Premium summer big reads: Meet the multimillionaire king of Instagram

Dan Bilzerian and guests at a night club opening in Las Vegas. Bilzerian, who boasts close to 30 million Instagram followers, won't date anyone his own age. Photo / Getty Images

The New Zealand Herald is bringing back some of the best stories of 2019 from our premium international syndicators, including The New York Times, Financial Times, The Times of London and Harvard Business Review.

This afternoon we look at the King of Instagram, the woman who fell in love with a Nazi, saving the Amazon, signs of a recession and the 70-year-old man who won a 1000km horse race.

Guns, girls, gambling: Meet the multimillionaire king of Instagram

He possibly made a fortune from poker. He definitely won't date anyone his own age. He's known as the King of Instagram (nearly 30 million followers).

Hugo Rifkind meets the controversial, 38-year-old American Dan Bilzerian – and asks, is this what it takes to be famous these days?

Dan Bilzerian admits that he's a "bit of a sex addict". Photo / Getty Images

Nazis killed her father. Then she fell in love with one

After her father was murdered by Hitler's forces, she had an unspeakable affair with a Nazi industrialist.

Their billionaire descendants, who control iconic brand like Krispy Kreme and Stumptown, have only just learned the awful truth.

Katrin Benhold of The New York Times looks at the family grappling with the exposure of an unspeakable secret.

Emilie Landecker and Albert Reimann Jr., who kept their relationship a secret for many years. Photo / The Reimann family via The New York Times

Saving the Amazon: Fighting fires and illegal loggers

Swathes of the Amazon rainforest have been burning at a rate not seen in a decade.

The struggle to protect the world's largest tropical rainforest seems at times like a war against well-organised jungle insurgents, who strike and then vanish into the emerald wilderness.

Matthew Campbell of The Times joins the police and indigenous people fighting for their lives and land.

Fire consumes an area near Porto Velho, Brazil. Photo / AP

A recession is coming (eventually), and here's where you'll see it first

Economists often say that "expansions don't die of old age." That is, recessions are like coin flips — just because you get heads five times in a row doesn't mean your next flip is more likely to come up tails.

Economists don't know when the decade-long expansion, now the longest in American history, will end. But here are the indicators they will be watching to figure it out.

Forecasters, investors and ordinary people are increasingly asking when the next downturn will arrive. Photo / Getty Images

70-year-old man wins 1000 kilometre horse race in Mongolia

Bob Long, 70, just became the oldest person to finish what Guinness World Records calls the longest multi-horse race in the world. He also came in first.

"Preparation trumps youth," said Long, who "hated" to think that he couldn't complete the Mongol Derby, a gruelling contest across the steppes of Mongolia.

The New York Times follows the annual race.

Bob Long riding on Day 6 during the 2019 Mongol Derby in Mongolia. Photo / Sarah Farnsworth/The Adventurists via The New York Times