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

We have another big list this week, with some of my all-time favorite longreads. Here’s what you can expect:

• An unflattering look at the True Crime genre and how it turns suffering into spectacle.

• A harsh reminder that the seas are lawless, and that the truth is often so flimsy.

• A brief history of labor day, a holiday that has shed all of its political context.

• A profile of two mortal nemeses and their quest to turn hippos into farm animals.

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

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Happy reading and see you again next Monday!

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Story in Spotlight

I share one very important thing with the writer of this story: I also first came across the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective in a Motherboard story that, apparently, the writer was an editor for.

At the time, I didn’t really care much for them. Sure, they resonated with my more left-leaning, subversive sensibilities, but that was as far as it went. Since then, however, I’ve become much more involved and familiar with the pharma industry as a reporter. And I’ve developed a more critical (if not cynical) view of Big Pharma.

So, in the most neutral way possible, I have very complex feelings about the Collective and this story.

On one hand, I get it: It’s frustrating (to say the very least) that life-saving medicines are so extremely expensive. For all their talk about helping cure the world, pharma companies seem to relish reserving their products for the tiniest, richest sliver of mankind.

And many drugs have simple-enough chemistries that it makes sense, in theory, that they can be produced at home, with just bare minimum knowledge and equipment.

On the other hand: I’m not sure if this is at all ethical. Now, I’m not talking about stealing intellectual property or anything (I don’t think I can care less about that, not when pharma itself also routinely engages in theft), but about safety. The FDA, for all its faults, employs strict quality checks for medicines to ensure that they’re not only effective, but that they also won’t cause severe side effects.

DIY drugs sidestep this process entirely and, as a result, can expose people to complications that can be fatal, in the absolute worst case scenario. Is it ethical for the Collective to put people in the way of these risks?

But, as they argue, the Collective only makes their drugmaking-at-home technology available. They only work to make people aware that this option is possible. They don’t push it on anyone. So I guess, by virtue of technicalities, I shouldn’t have ethical questions anymore. But I don’t know.

This is that Motherboard story I was talking about.

The 404 story isn’t long at all. Maybe 30 minutes if you take your time to really digest the details and enjoy the experience.

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The Longform List

🦛 American Hippopotamus | The Atavist, Free

I was this 🤏 close to making this our spotlight story for the week. It’s one of my all-time favorites and is a really fascinating story ostensibly about the plan to import wild animals from Africa. But it’s actually about two larger-than-life men living outside the typical confines of society—and on opposite ends of the moral spectrum.

Absolutely legendary research by Jon Mooallem here. Even after years of re-reading this story, I still have no idea how he was able to get so incredibly detailed in some parts.

Very long, but also very, very worth it. I’d allot maybe 1 hour and 30 minutes for this, at minimum.

🐢 Blood in the Sand: Killing a Turtle Advocate | Outside Magazine, $

There isn’t a shortage of stories about environmental defenders being killed because of their work, but somehow this one stood out to me as particularly tragic. Maybe it’s because the writer was able to illustrate in a really raw way how passionate the characters are about saving the turtles.

But I think it’s also partly because the writer gets really intimate with the people close to the killings, revealing in often very painful detail how they’re living with the loss of a colleague and friend.

And an important point that shouldn’t be missed: Defend the defenders. Governments should be prepared to invest in the security of conservationists, as well as in the seeking of justice should violence come to pass. (Unfortunately, though, the state is often the perpetrators of this violence itself. But that’s for another day).

Pretty long. Maybe 30 to 40 minutes depending on how focused you are.

✊ When Labor Day Meant Something | The Atlantic, $

The U.S. labor day was last week, and I wasn’t about the pass up the chance to share something topical 😅

In this essay, writer Chad Broughton highlights the irony of Americans celebrating labor day in the country’s quintessential consumerist ways—with massive sales and vacations. After all, these things are made possibly largely through the under-compensated work of… well, laborers. Lost in all the frenzy of the long weekend, unfortunately, is the political background of labor day.

Not long at all, which is unfortunate. I finished this in 10 minutes, distractions included.

🌾 The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race | Discover, $

This story sets a very high bar for itself. It tries to shake the core progressivist sensibility of modern society, essentially arguing that agriculture is one of the most fatal wrong turns we took as a species—despite nearly everyone else arguing that it was the reason for all the progress we’ve attained.

Look: I’m not an expert in this field, so I can’t really say whether the research that the writer used to build his argument is sound, or if there are better sources that could debunk his thinking. But I will say that though the story is compelling, I didn’t come out the other side feeling thoroughly convinced, and I still feel skeptical about the entire thing.

For sure, though, this story sparked an enduring interest in me.

Long, and can get pretty technical in some sports. The writer also has a very academic tone, which might be off-putting. I’d say 50 minutes, so you can take your time with it.

