Most-read life stories of 2021

In a year which saw a number of travel restrictions — locally and internationally — our life pages provided a glimpse into what we could look forward to once borders reopened. 

While waiting for the opportunity to break out of our houses, some other stories offered glimpses into the minds of prominent individuals, into the past, and coffee.

Below are some of BD’s most-read life stories of the year.

1. The pandemic has intensified the desire to live in a bubble away from the world and widened the wealth gap further, making Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos the latest business magnate fancying a life at sea.

2. In the spring of 1942, when World War 2 was still anybody’s game, three German U-boats cruised SA waters seeking easy pickings among the merchant ships that often sailed unescorted and out of convoy.

3. A new study that links drinking coffee with dementia and stroke may be a bitter brew for keen imbibers to swallow.

4. There has been a recent increase in the dangerous tactic by criminals of throwing spikes across the road to immobilise motorists and rob them of their belongings.

5. Desperate pilots who have been grounded by the pandemic for more than a year mobbed recruiters for the few new flying jobs on the market.

6. Before all the revelations about his divorce, dubious workplace behaviour and ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Gates was just America’s huggable billionaire techno-philanthropist.

7. Ebrahim Harvey’s new book, The Great Pretenders: Race and Class under ANC Rule, essentially deals with the pivotal question of what has happened to race and class in postapartheid SA.

8. Some people call them a “gang” or, more poetically, “an obstinacy of buffalo”; but for me, as they whorled around us it began to feel more like “a revelation of buffalo”.

9. SUVs and crossovers are where much of the sales action is due to their all-round practicality. We have assembled a list of the most fuel-efficient compact-to-midsize examples in SA.

10. The Seven Wonders of the World were the original bucket list. As we prepare for a post-pandemic reality, those with a thirst for adventure should go by a new list.