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Choire Sicha: Five Longreads from 2010: Boundary Issues

Choire Sicha is (of course) co-founder/editor of The Awl, which also happened to publish some of my favorite longreads of 2010.

choire:

In honor of the Longreads year-end fiesta of Things That People Have Read That Are Considered Long (And Also Worthy) from 2010, herewith, five things that stuck with me.

But first, a note about what was excluded. For starters, a number of things from The Awl, which were of course my ultimate favorites. (I won’t name names, because I love everyone who writes for us equally but also in a unique and special way, but I will point out that we have a delightfully browsable Longreads tag!)

Then also, what I think is my favorite story of the year, Janet Malcolm’s “Iphigenia in Forest Hills,” is subscription-only online. (It is here.) So it can’t be included, because, democracy now! Or something. (Attention currency now?) Likewise, Emily Witt’s excellent “Miami Party Boom” is excerpt-only online (it is here) and so must also be excluded. (But you should buy that issue just to read it. And I do mean “just”! (I’m kidding, n+1! Love you! Because also the second part of the Elif Batuman travelogue about Samarkand in that issue is totally worth reading.)

Preamble over!

So here are five complicated, thorny, sometimes even aggravating pieces of writing that stuck with me throughout the year, usually for better, only rarely for worse. These address, in different ways, issues of how we we write. With what sort of language? What do we disclose and when? How do we discuss ourselves? What is the value of talking to other people when writing about our experiences? And then what do we do with that information? Most importantly, exactly how can and should we write about others? (That is another reason why the Janet Malcolm piece was so important.) What obligations do we have?

• Maureen Tkacik, “Look at Me!

• Jay Caspian Kang, “The High is Always the Pain and the Pain is Always the High

• Emily Gould, “Death and Blogging

• Sady Doyle, “13 Ways of Looking at Liz Lemon

• Pitchfork Reviews Reviews, “wrote this last night on my blackberry at
the forever 21 flagship launch party

The Peanut Solution

Longreads Pick

The product may not look like much — a little foil packet filled with a soft, sticky substance — but its advocates are prone to use the language of magic and wonders. What is Plumpy’nut? Sound it out, and you get the idea: it’s an edible paste made of peanuts, packed with calories and vitamins, that is specially formulated to renourish starving children. Since its widespread introduction five years ago, it has been credited with significantly lowering mortality rates during famines in Africa.

Published: Sep 2, 2010
Length: 21 minutes (5,258 words)

James Patterson Inc.

Longreads Pick

Like most authors, James Patterson started out with one book, released in 1976, that he struggled to get published. It sold about 10,000 copies, a modest, if respectable, showing for a first novel. Last year, an estimated 14 million copies of his books in 38 different languages found their way onto beach blankets, airplanes and nightstands around the world

Published: Jan 20, 2010
Length: 31 minutes (7,819 words)