👨🏻‍💻 Cosmo, the Hacker ‘God’ Who Fell to Earth | WIRED, $

Ah yes, one of the classic WIRED-style stories. This is one of their early longform pieces that made me fall in love with the magazine.

In it, WIRED follows a central figure in the hacking community, in the process learning about the various techniques that these online renegades typically use to break into otherwise secure systems. And I think that’s one of my biggest takeaways from this—that “otherwise secure” is, in fact, not secure. This was written in 2012 (and that’s its own brand of interesting, to see how different the internet has become) but it still pointed me to potential weaknesses in my current accounts.

Not too long, and really interesting, too, if the Internet is your thing. Probably a 20-minute commitment.

🚢 The Young Stowaways Thrown Overboard at Sea | The New Yorker, $

Many, many years back, I read Ian Urbina’s book The Outlaw Ocean, before it became its own media non-profit. The details are hazy now, after all the time that’s passed, but it’s still really clear to me how the ocean is one large lawless stretch of water, ruled instead by ship captains, who function like minor king-like figures. Tiny tyrants, for all intents and purposes.

That image was flashing very violently in my mind all throughout this story, which not only shows how easy it is to kill people out on sea (without any real consequences), but also how doing the right thing is often a very wrong choice. My heart is absolutely broken for the Filipino crewmen.

Very long, and might get a bit stale if you’re not into maritime stories. But this is otherwise a really compelling narrative. I’d allot at least 1 hour.

☢️ Something’s Poisoning America’s Land. Farmers Fear ‘Forever’ Chemicals. | The New York Times, Free

Forever chemicals have been on my mind a lot recently, ever since reading that one story about 3M from ProPublica. As it turns out, these pollutants are also in America’s land, poisoning crops and livestock, and hurting farmers’ yields.

This story works well as a quick news-feature, but I think it’s unfortunate that it’s not as in-depth as it could have been. There’s a lot of untapped material there, especially as regards the EPA and its culpability in the entire thing. Hopefully The NYT (or another braver media outfit, more likely) runs a piece on the agency in the near future.

Not long. Maybe 15 minutes if you can stay with it.

🛻 Too Much of a Good Thing | The Economist, $

I’m not a car person (where I live, it’s possible to survive without learning how to drive), so this isn’t necessarily the most exciting story for me. (And I’ll be honest: I expected more from The Economist as far as prose goes; this one feels choppy and the tiniest bit amateurish).

But the premise is both important and interesting: Car manufacturers keep on making bigger and bigger cars, and consumers keep on falling for it. The consequence, as The Economist finds, is particularly lethal for everyone else. I especially liked how they essentially performed a scientific investigation and presented their findings in a public-facing article. I wish more magazines did this.

Not too long, but if cars aren’t your thing, too, then this might be a bit tough to get through. I took 40ish minutes.

🦠 Antibiotic Defences: Ukraine War Reignites Concerns Over Global Bacteria Resistance | Investigate Europe, Free

Now this is something that’s much more up my alley, and I’m of the belief that drug resistance is one of the—if not the—most important public health threats of our time.

And—surprise, surprise😒—war yet again is making the situation worse. It’s important to understand, though, that this story doesn’t really say how war exactly aggravates the drug resistance emergence, but just that patients from warzones tend to be much more resistant to antibiotics.

And I guess that’s something that the media has to do better at: We need to be clear when communicating exactly what the threat is, and what our solutions can be.

Not long at all. Maybe 20 minutes at most?

🕵🏻‍♀️ The BTK Killer’s Daughter. Gabby Petito’s Parents. JonBenét’s Dad. | Slate, Free

This one went viral on all of my feeds a few weeks back, so much so that I had to put off sharing it on The Lazy Reader for a bit. (Even thought of not sharing it at all.)

But as a fan of True Crime, I think I kind of have an ethical responsibility to push stories that promote a more critical assessment of the genre, particularly how much it turns other peoples’ suffering into entertainment. This story certainly tackles that, but also shows that some families find some sort of catharsis and purpose in the genre, using it to drum up awareness of other crimes or as part of their campaign for justice.

Something I didn’t expect, though, is that the rise of True Crime also breeds a twisted sort of envy among families of victims whose stories aren’t receiving the same type of attention that others are. That’s pretty much the darkest sh*t I’ve seen in a long time.

Reasonably long, but honestly the writing is so smooth that I didn’t feel the story pass by. Maybe set aside 30 minutes.  

Thanks for reading! Please, please reach out if you have feedback, suggestions, or questions. I know some of the stories I recommend might be behind paywalls, and maybe I can help you with access to those, too!

Also, I’d appreciate it so much if you help me grow by sharing The Lazy Reader with friends or family who you think might also enjoy a good longform story 🫶

Until next Monday! 👋