The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.
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Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.
Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.
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Here are five stories about the sociopolitics of stripping down.
Kyle Chayka took his first figure drawing class at age 12. He discusses intention versus interpretation and nakedness versus nudity in this thought-provoking essay about figure drawing.
But as long as you approach it with the right mentality there’s no wrong way to go about figure drawing. Replicating the infinitely complicated human form might get easier over time, but it’s never perfect. What matters are the qualities you bring to the drawing, the artificial work of art that comes from the physical body as it exists in the world. In a way, the artist brings a lie to the fact.
At the Guardian, journalist Jack Shenker examines the state of the Egyptian Revolution, five years later.

I have a Facebook “friend”—let’s call him Ken—who does something finance-y for the federal government. What I’m saying is, he has money to burn. Every few months, he’ll post a Facebook status along the lines of “For every ‘like’ I will donate $1 to _______ and for every comment I will donate $3 to ________.” Of course, his thousands of Facebook acquaintances are only happy to oblige. Most of my friends don’t make much more than their car insurance payments, student loans, rent and other bills; maybe that’s why Ken’s altruism seems so novel, almost suspect. In reading for this list, I discovered people who give freely, their generosity intertwined with thoughtfulness at best; carelessness, illness or guilt at worst.
Sam Kean, The Atlantic, May 2015
Giving, it seems, might become compulsive in some people because they crave the rush of dopamine that accompanies it—a rush that might be similar to the spike in dopamine levels that gets some people hooked on drugs such as cocaine and amphetamines. In a real sense, pathological givers might be addicted to philanthropy.

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.
Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.
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In the introduction to Birthday Stories, a 2004 anthology edited by Haruki Murakami, Murakami writes about the particular weirdness of having his birthday become a public event. January 12 has come around again, so in honor of Murakami’s 67th birthday it seemed apt to revisit the introduction, which also ran as an essay in The Guardian:
Early one birthday morning I was listening to the radio in the kitchen of my Tokyo apartment. I usually get up early to work. I wake between four and five in the morning, make myself some coffee (my wife is still sleeping), eat a slice of toast and go to my study to begin writing. While I prepare my breakfast, I usually listen to the radio news – not by choice (there’s not a lot worth hearing), but because there’s not much else to do at such an early hour. That morning, as I waited for my water to boil, the newsreader was announcing a list of public events planned for the day, with details of when and where they were happening. For example, the emperor was going to plant a ceremonial tree, or a large British passenger ship was due to dock in Yokohama, or events would be taking place throughout the country in honour of this being official chewing-gum day (I know it sounds ludicrous but I am not making it up: there really is such a day).
The last item on this list of public events was an announcement of the names of famous people whose birthday fell on January 12. And there among them was my own! “Novelist Haruki Murakami today celebrates his **th birthday,” the announcer said. I was only half listening, but, even so, at the sound of my own name I almost knocked over the hot kettle. “Whoa!” I cried aloud and looked around the room in disbelief. “So,” it occurred to me a few minutes later with a pang, “my birthday is not just for me any more. Now they list it as a public event.”
A public event?
Oh well, public event or not, at least at that moment some of the people throughout Japan – it was a nationwide broadcast – standing (or sitting) by their radios may have had at least some fleeting thought of me. “So, today is Haruki Murakami’s birthday, eh?” Or, “Oh, wow, Haruki Murakami’s ** years old, now too!” Or, “Hey, whaddya know, even guys like Haruki Murakami have birthdays!” In reality, though, how many people in Japan could have been up at this ridiculous pre-dawn hour listening to the radio news? Twenty or thirty thousand? And how many of those would know my name? Two or three thousand? I had absolutely no idea.

We asked all of our contributors to Longreads Best of 2015 to tell us about a story they felt deserved more recognition in 2015. Here they are. Read more…

We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in specific categories. Here, the best in investigative reporting.
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Lauren Kirchner
Senior Reporting Fellow at ProPublica.
I can’t remember another investigation that had as much widespread and immediate impact as this one. Through a year of persistent and patient reporting, Nir uncovered the ugly truth of New York’s nail salon industry: the labor exploitation, institutionalized racism, and dire health risks faced by its manicurists. It was an explosive story, but Nir told it with restraint. When this came out, everyone I knew was talking about it. Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio both pretty much immediately launched emergency task forces and investigations to address the problems Nir described. Reforms continue to roll out for salon owners who put their workers at risk.
But I noticed a subtler impact, too: some real soul-searching among New Yorkers about the ethics of indulging in cheap luxuries—for many of us, the only luxuries we can afford. A lot of readers were asking themselves, how could we have not have seen it? “We hold hands with this person for a half hour; we look into her eyes,” as Nir later put it. “I think my investigation revealed that we are not seeing them.” Read more…

Here are five people who influenced the world in powerful ways in 2015.
Over the eight months that followed [the 50th anniversary of the march at Selma], DeRay’s fame grew in a manner unprecedented for an activist. From showing up at protests from Charleston to Baltimore to Minneapolis, to getting an audience with multiple presidential candidates, to increasingly having the ear (or eye) of those in many corners of the social-media-consuming public (from the followers to the haters to the famous), his impact in 2015 has been undeniable.

I am not a political scientist, an aid worker, nor a refugee. I don’t pretend to understand the intricacies of Syria’s politics or the motivations of ISIS completely. I read, share, and little by little, I learn.
Broadsided Press has collected statistics, resources and articles about the conflict in Syria, and Sarah Grey’s essay for The Establishment (included below) had this synopsis:
…More than 240,000 people have been killed since the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad turned into a nightmarish civil war. Four million have fled the devastated country and 7.6 million more are internally displaced, according to a UN inquiry. An estimated 2,000 people have died at sea while attempting to enter Europe. Syria is now 83% darker at night. The outlook is bleak for a country that was once known for taking in refugees.
Broad strokes, to be sure, but important context for the following six stories. You’ll meet a teenager preparing for her wedding, queer lovers separated by bureaucracy, war and thousands of miles, and four women who defended their Kurdish city to the death. There are artists and activists and archeologists, all working together to preserve Syrian culture and the lives of its citizens. Read more…
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