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I'm Appalled, NYT: Deconstructing the Power and Peril of Viral Outrage
Introduction:
The New York Times, a bastion of established journalism, frequently finds itself at the center of online discourse. But what happens when a NYT article, opinion piece, or even a social media post ignites a firestorm of outrage, encapsulated in the viral phrase "I'm appalled, NYT"? This post delves into the phenomenon of viral outrage directed at the NYT, exploring its causes, consequences, and implications for the future of journalism in the age of social media. We'll examine specific instances, dissect the underlying issues, and consider the role of both the newspaper and its audience in shaping this dynamic relationship. This isn't just about outrage; it's about understanding the complexities of public perception, the evolving media landscape, and the power – and peril – of online discourse.
I. The Anatomy of "I'm Appalled, NYT": Understanding the Outrage
The phrase "I'm appalled, NYT" isn't simply a random expression; it signifies a specific type of dissatisfaction directed at the New York Times. This outrage often stems from several key sources:
Perceived Bias: Accusations of liberal bias are common. Critics argue that the NYT prioritizes certain narratives while ignoring or downplaying others, leading to a perceived lack of objectivity. This bias, whether real or perceived, fuels significant outrage.
Selective Storytelling: Critics often accuse the NYT of selective reporting, focusing on certain aspects of a story while omitting others that may challenge their narrative. This selective presentation can lead to a feeling of manipulation and a subsequent backlash.
Tone and Language: The NYT's writing style, often perceived as condescending or elitist, can further inflame readers already predisposed to negativity. The use of specific phrasing or the framing of a story can be interpreted as biased or dismissive, prompting strong reactions.
Fact-Checking and Accuracy Disputes: While the NYT strives for accuracy, occasional errors or perceived inaccuracies can spark intense criticism, especially in the context of highly charged political or social issues. The speed of online dissemination amplifies these errors, leading to widespread outrage before corrections can be issued.
Conflicting Values: The NYT, as a news organization, sometimes reports on issues that directly clash with the values and beliefs of certain segments of its readership. This conflict can lead to strong negative reactions, even if the reporting itself is accurate and fair.
II. The Amplifying Effect of Social Media:
Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook dramatically amplify the impact of "I'm appalled, NYT" moments. The immediacy and viral nature of these platforms allow outrage to spread rapidly, generating a snowball effect that can overshadow nuanced discussions and reasoned criticism. Algorithms often prioritize emotionally charged content, further fueling the cycle of outrage.
III. Consequences for the NYT and the Media Landscape:
The constant barrage of criticism and outrage poses significant challenges for the NYT. It can impact their reputation, potentially alienating readers and advertisers. The pressure to appease every segment of the audience can lead to self-censorship and a reluctance to tackle controversial topics. Moreover, the constant online criticism can negatively affect the morale and working environment of journalists.
The wider impact on the media landscape is also concerning. The prevalence of outrage can discourage thoughtful and critical journalism, pushing news organizations towards safer, less controversial topics. This, in turn, can lead to a less informed public and a decline in the quality of news coverage.
IV. Navigating the Outrage: Strategies for the NYT and Consumers:
Both the NYT and its readers need to adopt strategies for navigating this increasingly fraught landscape. For the NYT, improved transparency about editorial decisions, more robust fact-checking processes, and a willingness to engage constructively with criticism are crucial. For readers, developing media literacy skills, engaging in respectful dialogue, and recognizing the manipulative power of social media algorithms are essential.
V. Conclusion: The Future of Journalism in the Age of Outrage
The "I'm appalled, NYT" phenomenon reflects the complexities of journalism in the digital age. The challenge lies in finding a balance between engaging with a diverse audience and maintaining journalistic integrity in the face of intense online pressure. The future of credible journalism hinges on the ability of news organizations to adapt to the changing media landscape and foster a more constructive dialogue with their readers. Openness, accountability, and a commitment to fact-based reporting are critical for navigating the stormy waters of viral outrage.
Article Outline: "I'm Appalled, NYT: Deconstructing the Power and Peril of Viral Outrage"
By: Alexandra Hayes
Introduction: Hooks the reader with a compelling opening about the power of viral outrage directed at the NYT. Provides a brief overview of the article's contents.
Chapter 1: The Anatomy of "I'm Appalled, NYT": Explores the sources of outrage against the NYT, including perceived bias, selective storytelling, tone, accuracy disputes, and conflicting values.
Chapter 2: The Amplifying Effect of Social Media: Discusses how social media platforms amplify outrage, creating a snowball effect and potentially distorting the narrative.
Chapter 3: Consequences for the NYT and the Media Landscape: Analyzes the impact of constant criticism on the NYT's reputation, journalistic integrity, and the broader media environment.
Chapter 4: Navigating the Outrage: Strategies for the NYT and Consumers: Offers solutions for both the NYT and its readers to navigate the challenges of online outrage.
Chapter 5: Conclusion: The Future of Journalism in the Age of Outrage: Summarizes the key findings and offers a perspective on the future of journalism in the context of viral outrage.
(Detailed explanation of each point is provided in the main article above.)
FAQs:
1. Is the NYT truly biased? The perception of bias is subjective; critics point to specific instances, while the NYT defends its commitment to objectivity. The issue remains a complex and contested one.
2. How does social media exacerbate the "I'm appalled" phenomenon? Social media's viral nature amplifies outrage, often before fact-checking or context can be provided.
3. What can the NYT do to mitigate negative reactions? Increased transparency, improved fact-checking, and constructive engagement with criticism are essential.
4. What responsibility do readers have in this situation? Readers should develop media literacy skills, engage in respectful discourse, and critically evaluate information.
5. Can outrage be a positive force for change? While it can raise awareness, uncontrolled outrage can overshadow nuanced debate and constructive criticism.
6. Does the NYT's perceived elitism contribute to the outrage? Yes, the NYT's writing style and perceived distance from its readership can exacerbate negative reactions.
7. How does the "I'm appalled" phenomenon impact other news organizations? It creates a climate of fear and self-censorship, potentially stifling investigative journalism.
8. What role do algorithms play in shaping the outrage? Social media algorithms often prioritize emotionally charged content, fueling the cycle of outrage.
9. What is the long-term impact of this constant online criticism on journalism? It threatens the integrity and sustainability of credible journalism.
Related Articles:
1. The NYT and the Polarization of American Politics: Explores how the NYT's coverage contributes to the political divide.
