HELLO and welcome to the 137th installment of Things I Read That I Love, wherein I share with you some of the longer-form journalism/essays I’ve read recently so that you can read them too and we can all know more about reparations! This “column” is less feminist/queer focused than the rest of the site because when something is feminist/queer focused, I put it on the rest of the site. Here is where the other things are.

The title of this feature is inspired by the title of Emily Gould’s tumblr, Things I Ate That I Love.

How To Be A Writer (July 2014) by Heather Havrilesky (aka Polly Esther) for The Awl – “By now, it’s 5:30 a.m. I get up and tiptoe past the kids’ rooms, put water on for tea, and swiftly unload the dishwasher. Ahead of the curve, motherfuckers! I high-five myself in my mind. (It’s important, as an artist, to reward yourself whenever you do something right. Your life can’t be all “You suck, work faster, you’re falling behind!”)”

The Case For Reparations (May 2014), by Ta-Nehisi Coates for The Atlantic – Okay so this is long, and brilliant, and also really important. We’re talking 16,000 words that you need to read if you want to understand America today and the legacy of discrimination against black people specifically. This is actually the longest piece greenlit for The Atlantic since their new editor started at the magazine, ’cause it’s that important.

With Atlantic article on reparations, Ta-Nehisi Coates sees payoff for years of struggle (June 2014), by Manuel Roig-Franzia for The Washington Post – The reason that I know that the reparations piece was the longest piece greenlit by their present editor is because I read this article, which is a must-read for all fans of Ta-Nehisi Coates which I assume you are because you’re smart and I care about you.

How YouTube and Internet Journalism Destroyed Tom Cruise, Our Last Real Movie Star (May 2014), by Amy Nicholson for LA Weekly – What I found most interesting about this was that I’d actually totally been unaware of the real context of the couch-jumping incident for ten years and had never really thought twice about that.

The Six Seconds Between Love and Hate: A Vine Romance Goes Wrong (May 2014), by David Kushner for Rolling Stone – I didn’t even know people got famous via vine! KIDS THESE DAYS. Anyhow, this is a really rotten sequence of events, it’s about the romance between Jessi Smiles and Curtis Lepore who were famous on vine and now Curtis is being charged with rape.

Jeanette Winterson and AM Homes in Conversation (November 2012), by Jeanette Winterson & AM Homes for The Guardian – How did I not know about this when it happened. Anyhow the formatting is a little messed up — there are parts that are Jeanette’s narration that appear to be continuations of previous dialogue, but once you realize that it’s easy to tell which is which for real. Also at some point Jeanette Winterson says “We are both politically passionate about gay rights and equality of affection, but neither of us believe that sexuality should be the dominating fact of anyone’s life.” Okay.

There Is Going To Be A Destruction… The Obliteration Of A Person (June 2014), by Marion Coutts for The Observer –  “My job is threefold. 1. Not to let Tom be destroyed before his death but to help him live it fully in his own way with all his power. 2. Not to let Ev be destroyed by Tom’s death but to help him live it fully in his own way with all his power. 3. Not to let myself be destroyed. See 1 and 2. That’s it. The project is not to go down.”

On Turning 30 (January 2014), by Molly Crabapple for Vice – “I hated being a child. My happiest day was when I left school and started an adult life where I could travel the world, or at least go to the bathroom without a teacher signing off on it. My early 20s, for all their excitement, were a procession of broke-ness and sexual harassment.  But being a grown woman is damn fine. “