Another year, another round-up of things I read online that I found amusing, though-provoking, challenging to my world view or simply validating of my smug sense of being right about everything. As with last year’s list, a piece will make the cut if I’m still thinking about it the next day (even if I’m thinking about it angrily). Some pieces are included simply because I enjoyed the writing style. The stand out publications for 2014 are The Appendix and Aeon.
This year I’ve introduced categories to make it easier for readers to ignore what they know is unlikely to interest them. The categories are fairly arbitrary but they have the advantage of showing up my biases. (Who would have thought I was such a cynic to have a whole category dedicated to the best writing on ‘nerd hubris’, and another for ‘activist hubris’? Alert: I do not think believe activism or nerdery is inherently hubristic.)
And if you only read two things from this list, make them:
- Andrew O’Hagan’s Ghosting: Julian Assange (London Review of Books, 6 March 2014). This is a superb piece of work from a brilliant writer who was commissioned to produce a biography of a narcissist and failed. The story of the failure becomes an eloquent biography in its own right.
- Gene Weingarten’s The Peekaboo Paradox (The Washington Post, 22 January 2006). Technically not published in 2014, but this is when I read it. I enjoyed this piece because it reads like a fine piece of fiction.
Best writing on journalism and publishing for 2014
- Why Audiences Hate Hard News—And Love Pretending Otherwise
- You’re not going to read this
- Does journalism still require impartiality?
- George Packer: Is Amazon Bad for Books?
- Open Access 2.0: Access to Scholarly Publications Moves to a New Phase
- I Was a Digital Best Seller!
- How Did Amazon End Up as Literary Enemy No. 1?
Best writing by or about writers and writing
- Elegy for a Country’s Seasons by Zadie Smith
- The American Scholar: Ten Best Sentences – Our Editors
- Stop Comparing the NSA to <em>1984</em> (and Start Comparing It to Philip K. Dick)
- Stupid Questions by Tim Parks
- 10 overlooked novels: how many have you read?
- Christine Smallwood: Phyllis Rose’s “The Shelf: From LEQ to LES”
- Our Kind of Ridiculous: Yous, Me and Blackness as Probable Cause
- Growing Up in Therapy
- The Psychology of Writing and the Cognitive Science of the Perfect Daily Routine
- The 10 Best Ghost Stories
- Whipping Boy
- The pencil and the damage done
- How to write a novel using the snowflake method
Best writing on politics
- An Open Letter to My Bogan Country Men Regarding Australia Day
- What the Fox Knows
- 2013: On Being Offended | Article | Tiny Mix Tapes
- The Good of Government by Roger Scruton | First Things
- The Fog Machine of War
- Progressives need to change the conversation
- Tracker articles – Warren Mundine : The White Sheep of the Family? – August 2013
- Alexei Sayle’s Marxist demolition of Strictly Come Dancing
- The ideology reigniting the History Wars at PM’s literary awards
Best writing on wealth inequality
- The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks’ Most Devious Scam Yet
- One-Percent Jokes and Plutocrats in Drag: What I Saw When I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society
- The remarkable persistence of power and privilege | Inside Story
- For the Love of Money
- Piketty’s Fair-Weather Friends | Jacobin
- Failing union of capitalism and democracy fuels rise in inequality
- We need to talk about growth. (And we need to do the sums as well.) – Persuade Me
Best historical writing
- Imaginary Jews by Michael Walzer
- How a Little Person Became the Most Famous Filipino in Nineteenth-Century Britain—Blog
- The Shopping Mall’s Socialist Pre-History | Jacobin
- Yesterday’s drugs are tomorrow’s medicines – Benjamin Breen – Aeon
- The Fasinatng … Frustrating … Fascinating History of Autocorrect | Gadget Lab | WIRED
- How history forgot its role in public debate – David Armitage – Aeon
- Meet the ghost-sign hunters
Best ethnographic and travel writing
- WHO IS THE DANDY MAN? The Congo Subculture Uncovered
- Giving Money to Child Beggars Is the Least Generous Thing a Tourist Can Do
- Naked, Covered in Ram’s Blood, Drinking a Coke, and Feeling Pretty Good
- http://media.news.com.au/nnd/captivate/edenhope/
- Rotherham child sex abuse: it is our duty to ask difficult questions
- The Laborers Who Keep Dick Pics and Beheadings Out of Your Facebook Feed | WIRED
- Notes on the Exotic – The New Yorker
- All Dressed Up For Mars and Nowhere to Go — Matter — Medium
- Eric Wolf, Europe and People Without History–Geography,States,Empires
Best writing on ethics and the examined life
- What You Learn in Your 40s – NYTimes.com
- All by myself: is loneliness bad for you?
- The Trick of Life
- If everyone’s an idiot, guess who’s a jerk? – Eric Schwitzgebel – Aeon
- When is one ready to get married? | Philosophers’ Mail
- Your desire to be famous – and the problems it will bring you | Philosophers’ Mail
- New Statesman | Think before you act: against the modern cult of spontaneity
- How much should we worry about death? – Stephen Cave – Aeon
- The Real Link Between Creativity and Mental Illness | Beautiful Minds, Scientific American Blog Network
- How a hero narrative can transform the self – Will Storr – Aeon
- Why I Hope to Die at 75
- Anna Deavere Smith on Discipline and How We Can Learn to Stop Letting Others Define Us
- What Happens When We All Live to 100?