2. Fact-Checking the New York Times: Analyzes the NYT's fact-checking processes and examines instances of inaccuracies.
3. The Future of Print Journalism in the Digital Age: Discusses the challenges faced by traditional news outlets in the online environment.
4. The Ethics of Online Journalism: Explores ethical dilemmas faced by journalists in the digital age, including the pressures of social media.
5. Media Literacy in the Age of Misinformation: Provides guidance on how to evaluate news sources and identify misinformation.
6. The Role of Social Media in Shaping Public Opinion: Examines how social media influences public perception and discourse.
7. The Impact of Viral Outrage on Public Discourse: Analyzes how viral outrage can disrupt and distort rational debate.
8. The Business Model of the New York Times: Explores the economic challenges facing the NYT and its strategies for survival.
9. How to Critically Analyze News Articles: Provides practical tips for evaluating the credibility and biases of news sources.
| im appalled nyt: Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut, 2012-10-30 NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Newsweek/The Daily Beast • The Huffington Post • Kansas City Star • Time Out New York • Kirkus Reviews This extraordinary collection of personal correspondence has all the hallmarks of Kurt Vonnegut’s fiction. Written over a sixty-year period, these letters, the vast majority of them never before published, are funny, moving, and full of the same uncanny wisdom that has endeared his work to readers worldwide. Included in this comprehensive volume: the letter a twenty-two-year-old Vonnegut wrote home immediately upon being freed from a German POW camp, recounting the ghastly firebombing of Dresden that would be the subject of his masterpiece Slaughterhouse-Five; wry dispatches from Vonnegut’s years as a struggling writer slowly finding an audience and then dealing with sudden international fame in middle age; righteously angry letters of protest to local school boards that tried to ban his work; intimate remembrances penned to high school classmates, fellow veterans, friends, and family; and letters of commiseration and encouragement to such contemporaries as Gail Godwin, Günter Grass, and Bernard Malamud. Vonnegut’s unmediated observations on science, art, and commerce prove to be just as inventive as any found in his novels—from a crackpot scheme for manufacturing “atomic” bow ties to a tongue-in-cheek proposal that publishers be allowed to trade authors like baseball players. (“Knopf, for example, might give John Updike’s contract to Simon and Schuster, and receive Joan Didion’s contract in return.”) Taken together, these letters add considerable depth to our understanding of this one-of-a-kind literary icon, in both his public and private lives. Each letter brims with the mordant humor and openhearted humanism upon which he built his legend. And virtually every page contains a quotable nugget that will make its way into the permanent Vonnegut lexicon. • On a job he had as a young man: “Hell is running an elevator throughout eternity in a building with only six floors.” • To a relative who calls him a “great literary figure”: “I am an American fad—of a slightly higher order than the hula hoop.” • To his daughter Nanny: “Most letters from a parent contain a parent’s own lost dreams disguised as good advice.” • To Norman Mailer: “I am cuter than you are.” Sometimes biting and ironical, sometimes achingly sweet, and always alive with the unique point of view that made him the true cultural heir to Mark Twain, these letters comprise the autobiography Kurt Vonnegut never wrote. Praise for Kurt Vonnegut: Letters “Splendidly assembled . . . familiar, funny, cranky . . . chronicling [Vonnegut’s] life in real time.”—Kurt Andersen, The New York Times Book Review “[This collection is] by turns hilarious, heartbreaking and mundane. . . . Vonnegut himself is a near-perfect example of the same flawed, wonderful humanity that he loved and despaired over his entire life.”—NPR “Congenial, whimsical and often insightful missives . . . one of [Vonnegut’s] very best.”—Newsday “These letters display all the hallmarks of Vonnegut’s fiction—smart, hilarious and heartbreaking.”—The New York Times Book Review |
| im appalled nyt: Prince Afshin Shahidi, 2017-10-24 Featuring a foreword by Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. When Prince wanted to document his One Nite Alone tour in 2002, he turned to Afshin Shahidi. Again in 2004, he went along on Prince’s record breaking Musicology Tour. Afshin met Prince in 1989 and became his cinematographer and later his photographer. He was the photographer closest to Prince for the last fifteen years of Prince’s life. Afshin is the only photographer to shoot the legendary 3121 private parties in Los Angeles that became the most sought after invitations in Hollywood. Prince: A Private View compiles his work into a journey through Prince's extraordinary life. With many never-before-seen photos, this is the ultimate collection of – some intimate, some candid, some in concert – shots of Prince, but all are carefully directed in the artist-as-art style that we associate with him. Deep photo captions are brief, but complete stories about Prince's life at that moment - some are incisive, others are personal and even funny. |
| im appalled nyt: Beginners Raymond Carver, 2015-09-15 From “one of the great short story writers of our time—of any time” (The Philadelphia Inquirer)—comes the original manuscript of the seminal 1981 collection, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. Raymond Carver is one of the most celebrated short-story writers in American literature—his style is both instantly recognizable and hugely influential—and the pieces in What We Talk About…, which portray the gritty loves and lives of the American working class, are counted among the foundation stones of the contemporary short story. In this unedited text, we gain insight into the process of a great writer. These expansive stories illuminate the many dimensions of Carver’s style, and are indispensable to our understanding of his legacy. Text established by William L. Stull and Maureen P. Carroll |
| im appalled nyt: Social Q's Philip Galanes, 2012-11-27 A series of whimsical essays by the New York Times Social Q's columnist provides modern advice on navigating today's murky moral waters, sharing recommendations for such everyday situations as texting on the bus to splitting a dinner check. |
| im appalled nyt: The New York Times Magazine , 1980 |
