Related post: All through the night

Apart from sleeping and working better, my new routine of staying up all night has led to something else to look forward to after midnight.

Several weeks ago, this article at Slate introduced me to the highly-regarded Texas Monthly true-crime articles of Skip Hollandsworth. In particular, there was the engrossing yet very sad ‘The Lost Boys’ about early-‘70s serial sex-killer Dean Corll and the now elderly parents of his male teenage victims still haunted by his awful legacy.

Next, the Slate article and ‘The Lost Boys’ led me to Longform, the site that links to a wonderfully endless variety of non-fiction articles old and new.

And ever since, I’ve slowly been working my way through Longform’s (currently) 229 pages of links.

When I work late at night, I use my version of the Pomodoro Technique where I work for 30 minutes, break for 30 minutes and keep repeating until I finally go to bed. During my breaks, when I’m not surfing or catching up with various personal matters, I’ll often head to Longform, find yet another interesting-looking article to read, and lose myself in it.

Regular readers of Black and Blue Man may have noticed that recently I’ve begun linking to some of these articles in my Twitter feed. As of this writing, the latest article I’ve linked to was one that actually brought me to tears – ‘Two CIA Prisoners in China, 1952–73’, an astounding story of resilience and survival. What made me cry was what greeted each prisoner when they were released, including the simple yet powerful gesture to one prisoner that was “the first act of dignity shown him in 20 years”.

If you’re looking for some great reading with a broad range of subject matter, I can’t recommend Longform highly enough.

Until next time, stay well and take care 🙂