Best of
Journalism
2013
One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway
Åsne Seierstad - 2013
He then proceeded to a youth camp on the island of Utøya, where he killed sixty-nine more, most of them teenage members of Norway’s governing Labour Party. In The Island, the journalist Åsne Seierstad tells the story of this terrible day and what led up to it. What made Breivik, a gifted child from an affluent neighborhood in Oslo, become a terrorist? As in her bestseller The Bookseller of Kabul, Seierstad excels at the vivid portraiture of lives under stress. She delves deep into Breivik’s troubled childhood, showing how a hip-hop and graffiti aficionado became a right-wing activist and Internet game addict, and then an entrepreneur, Freemason, and self-styled master warrior who sought to “save Norway” from the threat of Islam and multiculturalism. She writes with equal intimacy about Breivik’s victims, tracing their political awakenings, aspirations to improve their country, and ill-fated journeys to the island. By the time Seierstad reaches Utøya, we know both the killer and those he will kill. We have also gotten to know an entire country—famously peaceful and prosperous, and utterly incapable of protecting its youth.
This Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan War
Samanth Subramanian - 2013
For nearly thirty years, the war's fingers had reached everywhere: into the bustle of Colombo, the Buddhist monasteries scattered across the island, the soft hills of central Sri Lanka, the curves of the eastern coast near Batticaloa and Trincomalee and the stark, hot north. With its genius for brutality, the war left few places and fewer people, untouched.What happens to the texture of life in a country that endures such bitter conflict? What happens to the country's soul? Samanth Subramanian gives us an extraordinary account of the Sri Lankan war and the lives it changed. Taking us to the ghosts of summers past and to other battles from other times, he draws out the story of Sri Lanka today-an exhausted, disturbed society, still hot from the embers of the war. Through travels and conversations, he examines how people reconcile themselves to violence, how religion and state conspire, how the powerful become cruel and how victory can be put to the task of reshaping memory and burying histories.This Divided Island is a harrowing and humane investigation of a country still inflamed.
The iCandidate
Mikael Carlson - 2013
However, when he loses a bet to his over-achieving class of American history students, he finds himself in unfamiliar territory: a candidate running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.With no money to run a campaign, Michael sets an audacious plan in motion to become the country’s first virtual candidate. With the help of his teenaged students who serve as his campaign staff, he leverages every form of electronic and social media to reach the voters in his district. With the help of a beautiful, but jaded journalist bent on getting revenge against his opponent, the Bennit campaign rises from obscurity to become the epicenter of national attention. As the infatuation with his fledgling campaign captivates the country, he becomes a target for the desperate incumbent fanatical about hanging onto his power at any cost.The iCandidate follows the plight of four people caught in the firestorm of mainstream media, social media, and dirty politics. In the end, the lives of everybody involved will be changed and the political landscape of the country forever altered. For Michael Bennit, his real concern heading into Election Day is whether the lesson he is trying to teach is getting lost in all the drama.
League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth
Mark Fainaru-Wada - 2013
That judgment, implausible even to a casual fan, also contradicted the opinion of a growing cadre of neuroscientists who worked in vain to convince the NFL that it was facing a deadly new scourge: A chronic brain disease that was driving an alarming number of players -- including some of the all-time greats -- to madness.League of Denial reveals how the NFL, over a period of nearly two decades, sought to cover up and deny mounting evidence of the connection between football and brain damage.Comprehensively, and for the first time, award-winning ESPN investigative reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru tell the story of a public health crisis that emerged from the playing fields of our 21st century pastime. Everyone knew that football is violent and dangerous. But what the players who built the NFL into a $10 billion industry didn’t know – and what the league sought to shield from them – is that no amount of padding could protect the human brain from the force generated by modern football; that the very essence of the game could be exposing these players to brain damage.In a fast-paced narrative that moves between the NFL trenches, America’s research labs and the boardrooms where the NFL went to war against science, League of Denial examines how the league used its power and resources to attack independent scientists and elevate its own flawed research -- a campaign with echoes of Big Tobacco’s fight to deny the connection between smoking and lung cancer. It chronicles the tragic fates of players like Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, who was so disturbed at the time of his death he fantasized about shooting NFL executives; and former Chargers great Junior Seau, whose diseased brain became the target of an unseemly scientific battle between researchers and the NFL. Based on exclusive interviews, previously undisclosed documents and private emails, this is the story of what the NFL knew and when it knew it – questions at the heart of crisis that threatens football, from the highest levels all the way down to Pop Warner.
The Siege: 68 Hours Inside The Taj Hotel
Adrian Levy - 2013
On the night of November 26, Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists attacked targets throughout the city, including the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, one of the world’s most exclusive luxury hotels. For sixty-eight hours, hundreds were held hostage as shots rang out and an enormous fire raged. When the smoke cleared, thirty-one people were dead and many more had been injured. Only the courageous actions of staff and guests—including Mallika Jagad, Bob Nichols, and Taj general manager Binny Kang—prevented a much higher death toll.With a deep understanding of the region and its politics and a narrative flair reminiscent of Midnight in Peking, journalists Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy vividly unfold the tragic events in a real-life thriller filled with suspense, tragedy, history, and heroism.