| im appalled nyt: American Kompromat Craig Unger, 2021-01-26 **THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** Kompromat n.—Russian for compromising information This is a story about the dirty secrets of the most powerful people in the world—including Donald Trump. It is based on exclusive interviews with dozens of high-level sources—intelligence officers in the CIA, FBI, and the KGB, thousands of pages of FBI investigations, police investigations, and news articles in English, Russian, and Ukrainian. American Kompromat shows that from Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, kompromat was used in operations far more sinister than the public could ever imagine. Among them, the book addresses what may be the single most important unanswered question of the entire Trump era: Is Donald Trump a Russian asset? The answer, American Kompromat says, is yes, and it supports that conclusion backs with the first richly detailed narrative on how the KGB allegedly first “spotted” Trump as a potential asset, how they cultivated him as an asset, arranged his first trip to Moscow, and pumped him full of KGB talking points that were published in three of America’s most prestigious newspapers. Among its many revelations, American Kompromat reports for the first time that: • According to Yuri Shvets, a former major in the KGB, Trump first did business over forty years ago with a Manhattan electronics store co-owned by a Soviet émigré who Shvets believes was working with the KGB. Trump’s decision to do business there triggered protocols through which the Soviet spy agency began efforts to cultivate Trump as an asset, thus launching a decades-long “relationship” of mutual benefit to Russia and Trump, from real estate to real power. • Trump’s invitation to Moscow in 1987 was billed as a preliminary scouting trip for a hotel, but according to Shvets, was actually initiated by a high-level KGB official, General Ivan Gromakov. These sorts of trips were usually arranged for ‘deep development,’ recruitment, or for a meeting with the KGB handlers, even if the potential asset was unaware of it. . • Before Trump’s first trip to Moscow, he met with Natalia Dubinina, who worked at the United Nations library in a vital position usually reserved as a cover for KGB operatives. And many more... |
| im appalled nyt: The Little Paris Bookshop Nina George, 2015-06-23 Monsieur Perdu can prescribe the perfect book for a broken heart. But can he fix his own? Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls. The only person he can't seem to heal through literature is himself; he's still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never opened. After Perdu is finally tempted to read the letter, he hauls anchor and departs on a mission to the south of France, hoping to make peace with his loss and discover the end of the story. Joined by a bestselling but blocked author and a lovelorn Italian chef, Perdu travels along the country’s rivers, dispensing his wisdom and his books, showing that the literary world can take the human soul on a journey to heal itself. Internationally bestselling and filled with warmth and adventure, The Little Paris Bookshop is a love letter to books, meant for anyone who believes in the power of stories to shape people's lives. |
| im appalled nyt: Diary of an Oxygen Thief Anonymous, 2016-05-23 Hurt people hurt people. Say there was a novel in which Holden Caulfield was an alcoholic and Lolita was a photographer’s assistant and, somehow, they met in Bright Lights, Big City. He’s blinded by love. She by ambition. Diary of an Oxygen Thief is an honest, hilarious, and heartrending novel, but above all, a very realistic account of what we do to each other and what we allow to have done to us. |
| im appalled nyt: A Time to Build Yuval Levin, 2020-01-21 A leading conservative intellectual argues that to renew America we must recommit to our institutions Americans are living through a social crisis. Our politics is polarized and bitterly divided. Culture wars rage on campus, in the media, social media, and other arenas of our common life. And for too many Americans, alienation can descend into despair, weakening families and communities and even driving an explosion of opioid abuse. Left and right alike have responded with populist anger at our institutions, and use only metaphors of destruction to describe the path forward: cleaning house, draining swamps. But, as Yuval Levin argues, this is a misguided prescription, rooted in a defective diagnosis. The social crisis we confront is defined not by an oppressive presence but by a debilitating absence of the forces that unite us and militate against alienation. As Levin argues, now is not a time to tear down, but rather to build and rebuild by committing ourselves to the institutions around us. From the military to churches, from families to schools, these institutions provide the forms and structures we need to be free. By taking concrete steps to help them be more trustworthy, we can renew the ties that bind Americans to one another. |
| im appalled nyt: The New York Times Book Review , 1981 |
| im appalled nyt: Hot Pants Lisa Vinebaum, Isabelle Gauthier, 2015-06-22 Hot Pants, long an underground classic, offers great basic sexual health information along with tried and true herbal treatments for common gynecological problems. Patriarchy sucks, the authors begin. It's robbed us of our autonomy and much of our history. We believe it's integral for women to be aware and in control of our own bodies. In that spirit, diagrams and herbal remedies teach you how to diagnose and heal many basic problems, including bladder infections, inducing your period, easing cramps and PMS, aphrodisiacs, and dealing with pregnancy. You'll learn herbal remedies to ease every stage of your menstrual cycle. This book deserves a place next to your copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves. |
| im appalled nyt: How to Hepburn Karen Karbo, 2008-12-12 How to Hepburn, Karen Karbo's sleek, contemporary reassessment of one of America's greatest icons, takes us on a spin through the great Kate's long, eventful life, with an aim toward seeing what we can glean from the First Lady of Cinema. One part How Proust Can Change Your Life and one part Why Sinatra Matters, How to Hepburn teases some unexpected lessons from the life of a woman whose freewheeling, pants-wearing determination redefined the image of the independent woman while eventually endearing her to the world. This witty, provocative gem is full of no-nonsense Hepburn-style commentary on subjects such as: making denial work for you; the importance of being brash, facing fear, and always having an aviator in your life; learning why and how to lie; the benefits of discretion; making the most of a dysfunctional relationship; and the power of forgiving your parents. Thrilling fans of the notoriously independent actress, award-winner Karen Karbo presents a gusty guidebook to harnessing your inner Hepburn, and living life on your own terms. |
| im appalled nyt: Nickel and Dimed Barbara Ehrenreich, 2010-04-01 The New York Times bestselling work of undercover reportage from our sharpest and most original social critic, with a new foreword by Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job—any job—can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly unskilled, that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you int to live indoors. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity—a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how prosperity looks from the bottom. And now, in a new foreword, Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, explains why, twenty years on in America, Nickel and Dimed is more relevant than ever. |
| im appalled nyt: I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell Tucker Max, 2012-03-01 The “highly entertaining and thoroughly reprehensible” #1 New York Times bestseller—now with sixteen pages of photos and a new introduction (The New York Times). My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole. I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead. But, I do contribute to humanity in one very important way: I share my adventures with the world. --from the Introduction Actual reader feedback: I find it truly appalling that there are people in the world like you. You are a disgusting, vile, repulsive, repugnant, foul creature. Because of you, I don’t believe in God anymore. No just God would allow someone like you to exist. I’ll stay with God as my lord, but you are my savior. I just finished reading your brilliant stories, and I laughed so hard I almost vomited. I want to bring that kind of joy to people. You’re an artist of the highest order and a true humanitarian to boot. I'm in both shock and awe at how much I want to be you. |
