Substack Reads: A billionaire’s puzzling death, Fosbury flop lessons, and the spring equinox
Hello and welcome to another edition of Substack Reads! Every week, we aim to bring you a brilliant smattering of writing from across Substack. Suggestions come from staff and readers from all over the world. Not seeing what you’d like to see here? Leave a comment or share more detailed feedback in our reader survey, which is open for one more week.
This week, Leah McGrath Goodman grapples with the story behind a Wall Street billionaire’s suicide, transportation correspondent David Kerley looks at NASA’s new moonsuit unveiling, and author Maia Toll writes on the spring equinox. We hope you enjoy it!
POWER
The puzzling death of a Wall Street billionaire
The suicide of business tycoon Thomas H. Lee left Wall Street stunned and grasping for answers. Leah McGrath Goodman investigates the human behind the headlines
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in
These more human details explain why so much of the news coverage surrounding Lee’s death felt so stilted and unsatisfying. Particularly the stories postulating that Lee, perhaps, was put out because some of his competitors and contemporaries made more money than he did last year (Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman’s record $1.27 billion paycheck was brought up, as well as the fortunes of KKR & Co.’s Henry Kravis and George Roberts). These were shallow takes on what was likely to be a more complex situation. For instance, it was well known Lee had taken a step back years ago from day-to-day operations, but he remained involved, checking up on his businesses and dialing into key conference calls.
Perhaps a kernel of truth to these stories was that, according to people who knew Lee, he did miss the action of his glory days. “The mundanity of life,” said a person who served on the board of a fund co-owned by Lee. “Sometimes life being just plain awesome isn’t enough.”
SPORTS
What the Fosbury flop can teach us about breakthroughs
With the passing of high-jumping legend and 1968 gold medalist Dick Fosbury, David Epstein finds a lesson in the technique for everyone
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in
Fosbury’s innovative technique makes perfect physics sense. By arching his back and curling his legs around the bar, his center of mass could pass under the bar, while his body passed over it. Thus, he didn’t need to jump as high to clear the bar. Brilliant! Also: simple! And yet it didn’t come from sports scientists, and Fosbury was warned against it by some coaches who felt it wouldn’t work and that he’d probably get hurt. But the older methods of high-jumping hadn’t been working well for him, so he experimented. Fosbury wasn’t thinking about the physics; he was just searching for something that felt like it would allow him to more easily get his butt away from the bar. Clearly, he hit on something that worked for him. And then for everybody.
SPACE
Moonsuits with a Hollywood twist
NASA’s new moonsuit had help from For All Mankind costume designer Esther Marquis. But that’s not the only thing that sets apart the big reveal for the south pole moon mission
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in
The clock is ticking for American astronauts to land on the Moon again. NASA hopes the Artemis III mission will make it to the lunar surface in December 2025. That’s nearly two and a half years away. Sound like a lot of time? It’s not, with all the work that must be done, including building a new moonsuit.
NASA and its surface suit contractor, Axiom, revealed the new xEVA (Exploration Extravehicular Activity) suit with one of the company’s engineers inside. The suit appears much more flexible for astronauts. The spacesuit that was revealed did not include its “NASA” outer protection shell. That exterior layer will be white to reflect heat from the Sun, similar to the Apollo suits.
But there is a different look to this suit. There are several reasons for those changes. Axiom even got a bit of help in designing the look from a Hollywood costume designer who worked on the Apple TV show “For All Mankind.”
FIRST PERSON
The question of ‘today’
Amanda Knox writes for The Free Press about the darkest days after her 26-year sentencing, and how she pulled through
— Amanda Knox in
After I was convicted of murder and sentenced to 26 years in prison, when the earth dropped out from beneath me and global shame rained down on top of me, I had my first-ever epiphany.
I didn’t know what an epiphany should feel like, but it was. . . cold. Like a clear breeze blowing in and brushing the back of your neck, making your hair stand up. I knew something deep down that I hadn’t known before, and I spent the next several months peering into that epiphany, trying to consider all of its implications, like watching the ripples spreading out from a drop in a pool of water.
SPIRITUALITY
Spring ascending
Searching for signs of new life, bestselling author Maia Toll shares a prompt for the spring equinox
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in
Sometime in late February, when the forest is still dressed in grays and browns, we’ll be startled from sleep by the mating calls of the bullfrogs. The toads join in, singing counterpoint to jubilantly announce that—despite the trees’ bare limbs and the occasional snow flurry—winter has come to a close.
We’ve tried to sneak out and join the pond party but the frogs won’t have us, so instead we lay in bed and listen, wonderstruck. The raucous trilling lasts about a week. In its wake are eggs… a ridiculous amount of eggs. They’re black and white at first, but turn iridescent black as they grow. Then, in March, the ponds become a moving mass of tadpoles.
