Slightly More Than 100 Fantastic Articles
Each year, I keep a running list of nonfiction that I encounter as I publish The Best of Journalism, a weekly email newsletter that I curate. This is my annual attempt to bring roughly 100 of those stories to a wider audience. I could not read or note every worthy article published last year (and I’ve disqualified paywalled articles and everything published at The Atlantic––though don’t miss last year’s issues or other bygone gems that await throughout this publication’s archives.) But all that follows is worthy of wider attention, reflection, and engagement.
American Tales
REMAINS OF THE DAY / The Greatest Sports Achievement of My Lifetime by Eugene Wei
“A week ago, Alex Honnold free climbed El Capitan. With no ropes or climbing gear besides his shoes and chalk, Honnold became the first person to free climb what is universally acknowledged, among the climbing world, as the most daunting challenge in what most people consider to be less sport than a perverse game of Russian roulette with fate.”
THE HEDGEHOG REVIEW / On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality by Phil Christman
“I cannot convince myself that the promise the place still seems to hold, the promise of flatness, of the freedom of anonymity, of being anywhere and nowhere at once, is a lie all the way through. Instead, I find myself daydreaming—there is no sky so conducive to daydreaming—of a Midwest that makes, and keeps, these promises to everybody.”
EPIC MAGAZINE / What Goes Up by Jack Hitt
“The daredevil, his helicopter, and the birth of modern news.”
AMERICAN AFFAIRS / The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective by Puzhong Yao
“I don’t claim to be a modern-day Alexis de Tocqueville. He grew up in Paris, a city renowned for its culture and architecture. I grew up in Shijiazhuang, a city renowned for being the headquarters of the company that produced toxic infant formula. He was a child of aristocrats; I am the child of modest workers. Nevertheless, I hope my candid observations can provide some insights into the elite institutions of the West.”
THE NEW YORKER / How the Elderly Lose Their Rights by Rachel Aviv
“Guardians can control the lives of senior citizens without their consent—and reap a profit from it.”
THE WEEKLY STANDARD / Flowers in Their Hair by Andrew Ferguson
“Maybe the wholesale rejection of time-honored and time-tested values — monogamy, moderation, good manners, self-denial, self-control, the sanctity of private property, personal accountability to higher authorities, both material and spiritual — leads to squalor and misery.”
THE LOS ANGELES TIMES / Dirty John by Christopher Goffard
The audio version is recommended.
CALIFORNIA SUNDAY / Mars Madness by Alina Simone
“The custom-built, two-person craft the Sjogrens want to build would be the Kia to the Hummer-sized models proposed by NASA and would cost only a billion dollars, they claim. NASA’s space shuttle orbiter costs $1.7 billion. The Pythom Space website lists the Sjogrens’ departure date as late April 2018, but the couple admit they are probably looking at 2020, the next time the orbits of
