Taylor Swift fans, the middle class and Princess Diana: here are the ABC’s best long reads of 2024
If you’ve been staying close to the news this year, or even reading many of these Weekend Reads, it’s been hard to see the light through the dark.
But there are moments of joy out there — and now is a good time to catch up on them.
Like the Taylor Swift fans who made the most out of missing out on tickets to see the pop starlet. Read this one to the end.
Explore Archie Moore’s installation kith and kin, which filled four walls and the ceiling of the Australian pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale with a family tree — until it was erased.
Or read about former actor Yael Stone. When she walked away from Hollywood, everyone thought she was crazy — except the man who loved her.
Have a safe, happy and restoring break if you’re able to, and let this chill seep in: it might be what you need…
Weekend Reads will be back next year after a summer break. And I’ll be glad to see you all again. Go well.
For Taylor Swift fans, friendship bracelets and sequined dresses are signature style. (ABC News: Jack Fisher)
To be a Swiftie in the Eras era is to commit, fully, and Sophie Morris has been preparing for months. The 32-year-old took off work for the four-day duration of Taylor Swift’s Sydney shows.
There’s only one problem. Despite hours of scouring Ticketek, the one thing Sophie still needed was an actual ticket.
Handbags in a designed image for Foreign Correspondent. (Foreign Correspondent: Emma Machan)
It’s never been easier to buy convincing fake luxury fashion online. But many buyers would be shocked to learn where their money goes.
(ABC News: Gabrielle Flood)
Across Australia, households on six figure incomes are struggling to pay the rent or mortgages — let alone afford little luxuries. Others are delaying retirement or working extra jobs to pay the bills.
Nestled between the blue-collar “working class” and monied “upper class”, this well-trodden and aspirational path to a financially comfortable life is becoming uncertain and for many the “fair go” Australia is famous for feels increasingly out of reach.
(Australian Story: Tom Hancock)
She turned her back on Hollywood. He collapsed from exhaustion. Unconventional couple Yael Stone and Jack Manning Bancroft reveal the sacrifices they make to live by their convictions.
A team of scientists on the front lines of climate change are helping nature heal itself. But as wars rage around them, it’s making their efforts to feed an increasingly hungry globe that much harder.
Defamation has become a spectator sport in Australia.
The past 12 years have delivered a spectacular meteor shower of defamation cases brought by celebrities, politicians and businessfolk, and fought out on the national stage of the Federal Court.
Here’s the story of how it all began.
Close-up of Archie Moore and his artwork kith and kin. (Supplied: Luke O’Donohoe/courtesy of Creative Australia)
Archie Moore’s installation at the 60th Venice Biennale, kith and kin, fills all four walls and the ceiling of the Australian pavilion with a family tree.
The work’s title means “friends and family” but the old English definition of ‘kith’ broadens out to include “countrymen” and “one’s native land”.
It’s mammoth in scale — and in what it has to say.
Alice and Frieda sit in their car at night. (Four Corners: Mridula Amin)
A growing crisis of school refusal is gripping Australia, leaving families — like Alice and Frieda — in a hidden struggle with blame, shame and the fear of a lost education.
Both the junta’s military and various rebel groups in Myanmar have been accused of human rights abuses. (ABC News: Fletcher Yeung)
Cut off from the world and mired in a deadly conflict, Myanmar is suffering from a forgotten war. But the ABC embedded with one of the many resistance groups who have banded together — and, against all odds, finally appear to be winning.
Princess Diana, who once pushed her stepmother Raine down the stairs, later became her best friend. (Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty)
When Diana was 15, her father secretly married a glamorous, younger woman.
The future princess and her stepmother became locked in a bitter rivalry. But it ended with a surprise friendship.
If the plight of adults with long COVID remains poorly understood, the millions of children who have it worldwide are practically invisible. (ABC News: Nash Weerasekera)
They’re losing their formative years to this debilitating disease. But for too many children with long COVID, finding help is a frustrating and traumatic process that leaves them feeling isolated and invisible.
