The best long-reads of 2021

Hello! Hello! I am literally just sleeping and reading and it’s a dream. I hope you’re getting to do the same. Here’s a list of my favourite long-reads slash essays of 2021 for you to enjoy over the summer break (I’m sorry if you’re not able to have a break - hopefully these are a distraction if you can read at work?). I also want to take this time to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for subscribing. Every time I get a new subscriber alert I do a little dance and I’m very very super grateful. You’re the best. Arohanui, Emily x

Who is the Bad Art Friend? And all related ‘Bad Art Friend’ content like - We Are All The Bad Art Friend. And of course - The Harsh Truth of the Bad Art Friend. And Jeremy Strong is the Bad Art Friend. And of course: Identifying the Bad Art Friend is easy.

Slowing the sun, holding back death - There’s a moment, after someone dies, but before you believe it to be true, when time feels negotiable. You can walk right up to death in your dreams and speak to it. You can trick yourself into thinking it might be possible to snare the sun, slow it down, dig in your heels and drag it right back.

My mother, finally free - I realised that most of the photographs on Mum’s wall were a decade old, of my three girls when they were toddlers and at primary school. It was as though time had frozen, as though we kept the girls at the age when Mum last remembered them.

There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing - The neglected middle child of mental health can dull your motivation and focus — and it may be the dominant emotion of 2021.

Late-Stage Pandemic Is Messing With Your Brain - We have been doing this so long, we’re forgetting how to be normal.

Remembering The Valley of Horses, a sex bible for young girls.

The Climate Crisis Is Worse Than You Can Imagine. Here’s What Happens If You Try.

In praise of swimming - Certain evolutionary leftovers in the form of receptors in the face are triggered by cold water and automatically slow the heart rate. It’s one reason we instinctively know to splash our faces with cold water when we need to calm ourselves. Hinemoana calling us home.

Love at 40 - This is what it has been like for me to be in love at forty. To be surprised every day by the simple beauty of it all.

Everyone Is Beautiful and No One Is Horny - Modern action and superhero films fetishize the body, even as they desexualize it.

Born and raised in Pātea - There is something in the water here, the ever-flowing awa that carries down Taranaki Maunga himself. The old people say he was a tohunga in his day and for the power of his wai this might very well be true.

Something Weird Is Happening on Facebook - Affiliate networks are the new Tupperware or LuLaRoe, where housewives or hobbyists sell clicks instead of Amway.

If you can't take in anymore, there's a reason.

Judge a book not by its gender - Where female celebrities are expected to expose all, male writers get to write about whatever they want.

Butt News: The Fast and the Furious: “The Fast and the Furious is clearly modeled after horse movies for girls, except it’s so much more boring, because with a horse you can’t just be like “Oh, I bought Black Beauty some bigger hooves!””

How Twitter can ruin a life - Isabel Fall’s sci-fi story “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter” drew the ire of the internet. This is what happened next.

The Scream Gap - The white Scream is the quickest way to garner an audience’s empathy while simultaneously proving every tired cliché about female hysteria.

Beyond Britney: Abuse, Exploitation, And Death Inside America’s Guardianship Industry - For people under guardianship, the system can be dehumanizing, dangerous, and even deadly. For the professionals — who can control hundreds of people at a time — it can be very profitable.

This is how harakeke grows - My Mum was not a big woman. Some would call her small, petite or even “slight”. But slight to me is like “almost” or “a little bit”. Mum would feed you your own tongue one piece at a time if you ever confused her with “a little bit”.

An adventure every visit: From Skyworld’s glitzy launch to its bleak present.

Your Least Favorite Gross Viral Food Videos Are All Connected to This Guy.

“I’m craving a smoke. I’m craving time.” - I wonder if Jesus watched Mary smoke and realised who she really was. More than the mother of god.

My father, the white supremacist

Scattershots - I thought I knew what a scream was, but until that moment I’d never heard a real scream. It starts at the medulla, shoots out crackling every nerve, tensing every sinew. The screamer is not conscious of the scream. The screamer has shut down all but the most primitive structures of the brain.

Finally this - everything a good essay should be, by my favourite writer: Rules for smiling at strangers.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this list. I’m sure I’ve forgotten many good reads so please, please share them in the comments if I have!

Arohanui Emily x P.S photo below is Ham in full holiday mode to inspire you!