Before the trout lilies and the trillium, while the bears are still groggy, the frogs wake from hibernation. And so spring begins.
PERSONAL FINANCE
My frictionless bank was great, until I got robbed
When American expat Ali Griswold moved to the U.K., she was pleasantly surprised to find the seamless, person-free setup of Monzo bank—that is, until she needed them most
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in
Initially I had planned to use Monzo only as a stopgap, but Monzo won me over. The app was great, the card was fun, and Monzo itself was fully regulated and covered by the government’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which protects accounts up to £85,000 (similar to FDIC insured in the U.S.). It was the perfect blend of legitimacy and millennial branding. I loved Monzo and had only good things to say about it, until I got robbed in Berlin.
CREATIVITY
On capacity
Marlee Grace grew up a polyglot and continues to juggle creative pursuits in writing, dancing, and quilting. But continual “shape shifting” can lead to honest heartbreak
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in
In late 2021 I was asked by A24 to work on a part of a book about a little movie about the multiverse that would include a section about quilts. A dream come true. They had a generous budget and I had been wanting more collaborative opportunities, and the movie sounded so cool.
Then, I lost my mind. A process I wrote about here in this Substack space, and over a year later have managed to see as an incredibly important process to my aliveness. But in this mind-altering experience, where I entered my own cosmos of pain and suffering, I was unable to complete the project and had to turn it down.
The movie was, of course, the brilliant Everything Everywhere All at Once, and watching it win many Oscars last weekend brought up so much sadness for me alongside the deep celebration. Sadness that I wasn’t able to participate in this amazing project, that my own visions for quilts and ancestral connection didn’t make it into the book, and a resentment towards the life I was living at the time that led me to so much crumbling.
HISTORY
A striker’s medal
Auction and antique specialist Monica McLaughlin digs into the violent history behind a medal presented for valor to a key figure in women’s suffrage
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Ada Wright was a longtime campaigner for women’s suffrage and a close friend of Emmeline Pankhurst, the founder of the WSPU, as well as her daughters Christabel and Sylvia (also leaders of the movement).
Wright was a small, slight woman who was tireless in her work for the campaign, contributing both funds and action. Diane Atkinson’s excellent book Rise Up Women!: The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes states that she was “one of those quiet women whose gentle and calm manner hides a courageous and indomitable nature of unexpected depths,” and she did not shy away from violence in pursuit of the cause.
The WSPU’s motto was “deeds, not words,” and in addition to organizing rallies and protesting outside Parliament, they also advocated more aggressive means of demonstration. Members smashed windows, set buildings on fire, and assaulted the police—sometimes in a deliberate effort to be arrested and therefore gain more publicity. When incarcerated, the women often went on hunger strikes and were brutally force-fed.
POETRY
Worm Moon
Musician and writer Patti Smith recommends Poetic Outlaws, which curates profound and obscure thinkers, writers, and artists from across history. This week, a poem by Mary Oliver from her book 12 Moons
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inI.
In March the earth remembers its own name.
Everywhere the plates of snow are cracking.
The rivers begin to sing. In the sky
the winter stars are sliding away; new stars
appear as, later, small blades of grain
will shine in the dark fields.And the name of every place
is joyful.
Recently launched
Coming soon
Congratulations to the following writers celebrating publication.
Food writer
’s new cookbook, Africana, is available in the U.S.:
Pre-order
’s memoir, Letting Magic In, which publishes in June:
Overheard in comments
Happiness is a cappuccino and a pain au chocolat in Paris.
—Graham Strong in
’s post “What Is Happiness?”Great collection of thoughts here, Mike. I’m particularly struck by your illustration of the sundial perspective. My dad worked in construction. He often would tell us he would spend hours bent over blueprints looking for a particular problem with no end in sight. The next morning, with a clear head, he would step into the foreman’s trailer and turn the blueprints upside down. The issues, and often the solutions, became glaringly obvious almost immediately. The simple act of looking at something from a different perspective turned the entire situation around.
—just D in
’s post “Kids These Days”Inspired by the writers featured in Substack Reads? Writing on your own Substack is just a few clicks away
Substack Reads is a weekly roundup of writing, ideas, art, and audio from the world of Substack. Posts are recommended by staff and readers, and curated and edited from Substack’s U.K. outpost by Hannah Ray.
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Congrats to the writers. Keep up with the good work, and hopefully one day my publication gets featured too. 🙏
I find these articles annoying: I have my weekend activities planned, and then a bunch of brilliant-looking links turns up. It's not doing much to reduce my to-be-read list! Seriously, though, thanks for another great collection of wonderful writing.