Happy Saturday all! Thanks for starting your weekend with Five Great Reads – some of the best things I’ve read on the Guardian this week.
Get ready to hear from five extremely different record holders, women who dared to bare it all, and a tale about the desecration of one of the world’s most valuable books.
With a coffee or tea in hand, let’s dive in.
1. Life after a Guinness World Record
Imagine being crowned the world’s best at something? From the lowest roller skate limbo, to the longest under-ice free dive, “some people train their whole lives to earn a Guinness World Record,” Katie Cunningham writes, while for others “picking one up is a happy accident”.
But what happens after the moment of glory?
How low can you go: For Michelle Boyle, roller skating under a pole just 13.35cm off the ground “was definitely the coolest thing to ever happen to a 10-year-old”.
Feelgood 80s story: “I’d like to say that I went on some kind of motivational speaking circuit or something like that. But, no, I didn’t.”
How long will it take to read: Five minutes.
Further reading: A deeper dive into the strange survival of Guinness World Records.
2. A second chance
When the author Michael Visontay was researching his family’s history during Covid lockdown he uncovered an unexpectedly extraordinary story: a “crime against history” in the book world set off a chain of events that led, via the horror of the Holocaust, to his family’s delicatessen in 1950s Sydney.
The benefactor: New York book dealer Gabriel Wells, who acquired a Gutenberg Bible in the early 1920s and sold the individual pages for a fortune.
The beneficiary: Olga Illovfsky, Visontay’s grandfather’s second wife, who inherited some of her uncle Gabriel’s money.
How long will it take to read: Three and a half minutes.
3. Flesh after 50
Shooting for 500 Strong began in 2021, in photographer Ponch Hawkes’s Melbourne studio, where participants were given the choice: to show their faces or not. They were completely naked. About two-thirds of the women decided to remain anonymous, hiding their identities with chosen props.
The experience left some women in tears – but no one ever changed their mind about being photographed.
***
“I’ve done projects about very worthy and important things in my life. This is the only one that’s ever changed anything.” – Ponch Hawkes.
On a larger scale: Artist Spencer Tunick’s latest mass nude shoot in Brisbane brought together 5,500 bodies. One participant wrote about how weirdly normal the experience was.
How long will it take to read: Four minutes.
4. Along the Stream of the Blackflies
This read about a massacre in the Amazon jungle is worthy of a longer attention span.
In 2004, 29 people were killed by members of the Cinta Larga tribe in Brazil’s Amazon basin. The massacre shocked the country – but the truth of what happened is still being fought over.
Key players: Nacoça Pio Cinta Larga, the “general chief” of his people, was made the public face of the atrocity, “rather than the survivor of one”.
How long will it take to read: Nine and a half minutes.
5. Tim Robbins, with no politics please
“A quality movie, a quality television show, will last. Whether it’s a hit or not is irrelevant,” Tim Robbins says. It helps that he starred in a film (The Shawshank Redemption) that “remains on top of IMDb as the most favoured movie of all time”.
But with the newer television drama Silo, the actor – known for his strong political stances, even though he begins this interview with a request to not discuss them – is still choosing roles he truly believes in, and that echo real life.
Streaming takeover: He’s also concerned about the wider future of his industry.
How long will it take to read: Four minutes.
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