From yoga to pot noodles, the best of this week’s long reads
In a big week for breaking news, it’s time to slow down a little. Here are the best features, interviews and analyses we’ve read this week
Are you one of Yoga with Adriene’s four MILLION subscribers?
From what I can gather, you’ve either never heard of Adriene Mishler, or you’re a card-carrying devotee. If you’re one of the latter, here the Youtube yoga sensation talks about her rise to internet stardom, one ohm at a time.
“I want all the people who voted for Trump to do my yoga. I want all the people who battle with the experience of racism to do yoga.”
Or are you ready to challenge your understanding of what is healthy and what isn’t?
For decades, society has been waging war on fat people — largely because of our understanding of the impact of obesity on health (just this week researchers suggested the NHS should be prescribing meal replacement shakes). But what if so much of what we understand about what is and isn’t healthy isn’t actually true? This writer thinks so.
“It’s time for a paradigm shift. We’re not going to become a skinnier country. But we still have a chance to become a healthier one.”
Do you fancy transporting yourself back in time — or just need a good holiday?
Ireland’s Aran Islands are wild, beautiful, and immortalised in Irish literature (they were also used as a location for Father Ted). This very long read is a kind of cross between a travelogue and a deep literary analysis, but it still made me want to go there.
When I was a kid, I went around with a candle and people still dressed in traditional clothes. Ireland was 20, 30 years behind the rest of the world, and Aran was 20, 30 years behind Ireland.”
This one’s for you if you’ve always known there was a little more to the humble instant noodle
They’re prison currency, long-haul snacks, a student staple, and last year around the world nearly 100 billion servings of instant noodles were eaten. In fact, in their native Japan they’re consistently voted its best ever invention — and that’s coming from the country responsible for bullet trains and laptop computers. This is genuinely fascinating, and well worth a read
And finally for fans of the Queen of Soul
She died in August, aged 76. More than a month on, this Rolling Stones cover story looks back at the troubled life and genius of Aretha Franklin.
She was a traumatised child, a teenage mother, a gospel prodigy and a civil-rights champion.
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