IT’S A DAY of rest, and you may be in the mood for a quiet corner and a comfy chair.
We’ve hand-picked the week’s best reads for you to savour.
Ten years ago this year, 14-year-old Andrew Gosden left his home and got a train to London. He hasn’t been seen since. Here, his family talk about the impact this has had on their life – and how they will never stop searching for him.
(BBC, approx 11 mins reading time)
His sister Charlotte, now 26, said: “It was just a complete panic. We initially thought something must have happened on the way to school.”When we found that he hadn’t even been to school – even tried to go to school – that was even more worrying.” It emerged Andrew had put on his uniform and left the house but then waited for his family to leave before returning home.
In a piece that was widely shared online, Holly Hartman writes about how she downloaded an app and ended up helping people desperately trying to escape their homes after Hurricane Harvey hit.
(Houston Chronicle, approx 20 mins reading time)
I got a two-minute ”training” session and a “good luck!” One of the key suggestions of the training session was that when I received a rescue request, I needed to try to call the person making the request if possible to get more details and to ensure that it was a legitimate request. Unfortunately, there had been reports of people calling in fake rescue requests and then robbing the volunteers when they arrived. Despicable.
Here’s that oral history of Curb Your enthusiasm you’ve been waiting for.
(Hollywood Reporter, approx 11 mins reading time)
David You know, when people told me after the show started airing that they had to leave the room for some scenes because they were cringing and they couldn’t bear to watch — it was like a horror movie — I had no idea it was having that effect on people. That was a complete surprise to me, and I liked it. I liked that they couldn’t see it. But I never really gave it that much thought. I was just trying to do funny shows. I never felt I was going too far. I felt I was doing what I wanted to see.
Juicero was meant to be a very modern solution to the very modern problem of finding time to juice. A machine with pouches of juice, it cost $399 to buy. But the company collapsed, after many questionable headlines.
(Bloomberg, approx 17 mins reading time)
Some employees say Evans’s passion for wellness was overwhelming. The founder mostly ate raw and vegan foods, and would sometimes scold non-vegan employees who ate yogurt or drank milk at team meetings, according to three former employees. He occasionally referred to dairy products as “cow pus,” they say. For a time, he also refused to allow employees to expense work meals at non-vegan restaurants, the ex-employees say.
Anne Enright pens a searing take-down of sexism in Ireland’s literary scene – a must-read.
(London Review of Books, approx 25 mins reading time)
The argument about excellence – that women’s work just isn’t good enough – is incredibly hurtful given that there is so much mediocre work by men around. Theatre is a high-stakes medium. Some of the Abbey plays I have seen over the years have been wonderful, and some truly excruciating. I would fall out of the theatre afterwards thinking there was no point in being high-minded: what we needed was more – or at least some – ghastly plays by women.
Maryann Gray accidentally knocked down a child in 1977. How do you move on after accidentally causing someone’s death?
(New Yorker, approx 26 mins reading time)
The statement Gray gave to the police later that afternoon is written in the neat script a young student might use on a final exam: “A child (blond male) ran into the street from my left, running in front of the car. I tried to go around him (left) but couldn’t get by. I hit my brakes instantly + skidded to the left.” The signature at the bottom of the page looks as though it had been written slowly and with care.
…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…
The Falling Man is an iconic – and troubling – photograph from the 9/11 terror attack. It shows a man who appears to have jumped from one of the towers, making his way through the air. The story behind the photo, and the identity of the man, is a fascinating but incredibly sad one. (Contains photographs some may find upsetting)
(Esquire, approx mins reading time)
In most American Newspapers, the photograph that Richard Drew took of the Falling Man ran once and never again. Papers all over the country, from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram to the Memphis Commercial Appeal to The Denver Post, were forced to defend themselves against charges that they exploited a man’s death, stripped him of his dignity, invaded his privacy, turned tragedy into leering pornography. Most letters of complaint stated the obvious: that someone seeing the picture had to know who it was.
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