| im appalled nyt: The Hidden History of Coined Words Ralph Keyes, 2021 How do words get coined? That question is explored in Ralph Keyes's latest book, The Hidden History of Coined Words. Based on meticulous research, Keyes has determined that successful neologisms are as likely to be created by chance as by intention. A remarkable number of new words were coined whimsically, he's discovered, to taunt, even to prank. Knickers resulted from a hoax, big bang from an insult. Wisecracking produced software, crowdsource, and blog. More than a few neologisms weren't even coined intentionally: they resulted from happy accidents such as typos, mistranslations, and misheard words like bigly and buttonhole, or from an unintended coinage such as Isaac Asimov's robotics. Many of the word coiners Keyes writes about come from unlikely quarters. Neologizers (a Thomas Jefferson coinage) include not just learned scholars and literary lions but cartoonists, columnists, children's authors, and children as well. Wimp, Keyes tells us, originated with an early 20th century book series on The Wymps, goop from a series about The Goops, and nerd from a book by Dr. Seuss. Competing claims to have coined terms like gonzo, mojo, and booty call are assessed, as is epic battles fought between new word partisans, and those who think we have enough words already. A concluding chapter offers pointers on how to coin a word of one's own. Written in a reader-friendly manner, The Hidden History of Coined Words will appeal not just to word lovers but history buffs, trivia contesters, and anyone at all who is interested in a well-informed good read-- |
| im appalled nyt: Surprise, Kill, Vanish Annie Jacobsen, 2019-05-14 From Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen, the untold USA Today bestselling story of the CIA's secret paramilitary units. Surprise . . . your target. Kill . . . your enemy. Vanish . . . without a trace. When diplomacy fails, and war is unwise, the president calls on the CIA's Special Activities Division, a highly-classified branch of the CIA and the most effective, black operations force in the world. Originally known as the president's guerrilla warfare corps, SAD conducts risky and ruthless operations that have evolved over time to defend America from its enemies. Almost every American president since World War II has asked the CIA to conduct sabotage, subversion and, yes, assassination. With unprecedented access to forty-two men and women who proudly and secretly worked on CIA covert operations from the dawn of the Cold War to the present day, along with declassified documents and deep historical research, Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen unveils -- like never before -- a complex world of individuals working in treacherous environments populated with killers, connivers, and saboteurs. Despite Hollywood notions of off-book operations and external secret hires, covert action is actually one piece in a colossal foreign policy machine. Written with the pacing of a thriller, Surprise, Kill, Vanish brings to vivid life the sheer pandemonium and chaos, as well as the unforgettable human will to survive and the intellectual challenge of not giving up hope that define paramilitary and intelligence work. Jacobsen's exclusive interviews -- with members of the CIA's Senior Intelligence Service (equivalent to the Pentagon's generals), its counterterrorism chiefs, targeting officers, and Special Activities Division's Ground Branch operators who conduct today's close-quarters killing operations around the world -- reveal, for the first time, the enormity of this shocking, controversial, and morally complex terrain. Is the CIA's paramilitary army America's weaponized strength, or a liability to its principled standing in the world? Every operation reported in this book, however unsettling, is legal. |
| im appalled nyt: The State of Jones Sally Jenkins, John Stauffer, 2010-05-04 Covering the same ground as the major motion picture The Free State of Jones, starring Matthew McConaughey, this is the extraordinary true story of the anti-slavery Southern farmer who brought together poor whites, army deserters and runaway slaves to fight the Confederacy in deepest Mississippi. Moving and powerful. -- The Washington Post. In 1863, after surviving the devastating Battle of Corinth, Newton Knight, a poor farmer from Mississippi, deserted the Confederate Army and began a guerrilla battle against it. A pro-Union sympathizer in the deep South who refused to fight a rich man’s war for slavery and cotton, for two years he and other residents of Jones County engaged in an insurrection that would have repercussions far beyond the scope of the Civil War. In this dramatic account of an almost forgotten chapter of American history, Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer upend the traditional myth of the Confederacy as a heroic and unified Lost Cause, revealing the fractures within the South. |
| im appalled nyt: The Stars at Noon Denis Johnson, 2023-06-06 A literary thriller and love story set during the Nicaraguan revolution, from the National Book Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. • Now the basis for a major motion picture Set in Nicaragua in 1984, The Stars at Noon is a story of passion, fear, and betrayal told in the voice of an American woman whose mission in Central America is as shadowy as her surroundings. Is she a reporter for an American magazine, as she sometimes claims, or a contact person for the anti-war group Eyes of Peace? And who is the rough English businessman she begins an affair with? The two foreigners become entangled in sinister plots and ever-widening webs of corruption, until a desperate attempt to escape the country brings their relationship to a crisis point. With his customary narrative brilliance, award-winning writer Denis Johnson brings a hellish landscape of moral ambiguity vividly to life. |
| im appalled nyt: Good Boy Jennifer Finney Boylan, 2020-04-21 From bestselling author of She’s Not There, New York Times opinion columnist, and human rights activist Jennifer Finney Boylan, Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs, a memoir of the transformative power of loving dogs. This is a book about dogs: the love we have for them, and the way that love helps us understand the people we have been. It’s in the love of dogs, and my love for them, that I can best now take the measure of the child I once was, and the bottomless, unfathomable desires that once haunted me. There are times when it is hard for me to fully remember that love, which was once so fragile, and so fierce. Sometimes it seems to fade before me, like breath on a mirror. But I remember the dogs. In her New York Times opinion column, Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote about her relationship with her beloved dog Indigo, and her wise, funny, heartbreaking piece went viral. In Good Boy, Boylan explores what should be the simplest topic in the world, but never is: finding and giving love. Good Boy is a universal account of a remarkable story: showing how a young boy became a middle-aged woman—accompanied at seven crucial moments of growth and transformation by seven memorable dogs. “Everything I know about love,” she writes, “I learned from dogs.” Their love enables us to pull off what seem like impossible feats: to find our way home when we are lost, to live our lives with humor and courage, and above all, to best become our true selves. |
