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.
A look at how bog bodies have been discovered in Europe, and what we’ve learned from them.
(BBC, approx 13 mins reading time)
Archaeologists suspect there is something unusual about many of the bog bodies, beyond their extraordinary preservation. To be buried at all during this period of history was not the norm – formal burials were rare in Iron Age Europe, with the dead often cremated, given sky burials or a range of other inventive practices. Many of the bog bodies were young adults, adolescents and children, who seemed to be largely fit and healthy. Some were naked except for a well-preserved piece of rope, a hat or a cloak, and sometimes their clothes were buried separately from them nearby in the bog. Above all, many of the bodies had suffered extremely violent deaths.
2. The victim who became the accused
The story of Arica Waters, who was invited to a pool party, after which she slept with a superior. But in the aftermath, when she reported the incident she found herself becoming an accused.
(The New Yorker, approx 35 mins reading time)
The emergency medic gave Waters the number for a female sergeant, Amy Gloor, who often handled sexual assaults for the sheriff’s office in Ottawa County, which includes Put-in-Bay. Waters recognized that, in the eyes of law enforcement, she was not a “good victim.” But she felt harmed, and she wanted to tell someone. Perhaps on some level she was also seeking a remedy for wrongs that hadn’t been acknowledged when she was a child.
A look at the 23-time Grand Slam champion’s career and legacy.
(The Ringer, approx 12 mins reading time)
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.
Carla Ciccone writes about getting an ADHD diagnosis at age 39.
(Harper’s Bazaar, approx mins reading time)
Uneasiness has been a constant in my life. As a teenager, I wanted to be confident, do my homework early, keep my bedroom tidy, and stick to a budget so I could buy Angel by Mugler, my teen dream perfume. Instead, I hated myself, rarely did my homework on time, cleaned my room only when it reached hazmat status, and smelled like Skittles, courtesy of Sunflowers by Elizabeth Arden, because I blew my Angel budget on weed and McDonald’s. Adult me was the same, but with debt and clinical depression. I chalked up my personal and professional disasters to a deep personality flaw that left me feeling like a frightened clown trying to blend in at a cocktail party.
How a man known as the ‘man in black’ was exposed by the Russian women he terrorised.
(BBC, approx 11 mins reading time)
The women, mostly aged between 19 and 25, had attended a rally in Moscow in March against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They were quickly rounded up by officers and put in the back of a police van. Most of them didn’t know each other, but despite the circumstances the atmosphere was upbeat. They even set up a Telegram group chat as they travelled across the city to Brateyevo police station. What happened next was far worse than they anticipated.
Look, if you were anywhere online this week you’ll have spotted a LOT of chat about the drama around the film Don’t Worry Darling. Here’s a primer on what the hell happened.
(Vox, approx 10 mins reading time)
Personally, everything I’ve learned about the feature film — which stars Florence Pugh and should use a comma after “worry” in its title — has been against my will. I couldn’t tell you the plot (something about ’50s housewives?) but know all too much about the supposed behind-the-scenes drama, from the interviews to the non-interviews, the snubs and the Shia and the spit takes. Now that I’ve experienced the Don’t Worry Darling press tour, I wish I could go back in time and live in a world where I didn’t.
…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…
Millions of people read this article about what happens when Queen Elizabeth dies. This week, we saw what happened in real time, as the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom died on Thursday.
(The Guardian, approx 35 mins reading time)
The last time a British monarch died, 65 years ago, the demise of George VI was conveyed in a code word, “Hyde Park Corner”, to Buckingham Palace, to prevent switchboard operators from finding out. For Elizabeth II, the plan for what happens next is known as “London Bridge.” The prime minister will be woken, if she is not already awake, and civil servants will say “London Bridge is down” on secure lines. From the Foreign Office’s Global Response Centre, at an undisclosed location in the capital, the news will go out to the 15 governments outside the UK where the Queen is also the head of state, and the 36 other nations of the Commonwealth for whom she has served as a symbolic figurehead– a face familiar in dreams and the untidy drawings of a billion schoolchildren – since the dawn of the atomic age.
Note: The Journal generally selects stories that are not paywalled, but some might not be accessible if you have exceeded your free article limit on the site in question.
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