For my last post of the year I thought I’d collect all my favourite articles/essays/long reads of the year. So here they all are (over 65 of them) categorised as best as I can for you to dig into over Christmas and into the new year.
Have a great break and see you in 2019.
PERSONAL ESSAYS & MEMOIR
Compulsion: Where Object Meets Anxiety
Why Aren’t You Laughing? Reckoning with Addiction
Why I’m suing over my dream internship
Was She J.D. Salinger’s Predator or His Prey?
FOOD & DRINK
Tokyo’s Long Lines Lead to Magic (and Life-Changing Ramen)
Letter of Recommendation: Drinking at Lunch
Flynn McGarry: Can ‘the Justin Bieber of Food’ Grow Up?
The Enormous Life of Anthony Bourdain, According to Those Who Knew Him Best
MOVIES & TV
The Making of Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie
It Had Never Been Done on Television Before: The Oral History of ‘Breaking Bad
In Praise of an Afternoon at the Movies
The Future of TV Is About Couch Shows vs. Phone Shows
Letter of Recommendation: Crying at Movies
What Ever Happened to Brendan Fraser?
Inside Trials of Johnny Depp: Lawsuits, Drinking, Marriage Gone Wrong
The Kids in the Hall – An Oral History (video)
Going All In: An Oral History of ‘Rounders’
Behind The Untouchables: The Making of the Memoir That Reclaimed a Prohibition-Era Legend
BOOKS & PUBLISHING
“I’ve got a few of these stories”: An afternoon with Clive James, Tom Stoppard and Julian Barnes
Will Self in Praise of Difficult Novels
The Mystery Buffs in the White House
The Gorgeous Typeface That Drove Men Mad and Sparked a 100-Year Mystery
Vice Media Was Built on a Bluff
SPORT & GAMES
Every Mission is a Suicide Mission – Accompanying a contestant to a pro-level Galaga tournament
SOCIETY & POLITICS
My Life Cleanse: One Month Inside L.A.’s Cult of Betterness
Attention, Please: Anne Tyler Has Something to Say – The New York Times
Fran Lebowitz: ‘You do not know anyone as stupid as Donald Trump’
Donald Trump, a Playboy Model, and a System for Concealing Infidelity
Jordan Peterson & Fascist Mysticism
MUSIC
Bruce Springsteen on Mental Health, Springsteen on Broadway, His Father and His Career
TECHNOLOGY & THE INTERNET
I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore
Is 2018 the Year We Step Away From Social Media?
Twitter Lessons From A Writer Who Grew Up Online
“Oh My God, This Is So F—ed Up”: Inside Silicon Valley’s Secretive, Orgiastic Dark Side
Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?
The Fall of Travis Kalanick Was a Lot Weirder and Darker Than You Thought
Instagram Poetry Is A Huckster’s Paradise
TRUE CRIME & TRUE STORIES
The Final, Terrible Voyage of the ‘Nautilus’
How an Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald’s Monopoly Game and Stole Millions
Blood Will Tell: Who Killed Mickey Bryan?
Hunting the Con Queen of Hollywood
24-Year-Old Australian Man Spent $2 Million After a Bank Glitch
The Gambler Who Cracked the Horse-Racing Code
Secrets of Las Vegas’s Exclusive High-Roller Cosmopolitan Suite
How the Great California Dispensary Heist Went Horrifically Wrong
The Time Bandits of Southern California
PLACES
The Death of a Once Great City
Inside Tokyo’s audiophile venues
‘You Can’t Get Nothing Like This No More’: How London’s Oldest Family-Run Café Beat Gentrification
As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
VIDEO ESSAYS