June Golden Giraffe For Writing

Every day, The Browser newsletter selects and presents the most intriguing writing from around the web, and every month we choose the best of the best, the pieces we’ll want to read and re-read forever.

And the Golden Giraffe for June 2019 goes to….

The Best Abortion Ever

Sarah Miller | The Cut | 19th June 2019

Unflinching but upbeat comparative study of how it feels to terminate two pregnancies in one year — the first with RU-486, the second at a clinic. The clinic comes out ahead, thanks to a particularly skilled doctor. “In a minute or so, she said, ‘Okay, now instrument’. There was a feeling between uncanny and mildly unpleasant, then there was pain. It lasted about ten seconds. I was just about to say, ‘This really hurts’, when, suddenly, it didn’t hurt any more, and the doctor was snapping off her gloves” (2,300 words)

ALSO BRILLIANT:Stay In The Game

Drew Dickson | Albert Bridge Capital | 17th June 2019

An extraordinary, one-off piece of writing, which moves easily through two familiar genres — the deeply troubled teenager; the stray dog whose affection brings the teenager back from the brink — before taking a final twist and ending up in wholly unexpected, and wholly satisfying, territory. You would need a heart of stone to read this and not feel at least a little bit better about the ways of the world (1,833 words)

ALSO BRILLIANT: History’s Greatest Horse-Racing Cheat

Josh Nathan-Kazis | Atavist | 6th June 2019

Profile of Peter Christian Barrie, race-fixing virtuoso of the 1930s. “He was a master of the measures a man could take to bend the odds at the track. But it was his fingernails that told the story of his particular genius: They were nearly gone, eaten away by the bleach and ammonia he rubbed into the hides of horses so that racetrack stewards, detectives, jockeys, and even the horse’s own trainers mistook them for entirely different creatures. He was a horse painter, perhaps the best in the world” (3,600 words)

Congratulations to Sarah, Drew and Josh! We hope you’ll enjoy their writing as much as we did.

If you’d like to get beautifully-capsuled recommendations for 5 outstanding pieces in your inbox each day, you can try out the Browser for free by clicking this link.