Death ships, loopy landlords and Trump TikToks - the best big-reads of 2020
Some long-form journalism worth savouring over a lazy summer holiday...
It’s time for one last best of the year list, and I hope this one helps give you some solid reading at the beach over summer. Bookmark these links, save them up, and read them when you’ve eaten too much Christmas cake, are hungover and slumped on the sand somewhere. They’re the best deep-dive features I read this year. See you in 2021!
The Eco–Yogi Slumlords of Brooklyn
This story of two terrible New York landlords and what they did to their tenants during Covid-19 lockdowns is appalling and astonishing in equal measure.
In the Coronavirus era, the force is still with Jack Dorsey
He starts his day with meditation, a cold pool plunge and a seven-minute work out, and ends it in a sweat lodge. He only eats once. The boss of Twitter is so weird.
Michaela the Destroyer
She made the best TV show of the year, but how? And why? A fascinating read about Michaela Coel’s real-life pain that went into making I May Destroy You.
Six Feet Under: The Oral History of HBO’s Beloved Landmark Series
One of HBO’s best ever shows gets the anniversary treatment with this wonderful and illuminating series of interviews with the show’s cast and crew.
Fiona Apple’s art of radical sensitivity
For this New Yorker piece on the creation of the year’s best album, Emily Nussbaum spent months with Fiona Apple, getting the kind of access most journalists dream of.
The carnival cruise ship that spread Coronavirus around the world
This one, about a cruise ship full of people infected by Covid-19 steaming back to Sydney from Nelson to beat a lockdown deadline still sends shivers down my spine. It will probably be turned into a movie. A24 will produce it. Jordan Peele will direct.
Sweatpants forever
For anyone who works in fashion, this will be a tough listen. This New York Times piece looks at the impact Covid-19 has had on fashion - and it’s not good.
6ix9ine, rap’s newly freed, chart-topping villain, admits to everything
The rapper Tekashi69, or 6ix9ine, is not a good rapper, or a good person. But he’s incredibly popular, and this is an incredible piece of music journalism, done just after his release from prison.
Lip Service
A wonderful Washington Post read on how Sarah Cooper became the year’s funniest comic by turning her hilarious Trump takedown videos into a Netflix special.
Is Lee Stensness the greatest-ever All Black? Yes
A Herald mate of mine lived out his childhood dream by tracking down Lee Stensness and asking him - as well as John Hart and Graham Henry - about his short-lived All Blacks career. This one goes to unexpected places (and is paywalled).
The (mostly) true story of Vanilla Ice, hip-hop, and the American dream
I thought I knew everything there was to know about rap joke Vanilla Ice and his one hit wonder Ice Ice Baby. I was wrong. So very, very wrong.
A motorcycle rally in a pandemic?
This one kind of perfectly sums up America’s chaotic response to this year’s pandemic, as 460,000 bikers converged in one spot to defy social distancing measures. Idiots.
The journalist and the Pharma Bro
I mean, just look at that headline. You have to read it, right? Why Christie Smythe left her husband and risked her job and career for a relationship with one of the world’s biggest douchebags. This one was just published this week…
You might also like…