| im appalled nyt: Wages of Rebellion Chris Hedges, 2015-05-12 Revolutions come in waves and cycles. We are again riding the crest of a revolutionary epic, much like 1848 or 1917, from the Arab Spring to movements against austerity in Greece to the Occupy movement. In Wages of Rebellion, Chris Hedges -- who has chronicled the malaise and sickness of a society in terminal moral decline in his books Empire of Illusion and Death of the Liberal Class -- investigates what social and psychological factors cause revolution, rebellion, and resistance. Drawing on an ambitious overview of prominent philosophers, historians, and literary figures he shows not only the harbingers of a coming crisis but also the nascent seeds of rebellion. Hedges' message is clear: popular uprisings in the United States and around the world are inevitable in the face of environmental destruction and wealth polarization. Focusing on the stories of rebels from around the world and throughout history, Hedges investigates what it takes to be a rebel in modern times. Utilizing the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, Hedges describes the motivation that guides the actions of rebels as sublime madness -- the state of passion that causes the rebel to engage in an unavailing fight against overwhelmingly powerful and oppressive forces. For Hedges, resistance is carried out not for its success, but as a moral imperative that affirms life. Those who rise up against the odds will be those endowed with this sublime madness. From South African activists who dedicated their lives to ending apartheid, to contemporary anti-fracking protests in Alberta, Canada, to whistleblowers in pursuit of transparency, Wages of Rebellion shows the cost of a life committed to speaking the truth and demanding justice. Hedges has penned an indispensable guide to rebellion. |
| im appalled nyt: The Election of Ideologies Marie Stacey, 2008-10 With Barack Obama chosen as the new President Elect, it is very important to become informed on the ideologies, mindsets, and beliefs that will guide Obama's Presidency and dominate his principles. My book explains information about the United States Government relevant to United States Citizens. I am an American and wish to uphold the ideals of freedom within the walls of the United States of America. Those values are very important to protect and uphold. True Conservatism is in revival mode in the United States right now, and I am one of many trying to resuscitate it. Conservatism is a unique and interesting branch of philosophy-based ideological preferences for the world, for government, and for society. While Conservatism is still a major contender in the political climate of any election in America, Conservatism needs a revival from the current constraints put on it by the Republican Party. I promote Conservatism of Capitalism, Freedom, Liberty, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence. This book is written from that perspective and encompasses a viewpoint not generally portrayed on Television or in the mainstream. Americans, in the wake of an Obama Presidency, should yearn for more knowledge on the man that will guide our country for the next four years. Only with knowledge can we pursue goals. Everyone knows this. I bring facts into this book that have been discussed in very few other media outlets (the coverup going on only begins with Obama, it also encompasses the Democratic Congress who has failed to impose any substantial, helpful legislation). |
| im appalled nyt: Dusk, Night, Dawn Anne Lamott, 2021-03-02 “Anne Lamott is my Oprah.” -Chicago Tribune From the bestselling author of Help, Thanks, Wow comes an inspiring guide to restoring hope and joy in our lives. In Dusk, Night, Dawn, Anne Lamott explores the tough questions that many of us grapple with. How can we recapture the confidence we once had as we stumble through the dark times that seem increasingly bleak? As bad newspiles up—from climate crises to daily assaults on civility—how can we cope? Where, she asks, “do we start to get our world and joy and hope and our faith in life itself back . . . with our sore feet, hearing loss, stiff fingers, poor digestion, stunned minds, broken hearts?” We begin, Lamott says, by accepting our flaws and embracing our humanity. Drawing from her own experiences, Lamott shows us the intimate and human ways we can adopt to move through life’s dark places and toward the light of hope that still burns ahead for all of us. As she does in Help, Thanks, Wow and her other bestselling books, Lamott explores the thorny issues of life and faith by breaking them down into manageable, human-sized questions for readers to ponder, in the process showing us how we can amplify life's small moments of joy by staying open to love and connection. As Lamott notes in Dusk, Night, Dawn, “I got Medicare three days before I got hitched, which sounds like something an old person might do, which does not describe adorably ageless me.” Marrying for the first time with a grown son and a grandson, Lamott explains that finding happiness with a partner isn't a function of age or beauty but of outlook and perspective. Full of the honesty, humor, and humanity that have made Lamott beloved by millions of readers, Dusk, Night, Dawn is classic Anne Lamott—thoughtful and comic, warm and wise—and further proof that Lamott truly speaks to the better angels in all of us. |
| im appalled nyt: Still Alice Lisa Genova, 2010-08-05 A moving story of a woman with early onset Alzheimer's disease, now a major Academy Award-winning film starring Julianne Moore and Kristen Stewart. Alice Howland is proud of the life she worked so hard to build. At fifty, she's a cognitive psychology professor at Harvard and a renowned expert in linguistics, with a successful husband and three grown children. When she begins to grow forgetful and disoriented, she dismisses it for as long as she can until a tragic diagnosis changes her life - and her relationship with her family and the world around her - for ever. Unable to care for herself, Alice struggles to find meaning and purpose as her concept of self gradually slips away. But Alice is a remarkable woman, and her family learn more about her and each other in their quest to hold on to the Alice they know. Her memory hanging by a frayed thread, she is living in the moment, living for each day. But she is still Alice. 'Remarkable … illuminating … highly relevant today' Daily Mail 'The most accurate account of what it feels like to be inside the mind of an Alzheimer's patient I've ever read. Beautifully written and very illuminating' Rosie Boycot 'Utterly brilliant' Chrissy Iley |
| im appalled nyt: On Language William Safire, 1981 Includes chapters on slang, jargon, and neologisms. |
| im appalled nyt: Notes on Grief Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 2021-05-11 From the internationally acclaimed, bestselling author of We Should All Be Feminists and Americanah, a profound reckoning with loss, written in the wake of her father’s death. During the brutal summer of 2020, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s beloved father, a celebrated professor at the University of Nigeria and an irreplaceable figure in a close-knit family, succumbed unexpectedly to complications of kidney failure. Notes on Grief is Adichie’s tribute to him, and a moving meditation on loss. Here Adichie offers a candid snapshot of the shock, loneliness, and disillusionment that followed the news of her father’s death. Her family, unable to be together except for on video calls, struggles to go through the rites of mourning amid a global crisis of unimaginable scale. As Adichie wrestles with his passing, she recalls with vivid, poignant detail who her father was: a remarkable survivor of the Biafran war, a man of kindness and charm, and a fierce supporter of his youngest daughter. Here is a uniquely personal, profound work of remembrance and hope by one of today’s luminaries—a book to bring us together in a time when we need it most. |
