You’re Looking for Thanksgiving Conversation Starters
It’s longform journalism week at What To Read If …
Hi friends,
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope your holiday is filled with good food, good people and good books.
I’m thankful to have a community of book lovers to chat with.
This week, I’m doing something a bit different. I’m highlighting three of my favorite pieces of long-form journalism of the year. I thought they might give you something to chat about at the Thanksgiving table (and for that reason, I specifically avoided political longreads). And, to be honest, this gave me an excuse to finally read a bunch of tabs I’ve had open on my computer for months.
I’ve paired a book from the archives with each article, so you have many reading options to choose from.
Next week, I’ll be back with my favorite books of the year and my annual gift assistance thread.
And now, what to read if…
You Have an Aunt Who’s Really into Tennis
Serena Williams Refused to Bend. She Bent Tennis Instead. by Lex Pryor
Lex Pryor’s feature in The Ringer explores tennis great Serena William’s legacy on the sport. I’m a longtime Serena fan — she’s the GOAT: I will not entertain to arguments saying otherwise — and I appreciated Pryor’s take on the history of tennis and how Serena has changed its future.
A choice excerpt:
“There is a kind of poetry in this: The most dominant athlete of our time exiting as she operated. Serena, just by existing, just by doing what she does, turns everything upside down once more. She is herself upheaval, even at the end, even as she floats off into the realm of sports eternity. It’s the inconvenient truth of her reign. She didn’t set out to inspire anyone or piss anyone off, to embody the fissures that line America’s social and political battlefields. She didn’t grow up wanting to be a role model, a martyr, or anything in between: She wanted only to never once yield a single point of tennis to anyone else on this earth. This was her edict. This was her beauty. To see her topple all those records, those moments, those walls—whatever it is, if it’s in her way, she will bend anything.”
Read it and then turn the Thanksgiving conversation from why your uncle’s least favorite politician should retire to Serena.
Reminder recommendations: Julie DiCaro’s Sidelined examines Serena’s career and women’s sports more broadly and 40-Love by Olivia Dade is a warm, funny tennis-themed romance.
Your Little Cousin is Preparing a Pre-Dinner Magic Show
The Improbable Rise and Savage Fall of Siegfried & Roy by Chris Jones and Michael J. Mooney
I haven’t thought much about Siegfried & Roy, the Vegas magicians, since a tiger mauled Roy during one of their acts in 2003, yet I could not resist this article in The Atlantic. It’s proof to the way good writing can get you invested in any topic.
Chris Jones and Michael J. Mooney document Siegfried and Roy first meeting — on a cruise ship where the latter worked as a bellboy. After watching Siegfried perform his solo act, Roy asked, “If you can make a rabbit disappear, could you do the same thing with a cheetah?” The magician said he could, and shortly thereafter Roy introduced his soon-to-be-partner to Chico, a cheetah. The interaction launched a lifelong collaboration between the two men and the big cats they incorporated in their act.
The pair took over the magic world, ultimately headlining an act in Vegas — in a theater built specially for them — that brought in $40 million annually. They performed there until the traumatic 2003 accident.
The story, as Jones and Mooney write, “can serve as a testament to the power of lies, including the ones we tell ourselves, or a cautionary tale about fiction’s limits, especially when fact takes the form of a fed-up tiger.”
Reminder recommendations: Gigi Pandian's Under Lock & Skeleton Key is a mystery featuring a magician sleuth. Magic is Dead by Ian Frisch documents the freelance journalist's time with the52, a group of the world's youngest and most talented magicians.
Your Younger Sibling is a TikTok Star (Or Your Table is Stacked with Millenials)
Growing Old Online by Helena Fitzgerald
In Wired, Helena Fitzgerald put to words a bunch of disconnected thoughts I’ve had about being a thirty-something on the internet, aware that the culture online shifts younger each day. She writes,
“People have been old online before, and young people online get older online every day. But millennials are, arguably, the first generation to have been young on social media and to then get older there. Those of us in our mid- to late thirties may have been extremely online for more than two decades, going through more stages of a life cycle here than anyone else yet has. Other people have been old on here before, but they weren’t here when they were young.”
More than just a look at how we’re changing the internet as it’s changing us, it’s a meditation on growing older in a world that values youth. It’s an article I’ve found myself reflecting on in the months since I’ve read it.
Reminder rec: Linguist Gretchen McCulloch documents how the internet and online communication is changing language in Because Internet.
Have a great week! You can catch up on last week’s rec’s here and read my Q&A with Tabitha Carvan, author of This is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch, here.
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I love all these recommendations! Especially for the week ahead-- thank you!
What a fun approach! I get the print Atlantic and was flipping through and thought, eh, I don't think I care about Siegfried & Roy, but then I went back and read it, and you're right, it's so fascinating! The Helena Fitzgerald piece sounds great--thanks for the recommendations!