- The Benjamin Franklin Effect: The Surprising Psychology of How to Handle Haters | Brain Pickings
- How to Hone Your Creative Routine and Master the Pace of Productivity
- What if You Just Hate Making Dinner?
- A Religion for the Nonreligious | Wait But Why
- A Foodie Repents
- Why broken sleep is a golden time for creativity – Karen Emslie – Aeon
- Morality is the key to personal identity – Nina Strohminger – Aeon
- On Marrying the Wrong Person
- 10 Types of Odd Friendships You’re Probably Part Of | Wait But Why
Best writing on nerd hubris
- We need to talk about TED
- In the Name of Love | Jacobin
- The onrushing wave
- The Powerlessness of Positive Thinking
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Could Soylent Replace Food?
- My day as a robot – The Boston Globe
- Edge
- Jill Lepore: What the Theory of “Disruptive Innovation” Gets Wrong
- Atheists Used to Take the Idea of God Seriously. That’s Why They Mattered.
- Creativity Creep – The New Yorker
- Generation TED and the power of positivity – Julian Baggini – Aeon
Best writing on activist hubris
- Writing letters of protest won’t help change Australia’s refugee policy
- LRB · Andrew O’Hagan · Ghosting: Julian Assange
- On the march
- The Truth About Anonymous’s Activism | The Nation
- Stop Trying to Save the World
Best writing on children and parents
- RELENTLESS: The Brutal Truth About The Third Child
- Darwin’s Children Drew All Over the On The Origin of Species Manuscript (Updated)—Blog
- Karl Ove Knausgaard’s ‘Boyhood Island’
- New Parenting Study Released
- The most liberating thing that ever happened to me
- Mothering lessons for the girl who cried bear
- The day I left my son in the car
- Classic childhood books from yesteryear
- Children have a right to be unhappy
- Babies, business and gender
- The Peekaboo Paradox
- Why Kids Sext
- Amazon.co.uk: Profile For Hamilton Richardson: Reviews
Best writing on sex
- The rise and rise of sexology
- Shades of grey no more for the modern woman’s erotic imagination
- Cosmo’s 44 Most Ridiculous Sex Tips
Most amusing writing (and photographs)
- Animal escape drill at Tokyo zoo – in pictures
- Fitzwilliam Notebook (Normalized Version)
- Bob Carr’s diary: the outtakes | Ben Pobjie
- How Football Sounds To People That Don’t Care. This Guy Nails It.
- Movie Girlfriends Hate Heroism
- IS got you down? Worried about the future of media? Ask Sam de Brito! –
- “As A Father of Daughters”
- The Women’s Petition Against Coffee 1674
- 12 Stickers In The Wrong Places [NSFW] – The Poke
- Ayn Rand Reviews Children’s Movies – The New Yorker
Best writing on feminism
- When a Bar Full of Women Was a Nightmarish Dystopia
- Emily Nussbaum: The Shallowness of “True Detective”
- The Danger of the Monster Myth
- Feminism for Them? | Susan Faludi | The Baffler
- Not All Men: A Brief History of Every Dude’s Favorite Argument
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds
- Exclusive: Monica Lewinsky on the Culture of Humiliation
- Why Are All the Cartoon Mothers Dead?
- LRB · Katrina Forrester · Blame it on the management: Working Girls
- The Case for Female Astronauts: Reproducing Americans in the Final Frontier—Vol. 2, No. 3
- Wonder Woman: The Weird, True Story by Sarah Kerr
- Good Feminist | Boston Review
Best writing on education and academia
- Works Cited: Humanities scholarship is incredibly relevant, and that makes people sad.
- Feature: Why do some academics feel like frauds?
- No, Jane Austen Was Not a Game Theorist
- Surviving the post-employment economy
- Are adjunct professors the fast-food workers of the academic world?
- Academic scattering
- The Soul of the Research University
- The Miseducation of America
- Is coding the new literacy?
- Anthropology Inc.
- No More Plan B: A Very Modest Proposal for Graduate Programs in History
- Finding Meaning After Academe
- The Hi-Tech Mess of Higher Education by David Bromwich
- The Future of College?
- Are Élite Colleges Bad for the Soul?
- References, Please by Tim Parks
- College Students’ Thesis Topics Are Hilarious, Depressing
- Students don’t know what’s best for their own learning
- The Academic Profession in Transition (2011 report)
Best writing on science
- Why we love repetition in music – Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis – Aeon
- Does the Science of Human Behavior Only Show Us What We Want to See?
- The Backfire Effect
- The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science
- It’s time to look for life in Europa’s ocean – Lee Billings – Aeon
- Structuralism: Thinking with Computers
- Magical thinking still haunts all our thoughts – Andrew Crumey – Aeon
- Survival of the Sexiest | The Nation
- The Big Bang Is Hard Science. It Is Also a Creation Story. – Issue 17: Big Bangs – Nautilus
- View From Nowhere
- Quantum weirdness is everywhere in life – Johnjoe McFadden – Aeon
- Graphs are no longer enough: it’s time wonks and experts joined the fight
Best writing on language
- that munanga linguist: Linguists supporting communities: We did it well before. Did we lose our way?
- Nobody Said That Then! Masters of Sex, Not of Slang
- Featured Linguist: Nicholas Evans | The LINGUIST List
- The Artist of the Unbreakable Code – Issue 18: Genius – Nautilus
- There is no language instinct – Vyvyan Evans – Aeon
- Egyptology can help us future-proof our culture – Grayson Clary – Aeon
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