| im appalled nyt: Klandestine Pate McMichael, 2015-04-01 Pate McMichael not only puts to rest the legend of a conspiracy to kill Martin Luther King Jr. but, in lucid, compelling prose, he also demonstrates how that legend was constructed, and why it persists. Anyone interested in civil rights history, the 1960s, King, or conspiracy theories—or just a great story—should grab this book and hold on tight. —Clay Risen, author of The Bill of the Century Unanswered questions surround the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and many still wonder whether justice was served. After all, only one man, an escaped convict named James Earl Ray, was punished for the crime, and he did not seem to fit the caricature of a hangdog racist thirsty for blood. Had he been paid by clandestine forces? After his arrest, Ray forged a partnership with two very strange bedfellows: a slick lawyer named Arthur J. Hanes, the de facto Klonsel for the United Klans of America, and journalist William Bradford Huie, the darling of Look magazine. Despite polar opposite views on race, Hanes and Huie found common cause in the world of conspiracy. Together, they thought they could make Memphis the new Dallas. Relying on a trove of newly released documents and dusty files, Klandestine takes readers deep inside Ray's Memphis jail cell and Alabama's violent Klaverns, showing how a legacy of unpunished racial killings provided the perfect exigency to sell a lucrative conspiracy to a suspicious and outraged nation. Pate McMichael is an award-winning journalist. His stories have been published in Zócalo Public Square, Atlanta magazine, St. Louis magazine, and elsewhere. |
| im appalled nyt: Journalistic Fraud Bob Kohn, 2003-08-14 For over a hundred years, the New York Times has purported to present straight news and hard facts. But, as Bob Kohn shows with absolute clarity, the founders' original vision has been hijacked, and today, instead of straight news, readers are given mere editorial under the pretense of objective journalism. Kohn shows point by point the methods by which the Times' mission has been subverted by the present management-routinely slanting the presentation of the facts in leads, headlines, and placement; utilizing polls, labels, and loaded language to convey particular views, not genuine news; and staffing the newsroom with hacks who manipulate information to further a leftist agenda. Kohn shows how such fraudulence directly corrupts hundreds of news agencies across the world; and by revealing all their methods of manipulation, he teaches readers how to decipher the slants in even the subtlest of cases, providing an entertaining and enlightening lesson in fraud-busting. |
| im appalled nyt: The Richard Burton Diaries Richard Burton, 2012-10-15 The irresistible, candid diaries of Richard Burton, published in their entirety “Just great fun, and written out of an engaging, often comical bewilderment: How did a poor Welshman become not only a star, but a player on the world stage that was Elizabeth Taylor’s fame?”—Hilton Als, NewYorker.com “Of real interest is that Burton was almost as good a writer as an actor, read as many as three books a day, haunted bookstores in every city he set foot in, bought countless books on every conceivable subject and evaluated them rather shrewdly. . . . Apt writing abounds.”—John Simon, New York Times Book Review Irresistibly magnetic on stage, mesmerizing in movies, seven times an Academy Award nominee, Richard Burton rose from humble beginnings in Wales to become Hollywood's most highly paid actor and one of England's most admired Shakespearean performers. His epic romance with Elizabeth Taylor, his legendary drinking and story-telling, his dazzling purchases (enormous diamonds, a jet, homes on several continents), and his enormous talent kept him constantly in the public eye. Yet the man behind the celebrity façade carried a surprising burden of insecurity and struggled with the peculiar challenges of a life lived largely in the spotlight. This volume publishes Burton's extensive personal diaries in their entirety for the first time. His writings encompass many years—from 1939, when he was still a teenager, to 1983, the year before his death—and they reveal him in his most private moments, pondering his triumphs and demons, his loves and his heartbreaks. The diary entries appear in their original sequence, with annotations to clarify people, places, books, and events Burton mentions. From these hand-written pages emerges a multi-dimensional man, no mere flashy celebrity. While Burton touched shoulders with shining lights—among them Olivia de Havilland, John Gielgud, Claire Bloom, Laurence Olivier, John Huston, Dylan Thomas, and Edward Albee—he also played the real-life roles of supportive family man, father, husband, and highly intelligent observer. His diaries offer a rare and fresh perspective on his own life and career, and on the glamorous decades of the mid-twentieth century. |
| im appalled nyt: A Deadly Education Naomi Novik, 2020-09-29 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Uprooted and Spinning Silver comes the first book of the Scholomance trilogy, the story of an unwilling dark sorceress who is destined to rewrite the rules of magic. FINALIST FOR THE LODESTAR AWARD • “The dark school of magic I’ve been waiting for.”—Katherine Arden, author of the Winternight Trilogy I decided that Orion Lake needed to die after the second time he saved my life. Everyone loves Orion Lake. Everyone else, that is. Far as I’m concerned, he can keep his flashy combat magic to himself. I’m not joining his pack of adoring fans. I don’t need help surviving the Scholomance, even if they do. Forget the hordes of monsters and cursed artifacts, I’m probably the most dangerous thing in the place. Just give me a chance and I’ll level mountains and kill untold millions, make myself the dark queen of the world. At least, that’s what the world expects. Most of the other students in here would be delighted if Orion killed me like one more evil thing that’s crawled out of the drains. Sometimes I think they want me to turn into the evil witch they assume I am. The school certainly does. But the Scholomance isn’t getting what it wants from me. And neither is Orion Lake. I may not be anyone’s idea of the shining hero, but I’m going to make it out of this place alive, and I’m not going to slaughter thousands to do it, either. Although I’m giving serious consideration to just one. With flawless mastery, Naomi Novik creates a school bursting with magic like you’ve never seen before, and a heroine for the ages—a character so sharply realized and so richly nuanced that she will live on in hearts and minds for generations to come. The magic of the Scholomance trilogy continues in The Last Graduate “The can’t-miss fantasy of fall 2020, a brutal coming-of-power story steeped in the aesthetics of dark academia. . . . A Deadly Education will cement Naomi Novik’s place as one of the greatest and most versatile fantasy writers of our time.”—BookPage (starred review) “A must-read . . . Novik puts a refreshingly dark, adult spin on the magical boarding school. . . . Readers will delight in the push-and-pull of El and Orion’s relationship, the fantastically detailed world, the clever magic system, and the matter-of-fact diversity of the student body.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) |
