A Year of Longreads -- Looking Back and Looking Forward -- 1/1/13

After a handful of failed prior attempts at regular blogging, I finally found one that stuck. I've loved getting into longform journalism this year and thank all of you who have read along and have discussed (in person or in the comments) these articles with me.

Looking back, I tried to select my Top 20 favorite longreads that I read in 2012. I ranked them, but if you asked me again in a few days, I'd probably shuffle the rankings a lot. I openly acknowledge that my list of "favorites" is entirely subjective, but in general, the Top 20 is made up of great stories that for me helped to open my eyes to new perspectives on specific people, issues, and the world.

Top 20:
1. No Evidence of Disease (Longread #170)
2. Monopoly Is Theft (Longread #194) 
3. Bowling for Chumps (Longread #5)
4. The Lie Factory (Longread #174)

5. Raise the Crime Rate (Longread #100)
6. America's Warehouse Labor (Longread #23)
7. In Sickness and In Health (Longread #52)

8. Anarchy is Boring (Longread #70)

9. The Throwaways (Longread #153)
10. The Unspoken Jobs Problem (Longread #113)

11. A Murder Foretold (Longread #2)
12. The Fifty-Nine-Story Crisis (Longread #188)

13. The Grizzly Bear Criminal Justice System (Longread #65)
14. Apple, America, and a Squeezed Middle Class (Longread #16)
15. Is Sugar Toxic? (Longread #32)

16. The Thin Blue Lie (Longread #180)

17. Jonah Lehrer's Deceptions (Longread #125)

18. How Wall Street Killed Financial Reform (Longread #72)

19. The Stats of Life (Longread #59)

20. The Obliterated Place (Longread #114)

Looking forward, I expect the blog to take a somewhat different direction. I still plan on posting a daily longread; however, in many cases, I will simply post the details and link to an article that I enjoyed. I am going to focus on only doing article writeups/introductions when I feel that I have something important to say.

Happy New Year!

Eric