The antidote: your favourite reads beyond coronavirus

1. Darby McCarthy: genius jockey who rode for princes was a trailblazer of Aboriginal history

‘The death of Darby McCarthy last week saw the passing of one of the greats of Australian horse racing and a trailblazer of Aboriginal history. It is remarkable today that so few in the wider community and the Aboriginal community know of his life and achievements. He fully deserves to be recognised as a genuine legend.’

2. The Magnificent One: how Little Richard’s style shaped David Bowie, Prince and Elton John

‘Little Richard was light years ahead of his contemporaries when it came to experimenting with fashion as part of his image – to celebrate flamboyance, to be a complete rock star… He was the blueprint for the anything-goes permissiveness that developed on stage over the coming decades.’

3. Eastern Freeway crash: more charges for Melbourne Porsche driver Richard Pusey

‘A Porsche driver accused of taunting and filming dying police after a Melbourne crash has been charged with new offences as he applies for bail. Richard Pusey is accused of telling Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor “amazing, absolutely amazing” as she lay dying after being hit by a truck on the Eastern Freeway at Kew last month.’

4. Tony Slattery: ‘This terrible thing still weighs on me. Why, after all this time?’

‘When the interview was published, there was a national outpouring of love for Slattery. So many people wanted to interview him that he became almost as ubiquitous as he had been in the 90s. Dozens of agents contacted me to ask if they could represent him, and book publishers rushed to sign him up. Since then, we’ve stayed in touch: he sends fond messages at unexpected times, and I check in to ask if he’s OK. I wondered what he would do next.’

5. Food fight: what the Chrissy Teigen and Alison Roman dust-up reveals

‘There is nothing certain in life except for death, taxes and the fact that if you pick a fight with Chrissy Teigen, cookbook author and Very Famous Person, you will not win. You will emerge bloody and humiliated. You will rue the day you were born. Alison Roman, cookbook author and Slightly Less Famous Person, found this out the hard way over the weekend.’

6. Scott Morrison reverts to ‘politics as usual’ over sports rorts

‘Inconveniently for the prime minister, serious questions remain about this scandal. Four months have passed and there are still no clear answers, and Morrison is accountable. Being accountable is the price of entry for political leadership.’

7. Richie Sadlier: ‘I thought I’d better find out where my abuser was’

‘As he reveals in his compelling autobiography, Recovering, which won the 2019 Irish Sports Book of the Year, Sadlier was abused repeatedly at the age of 14 by a middle-aged physiotherapist. He still played professional football for Millwall and once for Ireland before a hip injury ended his career at the age of 24. Sadlier is now a psychotherapist, and the most interesting football pundit in Ireland today.’

8. Cécile Rol-Tanguy obituary

‘On 14 August 1944, Cécile took Henri’s machine gun from one part of Paris to another, avoiding German road blocks, while her mother took flyers in Jean’s pram and Hélène danced along the pavement. At dawn on 19 August the insurrection order signed by Henri was posted across Paris.’

9. Sing Backwards and Weep by Mark Lanegan review – eye-popping trip

‘There is no way this man should be alive. But being 6ft 2ins and made of sturdy north-western US stock has meant the gravel-voiced vocalist has outlived many of his fellow travellers. On the day of Kurt Cobain’s suicide, he ignores his dear friend’s calls, wary of getting caught up in some drama occasioned by Courtney Love, Cobain’s wife. Lanegan’s savage regret haunts this memoir.’

10. My favourite film aged 12: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

‘To experience Indy for the first time on a giant screen was utterly intoxicating. The film begins with a rip-roaring origin story set in 1912, in which a young Indy (played by River Phoenix) stumbles across a gang of grave robbers who discover a golden crucifix. Indy intervenes and a chase ensues. From there the pace never lets up.’

How we create the antidote

Every day we measure not only how many people click on individual stories but also how long they spend reading them. This list is created by comparing the attention time with the length of each article, to come up with a ranking for the stories people read most deeply.