| im appalled nyt: Irreversible Damage Abigail Shrier, 2020-06-30 NAMED A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2021 BY THE TIMES AND THE SUNDAY TIMES Irreversible Damage . . . has caused a storm. Abigail Shrier, a Wall Street Journal writer, does something simple yet devastating: she rigorously lays out the facts. —Janice Turner, The Times of London Until just a few years ago, gender dysphoria—severe discomfort in one’s biological sex—was vanishingly rare. It was typically found in less than .01 percent of the population, emerged in early childhood, and afflicted males almost exclusively. But today whole groups of female friends in colleges, high schools, and even middle schools across the country are coming out as “transgender.” These are girls who had never experienced any discomfort in their biological sex until they heard a coming-out story from a speaker at a school assembly or discovered the internet community of trans “influencers.” Unsuspecting parents are awakening to find their daughters in thrall to hip trans YouTube stars and “gender-affirming” educators and therapists who push life-changing interventions on young girls—including medically unnecessary double mastectomies and puberty blockers that can cause permanent infertility. Abigail Shrier, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, has dug deep into the trans epidemic, talking to the girls, their agonized parents, and the counselors and doctors who enable gender transitions, as well as to “detransitioners”—young women who bitterly regret what they have done to themselves. Coming out as transgender immediately boosts these girls’ social status, Shrier finds, but once they take the first steps of transition, it is not easy to walk back. She offers urgently needed advice about how parents can protect their daughters. A generation of girls is at risk. Abigail Shrier’s essential book will help you understand what the trans craze is and how you can inoculate your child against it—or how to retrieve her from this dangerous path. |
| im appalled nyt: Assholes Finish First Tucker Max, 2011-10-18 Presents a new collection of alcohol-induced fratire adventures in hedonism that convey the author's experiences of being intoxicated at inappropriate times, seducing a large number of women, and otherwise living in complete disregard of social norms. |
| im appalled nyt: The Story Judith Miller, 2015-04-07 Judith Miller—star reporter for The New York Times, foreign correspondent in some of the most dangerous locations, Pulitzer Prize winner, and longest jailed correspondent for protecting her sources—turns her reporting skills on herself in this “memoir of high-stakes journalism” (Kirkus Reviews). In The Story, Judy Miller turns her journalistic skills on herself and her controversial reporting, which marshaled evidence that led America to invade Iraq. She writes about the mistakes she and others made on the existence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. She addresses the motives of some of her sources, including the notorious Iraqi Chalabi and the CIA. She describes going to jail to protect her sources in the Scooter Libby investigation of the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame and how the Times subsequently abandoned her after twenty-eight years. Judy Miller grew up near the Nevada atomic proving ground. She got a job at The New York Times after a suit by women employees about discrimination at the paper and went on to cover national politics, head the paper’s bureau in Cairo, and serve as deputy editor in Paris and then deputy at the powerful Washington bureau. She reported on terrorism and the rise of fanatical Islam in the Middle East and on secret biological weapons plants and programs in Iraq, Iran, and Russia. Miller shared a Pulitzer for her reporting. She describes covering terrorism in Lebanon, being embedded in Iraq, and going inside Russia’s secret laboratories where scientists concocted designer germs and killer diseases and watched the failed search for WMDs in Iraq. The Story vividly describes the real life of a foreign and investigative reporter. It is an account filled with adventure, told with bluntness and wryness. |
| im appalled nyt: The Bridal Chair Gloria Goldreich, 2015 Filled with fascinating details about the art world and colorful real-life characters, this novel may appeal to historical fiction fans who enjoyed Natasha Solomons's The House at Tyneford and Tatiana de Rosnay's Sarah's Key.--Library Journal An exquisite, haunting exploration of the complex mind of Marc Chagall through the eyes of his daughter -- great for fans of Mrs. Poe and The Paris Wife Beautiful Ida Chagall, the only daughter of Marc Chagall, is blossoming in the Paris art world beyond her father's controlling gaze. But her newfound independence is short-lived. In Nazi-occupied Paris, Chagall's status as a Jewish artist has made them all targets, yet his devotion to his art blinds him to their danger. When Ida falls in love and Chagall angrily paints an empty wedding chair (The Bridal Chair) in response, she faces an impossible choice: Does she fight to forge her own path outside her father's shadow, or abandon her ambitions to save Chagall from his enemies and himself? Brimming with historic personalities from Europe, America and Israel, The Bridal Chair is a stunning portrait of love, fortitude, and the sharp divide between art and real life. Only Gloria Goldreich could write a novel so grounded in historical truths yet so exuberantly imaginative. The Bridal Chair is Goldreich at her best, with a mesmerizing plot, elegant images, and a remarkable heroine who...will remain with you long after the last page.--Francine Klagsburn, Jewish Week columnist and acclaimed author of Voices of Wisdom In prose as painterly and evocative as Chagall's own dazzling brushstrokes, Gloria Goldreich finely evokes one of the most significant masters of modern art through the discerning eyes of his] loyally protective daughter.--Cynthia Ozick, award-winning author of Foreign Bodies |
| im appalled nyt: Gay Bar Jeremy Atherton Lin, 2021-02-09 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY: The New York Times * NPR * Vogue * Gay Times * Artforum * “Gay Bar is an absolute tour de force.” –Maggie Nelson Atherton Lin has a five-octave, Mariah Carey-esque range for discussing gay sex.” –New York Times Book Review As gay bars continue to close at an alarming rate, a writer looks back to find out what’s being lost in this indispensable, intimate, and stylish celebration of queer history. Strobing lights and dark rooms; throbbing house and drag queens on counters; first kisses, last call: the gay bar has long been a place of solidarity and sexual expression—whatever your scene, whoever you’re seeking. But in urban centers around the world, they are closing, a cultural demolition that has Jeremy Atherton Lin wondering: What was the gay bar? How have they shaped him? And could this spell the end of gay identity as we know it? In Gay Bar, the author embarks upon a transatlantic tour of the hangouts that marked his life, with each club, pub, and dive revealing itself to be a palimpsest of queer history. In prose as exuberant as a hit of poppers and dazzling as a disco ball, he time-travels from Hollywood nights in the 1970s to a warren of cruising tunnels built beneath London in the 1770s; from chichi bars in the aftermath of AIDS to today’s fluid queer spaces; through glory holes, into Crisco-slicked dungeons and down San Francisco alleys. He charts police raids and riots, posing and passing out—and a chance encounter one restless night that would change his life forever. The journey that emerges is a stylish and nuanced inquiry into the connection between place and identity—a tale of liberation, but one that invites us to go beyond the simplified Stonewall mythology and enter lesser-known battlefields in the struggle to carve out a territory. Elegiac, randy, and sparkling with wry wit, Gay Bar is at once a serious critical inquiry, a love story and an epic night out to remember. |
