Longform best of 2010

December 7, 2010 7:58 AM

Longform.org's best long form articles of 2010

Including:
The Top 20

The 10 Most Ridiculously Entertaining Reads of 2010

Honorable mention, by topic:
Crime
Business
War
Media
Politics
Sports
Arts & Culture
Science
Tech
Food
Drugs
Interviews

posted by AceRock (15 comments total)

tldr.
But seriously, thanks for posting!
posted by njbradburn at 8:04 AM on December 7, 2010

Love this every year. Let's revisit this thread in January after I've had time to read some of these.
posted by 2bucksplus at 8:19 AM on December 7, 2010

Thanks for posting this. Can't wait to read this stuff after finals.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:05 AM on December 7, 2010

The Suzanne Sternthal piece about Moscow's stray dog population is amazing, and a ton of other great reading here too. Thanks.
posted by blucevalo at 9:22 AM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

The Atul Gawande piece "Letting Go" is truly life changing. I read it when it came out and it has skipped across my mind's eye frequently since. From conversations with my mom about surgery to dealing with cancer in a beloved pet, that article has been a touchstone for me.
posted by hecho de la basura at 9:53 AM on December 7, 2010

Diane Ravitch's "The Myth of Charter Schools" (linked on the first link in this post) is a truly excellent piece. Ravitch has decades of experience in the US education system (which is just about synonymous with "US education reform") and while she doesn't pull any punches, she's also very fair-minded. Sad stuff, too. I've just about finished my thesis project on science education and standards-based reform, and it's been very hard to not get pulled off topic and throw a screaming fit about the lack of support for education by a (modestly sized, but powerful) segment of the American public. Ravitch's article does what my screaming fit could not do -- No bullshit in that article, just a careful examination of the claims made by the opponents of public school in the US.
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 11:02 AM on December 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

If you like reading about Moscow stray dogs (we do), you'll really like the novel Dog Boy (2010), based on a true story.
posted by stbalbach at 11:26 AM on December 7, 2010

The fact that "The Mussolini of Ass" is actually about Mussolini makes me smile.
posted by gottabefunky at 11:28 AM on December 7, 2010

There are 90 articles here. By way of comparison, a typical 250-300 page volume of the Best American Series (which collects the years best magazine articles into book form) contains 20 to 25 articles, so if you read all these articles, it would be about the equivalent of reading 4 books, or a single 1000 to 1200 page book. I know reading these articles would be more interesting than most non-fiction books, but there is something about material presented in book form - versus Internet "long form" magazine articles - that make it seem more worthy of time and attention.
posted by stbalbach at 11:35 AM on December 7, 2010

Diane Ravitch's "The Myth of Charter Schools" (linked on the first link in this post) is a truly excellent piece.

I'll second that; it's challenging and ultimately convincing. Ravitch pegs the article to the hype surrounding the release of Waiting for "Superman", the pro-charter schools documentary by the guy behind Inconvenient Truth, and then proceeds to methodically dissect both the ideas in the film and the strategies it uses to distort the facts. Great read if you're interested in the various schools discussions.
posted by mediareport at 3:20 PM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

I originally intended to snark about the Vanity Fair article (#3), but then I read the Sledgehammer and it was good.
posted by ersatz at 3:48 PM on December 7, 2010

Thanks! Longform.org is one of those sites I have bookmarked, but keep forgetting to go back to. Catching up now.
posted by Grimp0teuthis at 7:43 PM on December 7, 2010

The link on longform.org for Sarah Hill's "The War For Drugs" is broken, from Google too. Anyone got an alternate link on it?
posted by IvoShandor at 10:04 PM on December 7, 2010

Kevin Kelly's Best Magazine Articles Ever.
posted by neuron at 10:59 PM on December 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

Alternate link for Sarah Hill's "The War for Drugs."

Or cached Boston Review page.
posted by takeyourmedicine at 2:00 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]