Kevin Purdy: My Top 5 Longreads of 2011

Kevin Purdy is a freelance writer, and a frequent Longreader. Check out his site here.

Not all written in 2011, but brought to my attention and saved in 2011:

In Which There’s a Girl in New York City Who Calls Herself the Human Trampoline – This Recording Graceland is truly the one album I never get sick of. Great retrospective/place-setting piece.
New York is Killing Me – New Yorker R.I.P., Gil Scott-Heron
The People V. Football – GQ I read many, many takes on the issue of concussions in the NFL in 2011, and this is the story that still haunts me, and makes me a different kind of football fan.
My Mom Couldn’t Cook – Esquire Rightful nominee for a James Beard award. Refreshing tonic from all the Food-Network-approved anecdotes of fusing culinary traditions and “twists on comfort food” and yada yada.
“If the Serial Killer Gets Us, He Gets Us” – Texas Monthly If Skip Hollandsworth has written a crime story that isn’t worth slacking off work to read right now, I haven’t found it yet.