| im appalled nyt: Lake Effect Nancy A. Nichols, 2010-03-18 On her deathbed, Sue asked her sister for one thing: to write about the connection between the industrial pollution in their hometown and the rare cancer that was killing her. Fulfilling that promise has been Nancy Nichols’ mission for more than a decade. Lake Effect is the story of her investigation. It reaches back to their childhood in Waukegan, Illinois, an industrial town on Lake Michigan once known for good factory jobs and great fishing. Now Waukegan is famous for its Superfund sites: as one resident put it, asbestos to the north, PCBs to the south. Drawing on her experience as a journalist, Nichols interviewed dozens of scientists, doctors, and environmentalists to determine if these pollutants could have played a role in her sister’s death. While researching Sue’s cancer, she discovered her own: a vicious though treatable form of pancreatic cancer. Doctors and even family urged her to forget causes and concentrate on cures, but Nichols knew that it was relentless questioning that had led to her diagnosis. And that it is questioning—by government as well as individuals—that could save other lives. Lake Effect challenges us to ask why. It is the fulfillment of a sister’s promise. And it is a call to stop the pollution that is endangering the health of all our families. |
| im appalled nyt: Liner Notes for the Revolution Daphne A. Brooks, 2021-02-23 An award-winning Black feminist music critic takes us on an epic journey through radical sound from Bessie Smith to Beyoncé. Daphne A. Brooks explores more than a century of music archives to examine the critics, collectors, and listeners who have determined perceptions of Black women on stage and in the recording studio. How is it possible, she asks, that iconic artists such as Aretha Franklin and Beyoncé exist simultaneously at the center and on the fringe of the culture industry? Liner Notes for the Revolution offers a startling new perspective on these acclaimed figures—a perspective informed by the overlooked contributions of other Black women concerned with the work of their musical peers. Zora Neale Hurston appears as a sound archivist and a performer, Lorraine Hansberry as a queer Black feminist critic of modern culture, and Pauline Hopkins as America’s first Black female cultural commentator. Brooks tackles the complicated racial politics of blues music recording, song collecting, and rock and roll criticism. She makes lyrical forays into the blues pioneers Bessie Smith and Mamie Smith, as well as fans who became critics, like the record-label entrepreneur and writer Rosetta Reitz. In the twenty-first century, pop superstar Janelle Monae’s liner notes are recognized for their innovations, while celebrated singers Cécile McLorin Salvant, Rhiannon Giddens, and Valerie June take their place as cultural historians. With an innovative perspective on the story of Black women in popular music—and who should rightly tell it—Liner Notes for the Revolution pioneers a long overdue recognition and celebration of Black women musicians as radical intellectuals. |
| im appalled nyt: The Reporter Who Knew Too Much Donald E. Davis, Eugene P. Trani, 2012-10-05 During his career at The New York Times, Harrison Salisbury served as the bureau chief in post-World War II Moscow and reported from Hanoi during the Vietnam War, and in retirement witnessed the Tiananmen Square massacre firsthand. Davis and Trani's engaging biography of the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist makes use of Salisbury's personal archive of interviews, articles, and correspondence to shed light on the personal triumphs and shortcomings of this preeminent reporter and illuminates the twentieth-century world in which he lived. |
| im appalled nyt: Beautiful Boy David Sheff, 2008 Sheff's story tells of his teenage son's addiction to meth, in this real-time chronicle of the shocking descent into substance abuse and the family's gradual emergence into hope. |
| im appalled nyt: Beautiful Country Qian Julie Wang, 2022-09-27 A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • The moving story of an undocumented child living in poverty in the richest country in the world—an incandescent debut from an astonishing new talent • A TODAY SHOW #READWITHJENNA PICK In Chinese, the word for America, Mei Guo, translates directly to “beautiful country.” Yet when seven-year-old Qian arrives in New York City in 1994 full of curiosity, she is overwhelmed by crushing fear and scarcity. In China, Qian’s parents were professors; in America, her family is “illegal” and it will require all the determination and small joys they can muster to survive. In Chinatown, Qian’s parents labor in sweatshops. Instead of laughing at her jokes, they fight constantly, taking out the stress of their new life on one another. Shunned by her classmates and teachers for her limited English, Qian takes refuge in the library and masters the language through books, coming to think of The Berenstain Bears as her first American friends. And where there is delight to be found, Qian relishes it: her first bite of gloriously greasy pizza, weekly “shopping days,” when Qian finds small treasures in the trash lining Brooklyn’s streets, and a magical Christmas visit to Rockefeller Center—confirmation that the New York City she saw in movies does exist after all. But then Qian’s headstrong Ma Ma collapses, revealing an illness that she has kept secret for months for fear of the cost and scrutiny of a doctor’s visit. As Ba Ba retreats further inward, Qian has little to hold onto beyond his constant refrain: Whatever happens, say that you were born here, that you’ve always lived here. Inhabiting her childhood perspective with exquisite lyric clarity and unforgettable charm and strength, Qian Julie Wang has penned an essential American story about a family fracturing under the weight of invisibility, and a girl coming of age in the shadows, who never stops seeking the light. |
| im appalled nyt: Everything, Everything Nicola Yoon, 2015-09-01 New York Times Bestseller My disease is as rare as it is famous. It's a form of Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, but basically, I'm allergic to the world. I don't leave my house, have not left my house in fifteen years. The only people I ever see are my mom and my nurse, Carla. But then one day, a moving truck arrives. New next door neighbors. I look out the window, and I see him. He's tall, lean and wearing all black--black t-shirt, black jeans, black sneakers and a black knit cap that covers his hair completely. He catches me looking and stares at me. I stare right back. His name is Olly. I want to learn everything about him, and I do. I learn that he is funny and fierce. I learn that his eyes are Atlantic Ocean-blue and that his vice is stealing silverware. I learn that when I talk to him, my whole world opens up, and I feel myself starting to change--starting to want things. To want out of my bubble. To want everything, everything the world has to offer. Maybe we can't predict the future, but we can predict some things. For example, I am certainly going to fall in love with Olly. It's almost certainly going to be a disaster. |
