The Longreads Blog

Larry King: 'Is He Happy? Is He Alright?' (1991)

Larry King: ‘Is He Happy? Is He Alright?’ (1991)

Joe Spring & Chris Keyes: Our Top 5 Longreads of 2010

Joe Spring and Chris Keyes are editors for Outside Magazine.

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The Most Isolated Man on the Planet, Slate, Monte Reel (Aug. 20, 2010)

He’s alone in the Brazilian Amazon, but for how long?

The Last Patrol, The Atlantic, Brian Mockenhaupt (November 2010)

A veteran unit patrolling the Devil’s Playground hands off its territory to a new patrol.

An Army of One, GQ, Chris Heath (September 2010)

Who would be crazy enough to hunt Osama bin Laden alone…11 times?

The Ballad of Colton Harris-Moore, Outside, Bob Friel (January 2010)

One the trail of a teenage fugitive.

Last Drop, Outside, Brad Melekian (December 2010)

An inside look at the last days of surfing’s most troubled star.

Amy K. Nelson's Top 6 Longreads of 2010: Murder mysteries, baseball, The Price Is Right

Amy K. Nelson is a writer for ESPN.com. (She and Elizabeth Merrill also wrote this great longread about sports and infidelity.)

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Longreads asked me to compile my Top 5 of 2010. An impossible task, and I know a few of mine are on other people’s lists. Here’s what I drew up:

The Case of the Vanishing Blonde
By Mark Bowden
Vanity Fair

Can’t get enough of murder-esque mysteries; this is one that stayed with me.

Dodgers Tap into ‘V energy’
By Bill Shaikin
Los Angeles Times

The most amazing baseball story of 2010. Hands down. One of those you wish you had written.

TV’s Crowning Moment of Awesome
By Chris Jones
Esquire

I’m biased because this is my all-time favorite game show (Bob Barker only). Even without my bias, it’s just a kickass story.

Last Drop
By Brad Melekian
Outside

This was an amazing quick-turn of a difficult story with reluctant sources.

Art of the Steal
By Joshuah Bearman
Wired

Murder mysteries and thieving stories battle it out for closest to my heart.

*EXTRA CREDIT

The Shadow Scholar
By Ed Dante
The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Inequality That Matters

The Inequality That Matters

Hosed: The FDNY's Black Firefighter Problem

Hosed: The FDNY’s Black Firefighter Problem

Rich Ziade: My Top 5 Longreads of 2010

Rich Ziade is partner and lead strategist at Arc90, notable for many things including creation of the wondrous Readability app.

(Ed. note: We know: One of the stories below is from 2009, and another is from 2007.)

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• Paul Graham ruminates over the deflationary value of stuff.

• Zak Smith debates which is more offensive: the porn industry or Tyra Banks exploiting the porn industry in Barely Legal Whores Get  Gang-F***ed.

• The New York Times (Wyatt Mason) deep dives into the mind of The Wired’s David Simon.

• The New Yorker (Nick Paumgarten) profiles John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods.

• The CBC investigation (by Neil Macdonald) of the assassination of Lebanon’s prime minister Rafik Hariri plays like an international procedural thriller. Ben Affleck as the protagonist?

Time Person of the Year 2010: Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg

Time Person of the Year 2010: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg

The defense could have proposed that it’s never normal or sane to believe you’re the prophet of God…But the defense did not go there, perhaps because the judge and most of the jury and most of the people outside the courtroom were Mormons and would have been deeply offended.

Scott Carrier on the trial of the Utah man recently convicted of abducting Elizabeth Smart: an inside look at the mystical religious fervor that grips many Americans…and took center stage in Smart’s case. (via motherjones)

Murder Music

Murder Music