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Hi 👋 

It’s Monday again, which means it’s time for The Lazy Reader, your weekly longform reading list ✨

Let’s just get this out of the way: There’s a lot of crime stories on this week’s email.

That wasn’t intentional. I only actually realized when I was assembling the newsletter. It might have been because of the book I’m reading at the moment, which is a nice fantasy whodunit that’s starting to get exciting.

Which brings me to a mini announcement. Lists might get a tad bit shorter for the next few weeks as I devour these books up. I’ll try my best to not let it happen, though, but just in case. Apologies in advance 😅 It’s taking a lot for me to put the book down.

In any case, if you missed last week’s email, here are a few choice picks:

• A first-person study of poverty in the U.S.

• The fatal victims of “jurisdictional issues.”

• One man’s mission to find a mythical kangaroo.

As always, please let me know what you think of the list this week by voting in the poll below.

Happy reading and see you again next Monday!

PS - Thanks once again to 1440 Media for supporting this week’s newsletter! I’m definitely not telling you to click their ad link below the fold. But if you do, it’d be a huge help to me!

Story in Spotlight

This is one of the most beautiful and tragic stories I’ve read. Yet again an instant entry into my all-time favorites list.

This story, as the writer himself says, is “an appalling example of the abdication of adult leadership.“ Which is true, but arguably I’d say it’s more a fatal case of the stubbornness of youth and a moving example of heroism from people you wouldn’t necessarily expect it from.

A group of young boys, some as young 12, are taken on a Camp-sponsored trip to Banff in Canada, where they’re to spend the summer camping and hiking, just roughing it out in the wilderness. But the group is then handed over to a pair of younger counsellors who are—there’s no other word to describe it—inexperienced. So much so that when they decide to hike up a mountain, the entire party decides that one of the kids, a 16-year-old, is the most experienced climber.

Then catastrophe hits: An avalanche, campers buried in the snow, and darkness quickly settling in. The crisis brings out the best and worst in everone involved. Children as young as 13 showed feats of bravery and honor, while adults who should have been responsible for these kids emerged as cowardly and selfish.

Things got worse during the legal proceedings afterwards, where some of these adults tried their best so shirk accountability. One even blamed the tragedy on God’s will. Shameful.

A fair bit of warning, though: I found this story to be extremely emotional. Dread and horror. Panic and desperation, maybe a bit of bargaining. Then loss and emptiness. Then anger. Deep, deep anger. And finally, peace. At many points throughout, I was so arrested by what I was reading that I forgot I was in the gym. This story swallowed me.

Very long, and I’d argue it’s a difficult read. Carve out at least an hour. Give yourself more if you like to take breaks to breathe.

The Longform List

The Last Shall Be First | The Atavist, $

Yet again, The Atavist shows us what top-shelf longform writing looks like.

In this crime-within-a-crime story, writer Brian Fairbanks goes after a corrupt cop—arguably the corrupt cop—and traces his warpath across New Orleans. There’s so much to be said about this story (not least of which is how absolutely rotten local law enforcement has become) but I want to focus on how one story wraps up but then the piece just keeps on going, diving into another, nearly totally unrelated set of victims.

Really gutsy move from the writer there, to put a whole second story (worthy of its own article, I’d say) on at back half of an already-long piece. Paid off immensely, too, in my opinion.

Church Burners | TexasMonthly, $

Miss Pamela Colloff doesn’t miss!

The woman is a genius reporter and writer, but especially in the crime genre. She has a way with history—an uncanny ability to find the most interesting nuggets and flesh them out on a page in a way that makes the readers feel like they were actually there. It may just be that I’m a history buff, but I never find her pieces slow or boring. In this case, it’s a massive help that the subject itself is very interesting. Not like anything I’ve read before: church arsonists. Necessarily, this piece dives deep into the questions of faith. If that’s your speed.

The Time Bandits of Southern California | GQ, $

At some point, all these heist stories that I’ve been reading start to blur into each other. This one, frankly, is no different, but that’s not to say it wasn’t one hell of a reading experience. And to be sure, the characters here stand out: The criminal masterminds are compelling and easy to empathize with, while the investigator is not just dogged (all of em are) but also wise. His bit about thieves using and sticking to a signature really got me.

The Epic Rise and Fall of a Dark-Web Psychedelics Kingpin | WIRED, $

Now this is a crime story that easily distinguishes itself from the rest, even among this increasingly crowded "kingpin” subgenre. WIRED does an incredible job here, profiling the junkie-turned-druglord in a way that is simultaneously candid about his crimes, but also empathetic to the difficulties of addiction.

There’s also a very distinct… let’s say… chemical flavor to this story, which made it all the more endearing to me, a science geek.

Stealing Mona Lisa | Vanity Fair, $

This week’s fifth crime story is also arguably the lightest. There’s no physical violence, no threats, no extortion. Just an art theft brilliant in its simplicity and boldness—and the possibility of something larger, more malicious looming. Now, I wouldn’t actually know if there indeed is something dark hanging over this story, because this is just an excerpt of a book, and I haven’t read it yet. If anyone has, please let me know if it’s worth sinking my time into.

Liked the anti-colonial flavor here, too! Not sure the burglar was actually working to retrieve stolen art, but it’s a nice angle to see on these crime stories.

Inside Amsterdam’s High-Stakes Experiment to Create Fair Welfare AI | MIT Technology Review, $

There’s been a lot of nuance that’s newly being introduced into the AI debate recently. Which is a good thing. I’m still decidedly against the tech, but I think it’s important for people like me to be broad-minded enough to look at and consider the good that could potentially come with AI.

At least… that’s where I was entering this story. But coming out the other end of it, I’m not sure it had the intended effect? This piece illustrates, in a very worrisome way, that even if we do everything right, AI is unlikely to be the platform that everyone’s gassing it up to be. Plus the hubris of these AI engineers always frustrates me.

The Karen Who Cried Kidnapping | Elle, Free

Great title. One that the story, even if it’s a bit short for my tastes, delivers on.

It’s pretty crazy how there are some people who would just outright lie and cause unfounded, unnecessary moral panic just because they saw brown people at the craft store. But then I guess that’s just how racism goes—it infects even our smallest, most mundane interactions. Writing here is fine. Nothing special, given the resources and pedigree behind Elle. Still a nice find, though, and a provoking story.

How To Tell If You’re Dead | Nautilus, $

Perhaps the only story this week that is well and truly not crime or crime-adjacent.

There’s really something about death that just fascinates, no? I’ve noticed that these are the types of stories that get the most clicks on TLR, and which most often solicit reactions from readers. This one takes a more scientific spin on the matter, and is decidedly more surface-level than the other death stories I’ve shared here. It looks at the landscape of the scientific literature on death: Where we are, where we might go from here, and what experts are arguing about.

Kind of fun way to take stock of the field.

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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! 👋