Premium summer big reads: What life is really like in the music industry

The New Zealand Herald is bringing back some of the best stories of 2020 from our premium syndicators, including The New York Times, Financial Times and The Times of London.

Today we look at life inside the music industry, the front line workers facing Covid-9 burnout, Amazon's high profile resignation, a wife's struggle with grief and a feud between billionaires.

Tantrums, egos and threesomes:

The tantrums. The egos. The breakdowns. The threesomes. Melanie Blake saw it all during her career behind the scenes in the music business. And she doesn't hold back. (Needy 90s pop stars should look away now.)

Melanie Blake tells The Times all about her career in the music business.

Melanie Blake. Photo / Supplied

Covid combat fatigue: 'I would come home with tears in my eyes'

Frontline health care workers have been the one constant, the medical soldiers forming row after row in the ground war against the raging spread of the coronavirus. But as cases and deaths shatter daily records, foreshadowing one of the deadliest years in American history, the very people whose life mission is caring for others are on the verge of collective collapse.

In interviews, more than two dozen frontline medical workers described the unrelenting stress that has become an endemic part of the health care crisis nationwide. Many related spikes in anxiety and depressive thoughts, as well as a chronic sense of hopelessness and deepening fatigue, spurred in part by the cavalier attitudes of many Americans who seem to have lost patience with the pandemic.

The New York Times talks to doctors and nurses on the front lines who are running on empty.

Dr. Shannon Tapia, a geriatrician in Colorado. At one long-term care facility she staffed, 22 people died in 10 days. Photo / Daniel Brenner, The New York Times

The Amazon critic who saw its power from the inside

Tim Bray, an internet pioneer and a former vice president at Amazon, sent shock waves through the tech giant in early May when he resigned for what he called "a vein of toxicity" running through its culture.

Within a few hours, his blog post about the resignation drew hundreds of thousands of views, and his inbox filled up with requests from journalists, recruiters and techies. Soon, lawmakers on Capitol Hill cited the post. It all made Bray, 65, Amazon's most high-profile defector.

But there was more he wanted to say.

Tim Bray, who resigned as a vice president at Amazon in May, on his boat in Vancouver, British Columbia. Photo / Alana Paterson, The New York Times

'My husband's death was traumatic. I wish I could unsee it'

Andrew Rosenfeld was a fit and healthy 51-year-old businessman when he was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. He was dead 13 months later. His wife, Juliet, a psychotherapist, was blindsided. Now she has written a book that reveals the devastation of grief – and what it's like to survive it.

She talks to Louise France of The Times.

Juliet Rosenfeld was blindsided by the death of her husband Andrew to lung cancer. Photo / 123RF

How neighbours' feud in paradise launched an international rape case

Neighbours Peter Nygard and Louis Bacon had little in common except for extreme wealth and a driveway. But when Nygard wasn't allowed to rebuild after a fire, he blamed Bacon.

Since then, the two have been embroiled in an epic battle, spending tens of millions of dollars and filing at least 25 lawsuits in five jurisdictions. Nygard, 78, has spread stories accusing Bacon of being an insider trader, murderer and member of the Ku Klux Klan. Bacon, 63, has accused Nygard of plotting to kill him.

Another charge was particularly incendiary: Lawyers and investigators funded in part by Bacon claim that Nygard raped teenage girls in the Bahamas.

The New York Times investigates the clash between the billionaires.

The police headquarters in Nassau. Sex crimes in the country often go unreported. Photo / Elizabeth D. Herman, The New York Times