In light of recent events
Who’s preferencing whom?December 13, 2011
Monthly Wire
Top Reads of 2011
During 2011 the Monthly added a free daily service – the Shortlist Daily – a compact email providing a curated selection of the best reads from around the world. What follows is a selection of ten pieces that appeared in the Shortlist Daily – surely amongst the boldest, wittiest and wisest reading this year.
How we were all misled "It is easy to mislead people about money, and easy to lead members of the public astray, because when it comes to money, most of us, most of the time, don't know what we're doing. The corollary is also clear: the whole Western world misled itself over debt, and the road back from where we are goes only uphill."
– New York Review of Books
Zadie Smith on race, religion and diversity post-9/11 "Here on earth, poverty and privilege cross the religious and the cultural divide. Look a little closer at the CCTV footage, in London: we riot together, and together we clean the streets."
– New Yorker
Booze Territory: The crisis of alcoholism "At 2 pm the shutters will open, the tavern will close and the drinking will shift to the dry riverbed of the Todd River. It is rush hour for Alice Springs taxi drivers. 'No car, no drive-through' is the new rule for these bottlos (unless you're white), and taxis are hailed for the 10 metre trip."
– The Monthly
Putin's Rasputin "Surkov is the real genius of the Putin era. Understand him and you understand not only contemporary Russia but a new type of power politics, a breed of authoritarianism far subtler than the 20th-century strains."
– London Review of Books
The Tweaker: Malcolm Gladwell on the genius of Steve Jobs "Jobs gets his girlfriend pregnant, and then denies that the child is his. He screams at subordinates. He cries like a small child when he does not get his way... Our natural expectation is that Jobs will emerge wiser and gentler from his tumultuous journey. He never does."
– New Yorker
James Gleick: How Google dominates us "The Google corporate motto is 'Don't be evil.' Who, then, judges what is evil? 'Evil is what Sergey (Brin) says is evil,' explained Eric Schmidt, the chief executive officer."
– New York Review of Books
Finish that homework!: On the Tiger Mother phenomenon "There's scarcely a subject more fraught with reproach and scrutiny, more fertile for theories, than parenting, and motherhood in particular. Why has this book excited such extreme reactions?"
– New York Review of Books
All the single ladies: On marriage and the modern woman "What my mother could envision was a future in which I made my own choices. I don't think either of us could have predicted what happens when you multiply that sense of agency by an entire generation."
– The Atlantic
A woman's opinion is the mini-skirt of the internet "You come to expect it, as a woman writer, particularly if you're political. You come to expect the vitriol, the insults, the death threats. After a while, the emails and tweets and comments containing graphic fantasies cease to be shocking."
– The Independent
And finally
On the movie set of Ilya Khrzhanovsky "The rumors started seeping out of Ukraine about three years ago: A young Russian film director has holed up on the outskirts of Kharkov, making... something. If the gossip was to be believed, this was the most expansive, complicated, all-consuming film project ever attempted."
– GQ
Not receiving the Shortlist Daily emails?
It's your direct link to the best reads from around the world.
Follow on Twitter: @shortlistdaily
Email: [email protected]
Ghost notes: Simon Tedeschi’s ‘Fugitive’
A virtuoso memoir of music and trauma, and his experiences as a child prodigy, from the acclaimed Australian pianist
The quip and the dead: Steve Toltz’s ‘Here Goes Nothing’
A bleakly satirical look at death and the afterlife from the wisecracking author of ‘A Fraction of the Whole’
Election special: Who should you vote for?
Undecided about who to vote for in the upcoming federal election? Take our quiz to find out your least-worst option!Election special: Who should you vote for?
Undecided about who to vote for in the upcoming federal election? Take our quiz to find out your least-worst option!
Remembrance or forgetting?
The Australian War Memorial and the Great Australian Silence
Property damage
What will it take for Australia to fix the affordable housing crisis?
Present indicative: Daniel Johns’ ‘FutureNever’
The former Silverchair frontman’s second solo album lacks cohesion, but affords him space to excavate his past
