Probably 1 hour at most? And distractions included.

🧔🏻 Held Together | The Atavist, $

The Atavist knocks it out of the park again.

Right from the dek (that’s the tiny blurb below the headline), this story grabs you and demands your attention. It sets a pretty high bar for the rest of the article, which it so easily clears. This is a harrowing tale of being on both ends of a hostage situation—one, from the perspective person who was actually taken and put through near-torture levels of punishment; and two, from the point-of-view of his family, left clueless about his whereabouts and wellbeing.

What really stood out to me, though, was how the story was written. It’s essentially two intertwined essays, which in itself is already a very unique and creative way to tell a story. But the writers (and editors, I’m sure, who did much of the heavy-lifting in this regard) layered their individual parts so well. It’s a really effective way to show how two different people in vastly different circumstances can see the world also in their own different ways.

I don’t know how else to describe it except that it’s genius. And it really evoked some cinematic scenes in my head while reading.

Very, very long. But very worth your time, too. You’ll need to set aside 1 hour and a half, at least, though.

🛎️ The Stowaway | Medium (Truly*Adventurous), $

I really have to hand it to Medium. Some of the publications on there are producing absolute top-notch longform journalism.

This one, for example, is much, much better than many of the longform crime stories I’ve read. Ever. There’s another layer of impressive, too, because this story manages to still be riveting even if the crimes in it aren’t the typical violent stories. These are just mostly low-stakes (personally) heists, which I tend to easily get bored of.

If anything, that’s just how well this story was written. And I really can’t overstate that. The prose here is masterful. Many times, I lost myself in the story so much that I forgot to be aware of the writing, which is very rare for me. And the writer manages the tension of the story really well, too, giving us just enough detail to keep us aware of what’s happening and what’s coming—but not too much that we don’t want to read through to the end anymore.

Not overly long. Might take you 40 to 45 minutes, distractions included.

⛈️ After the Deluge | Harper’s, $

I really appreciate how unique this story is.

I don’t know if I’m just too dense or something, but it took me a while to realize that the writer is actually a local government leader in the community at the center of this story (I think until a specific point in the story where the writer says it explicitly). But when that hit me, it’s like the entire meaning of the story changed.

I thought this was going to be some generic essay story about the effects of the climate crisis (which, while important, is starting to feel really bland; I’m sure there are other takes out there, no?), but I think giving it that first-person governance angle made it much better. The insights are sharper and more nuanced, the lessons are more believable. And even if the story does become a bit too feel-good for my taste, it doesn’t feel contrived or fake.

This sets a real high bar for all the other environment essays I'll be reading in the future.

Long and can be difficult to read through in some parts, especially if you have some lingering trauma from a climate disaster. Might take you 50 minutes, with quick breathing breaks. 

🐉 The Great Chinese Art Heist | GQ, $

I have very mixed feelings about this story.

On one hand, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yet again, a low-stakes (again, for me) crime story that has somehow managed to keep me hooked. The writing was great and smooth, and pacing wasn’t boring at all. The story itself is very interesting, too. Though I will say: I wish there had been more of an investigation into the thieves. Actually find things that would physically (even if circumstantially) link the heists to China.

That brings me to my “on the other hand:” I feel like the connection to China was really lazy. Yeah, sure, the thieves specifically set out to steal Chinese art, which makes the country the prime suspect. That line of reasoning is fine for some conspiratorial conversations between friends—not for running in a massive international magazine.

Plus: I also don’t know how to feel about the heists themselves. I definitely don’t condone stealing, but there is colonial baggage there. The artworks do belong to the Chinese people. And they’re in various museums across the world becuase they were stolen in the first place. These are all true. And some part of me can’t seem to shake the notion that in some twisted, definitely wrong way, there’s a degree of justice that’s being carried out.

Long, but very enjoyable. An easy read, too. I took 30 minutes, and I was being slow with it.

🤕 Enslaved on OnlyFans: Women Describe Lives of Isolation, Torment and Sexual Servitude | Reuters, Free

If the title hasn’t tipped you off yet, this article includes many, many mentions of sexual abuse, blackmail, and many other forms of physical, mental, and emotional abuse. Please be careful when reading through this, and if these themes will trigger you or cause you heavy distress, consider skipping this story outright.

This story made the rounds last week—and for good reason. It’s a very harrowing but really well-executed investigation. Reuters did impressive documentary and legwork for this story. They didn’t just go deep into one particularly emblematic (not to mention heart-breaking) case, but they were also able to at least partly capture the breadth of the issue and look at many other examples of sexual slavery on OnlyFans.

This piece adds to the growing wave of complaints that make the case that social media platforms need to have some degree of responsibility for the content that goes on their sites. I understand how complex the issue can get, and I don’t fully know where I stand. But reading stories like these, it’s really hard to just go ahead and blankly accept that these tech giants are absolved of all culpability.

Not too long. Just the right length, in my opinion, to fully lay out the findings and points. But a very difficult read. I’d set aside an hour for this, taking into account all the time I’d need to step away for a breather.

🩸 Why so Many Americans Bleed to Death After a Traumatic Injury | The Dallas Morning News, Free

For whatever reason, this story flew under everyone’s radar when it was published last year.

Which is really and truly unfortunate because it’s such a thorough and important investigation. So much so that it won several awards.

And I guess it’s understandable that bleeding isn’t as sexy (so to speak) as other medical stories. (I don’t necessarily agree with this, because what else is more visceral and attention-grabbing than blood??) Plus bleeding doesn’t easily lend itself to those beautiful, winding essays the way that chronic conditions do.

Plus: there are more concrete factors, too: Bleeding is sorely under-documented. And the case figures that we do have paint it as a middling uncommon issue—not as terrifyingly common as some infections, and not as bedazzlingly rare as, say, ALS.

But that’s not to say that it’s not an extremely important public health crisis. You don’t need to take my word for it, because this story (and all the other stories in this series, which you should also definitely read!) lays that out perfectly. One detail that jumped out at me is that an American losing blood in the middle of a warzone in Afghanistan or Iraq is more likely to survive than a pedestrian in Dallas.

There has to be something wrong with that equation, right?

Not too long. As in the case of the Reuters investigation, this one is just long enough to properly flesh out its arguments and findings. Maybe set aside 30 focused minutes for this.

💰 The Mystery Millionaire of Gage Park | Chicago, Free

This is a nice, warm story about one man who died a millionaire and had the great distinction of having the largest unclaimed estate in America.

I will say, though, that the title misleads a tiny bit. Going into this, I thought that this would be an investigation of a man who was living two lives: an outwardly innocent old man who by all accounts seemed innocent enough, but who actually had a dark, criminal secret to explain his wealth.

That’s not what this story is at all, which is a bit of a disappointment, I’ll admit (and why it’s this low on the list). Instead, this was really just an attempt to look into the ways that a regular man could have amassed such wealth. Still, it turned out to be a really fun reading experience, especially toward the end, when the writer detailed out the search for existing family members who were in line to receive the inheritance—and showed how this person’s life-long efforts and savings could prove to be life-changing for his long-estranged relatives.

Not long at all, and a really easy read. Probably 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! 👋