We've been asked to pull together a list of our top five favorite longreads from 2010. Rather than a single list, we give you five, with some overlap and a few extras.
We each bring our own bias to these lists. So keep that in mind.
This collection illustrates something, I think. Twenty Ten has been a good year for the Gang. (Or perhaps we just think too much of each other.) Thanks for showing up here this year for the learning and barfights, and thanks for contributing.
One request.
Show us yours.
Here goes:
Tom Lake
"Roger Ebert: The Essential Man," by Chris Jones
"Innocence Lost," by Pamela Colloff, which helped free an innocent man from Death Row.
"The Courage of Jill Costello," by Chris Ballard
"11 Lives," by Tom Junod
"Judge nourishes goodwill between feuding neighbors," by Ben Montgomery and Michael Kruse
"The Suicide Catcher," by Michael Paterniti
Wright Thompson
"Roger Ebert: The Essential Man," by Chris Jones
"The Boy Who Died Of Football," by Thomas Lake
"Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds," by Michael Lewis
"The Unexpected Hero," by Gary Smith
"Stories of LeBron and Sportswriter Intertwined," by Michael Kruse
"11 Lives," by Tom Junod
Justin Heckert
"Innocence Lost," by Pamela Colloff
"The Brain That Changed Everything", Luke Dittrich
"Thumbing His Way Back Home," by Tom Lake
"The Biggest Little Man in the World", Andrew Corsello
"11 Lives," by Tom Junod
"Roger Ebert: The Essential Man," by Chris Jones
"Believeland," by Wright Thompson
Michael Kruse
"The Last Patrol," by Brian Mockenhaupt, The Atlantic, November 2010 "You can't be a little kid when your buddy gets blown up next to you."
"The Case of the Vanishing Blonde," by Mark Bowden, Vanity Fair, December 2010 Man on a mission + mystery + Mark Bowden = couldn't stop reading.
"Five-year-old Slugger," by Thomas Lake, Sports Illustrated, August 30, 2010 Because it's like most every great sports story -- it's not about sports at all.
"Vertigo: At sea with Javier Bardem," by Chris Jones, Esquire, October 2010 Here's something Wright Thompson, one of the best there is, said about this story on Gangrey, and I couldn't agree more: "This is genius. Fuck me, ya know?"
"Growing Up Gaga," by Vanessa Grigoriadis, New York, March 28, 2010 "The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth."
"The Promise," by Joe Posnanski, joeposnanski.blogspot.com, Nov. 10, 2010 "Like all great songs, all great art, it only matters what it means to the person who accepts it."
Ben Montgomery
"Public Triumph, Private Torment," by Chris Goffard The duality that defined the sportswriter's life divided the grieving. Mourners were split between two memorial services, one for Mike and one for Christine.
"Hit And Run Victim Was Quiet, Dependable, Co-workers Say," by Andy Meacham This much is certain about Mr. Smith: A number of people miss him.
"'Lost' Or Not, We're Still At Loose Ends," by Hank Stuever America, it's so obvious: Millions of you loved "Lost" because you feel lost.
"How To Fall 35,000 Feet -- And Survive," by Dan Koeppel You’re 6 miles up. You’re alone. You’re falling.
"On The Bow'ry," by Dan Barry SCREAMS at the bottom of the night disrupt a Bowery sleep. A woman on the other side of the hotel is crying, “I love you, I love you,” to someone who seems not to love her back. Her wails last an hour, unleashing into the pitch a swirl of imagined sounds and whispers.
The glass shimmers of a million beer mugs. The faint strains of a thousand vaudeville ditties. The entwined polyglot murmurs, of English and German and Yiddish and Italian and Mandarin — and Bowery. The stentorian blather of a Tammany blowhard. The final exhalation of a dying inebriate. A weepy farewell toast to Big Tim. The shouts of “Fire!” The bark of a poodle.
The echoing clatters of a lone man building a barricade.
Leave a comment