The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America
George Packer - 2013
Seismic shifts during a single generation have created a country of winners and losers, allowing unprecedented freedom while rending the social contract, driving the political system to the verge of breakdown, and setting citizens adrift to find new paths forward. In The Unwinding, George Packer, author of The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, tells the story of the United States over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives.The Unwinding journeys through the lives of several Americans, including Dean Price, the son of tobacco farmers, who becomes an evangelist for a new economy in the rural South; Tammy Thomas, a factory worker in the Rust Belt trying to survive the collapse of her city; Jeff Connaughton, a Washington insider oscillating between political idealism and the lure of organized money; and Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley billionaire who questions the Internet's significance and arrives at a radical vision of the future. Packer interweaves these intimate stories with biographical sketches of the era's leading public figures, from Newt Gingrich to Jay-Z, and collages made from newspaper headlines, advertising slogans, and song lyrics that capture the flow of events and their undercurrents.The Unwinding portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation. Packer's novelistic and kaleidoscopic history of the new America is his most ambitious work to date.One of the iTunes Bookstore's "Ten Books You Must Read This Summer"
Under the Wire: Marie Colvin's Final Assignment
Paul Conroy - 2013
Also the basis of the documentary Under the Wire. Marie Colvin was an internationally recognized American foreign war correspondent who was killed in a rocket attack in 2012 while reporting on the suffering of civilians inside Syria. She was renowned for her iconic flair and her fearlessness: wearing the pearls that were a gift from Yasser Arafat and her black eye-patch, she reported from places so dangerous no other correspondent would dare to go. Photographer Paul Conroy forged a close bond with Colvin as they put their lives on the line time and time again to report from the world's conflict zones, and he was by her side during her final assignment. A riveting war journal, Under the Wire is Paul's gripping, visceral, and moving account of their friendship and the final year he spent alongside her. When Marie and Paul were smuggled into Syria by rebel forces, they found themselves trapped in one of the most hellish neighborhoods on earth. Fierce barrages of heavy artillery fire rained down on the buildings surrounding them, killing and maiming hundreds of civilians. Marie was killed by a rocket which also blew hole in Paul's thigh big enough to put his hand through. Bleeding profusely, short of food and water, and in excruciating pain, Paul then endured five days of intense bombardment before being evacuated in a daring escape in which he rode a motorbike through a tunnel, crawled through enemy terrain, and finally scaled a 12-foot-high wall. Astonishingly vivid, heart-stoppingly dramatic. and shot through with dark humor, in Under the Wire Paul Conroy shows what it means to a be a war reporter in the 21st century. His is a story of two brave people drawn together by a shared compulsion to bear witness.
The Associated Press Stylebook 2013
Associated Press - 2013
With The AP Stylebook in hand, you can learn how to write and edit with the clarity and professionalism for which they are famous. Fully revised and updated, this new edition contains more than 3,000 A to Z entries—including more than 200 new ones—detailing the AP’s rules on grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, abbreviation, and word and numeral usage. You’ll find answers to such wide-ranging questions as: · When should the names of government bodies be spelled out and when should they be abbreviated?· What are the general definitions of the major religious movements?· Which companies do the big media conglomerates own?· Who are all the members of the British Commonwealth?· How should box scores for baseball games be filed?· What constitutes “fair use”?· What exactly does the Freedom of Information Act cover? With invaluable additional sections on the unique guidelines for business and sports reporting and on how you can guard against libel and copyright infringement, The AP Stylebook is the one reference that all writers, editors, and students cannot afford to be without.
Tragedy at Pike River Mine: How and Why 29 Men Died
Rebecca Macfie - 2013
Later that day two ashen men stumbled from the entrance. Twenty-nine men remained unaccounted for. Initial probes revealed fatally high methane levels in the mine – conditions deemed unsurvivable for the trapped men. But it was only after a second blast five days later that all hope was extinguished.Tragedy at Pike River Mine is a dramatic, superbly researched and page-turning account of a disaster that should never have happened, of the dramatic political and legal fallout, and the effect on the small West Coast community. It reveals an appalling string of mistakes, from consent being given for the mine in the first place, to lack of proper monitoring equipment, pressure to ignore safety requirements, and effectively only a single exit. It puts a human face on the people who suffered, and provides penetrating insight on who's to blame.This is an essential read for everyone who cares about the future of New Zealand and our values as a nation. Rebecca Macfie's writing on Pike River has been hailed for its veracity, perspicacity and powerful human interest.
The Big Truck that Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster
Jonathan M. Katz - 2013
Jonathan M. Katz, the only full-time American news correspondent in Haiti, was inside his house when it buckled along with hundreds of thousands of others. In this visceral, authoritative first-hand account, Katz chronicles the terror of that day, the devastation visited on ordinary Haitians, and how the world reacted to a nation in need.More than half of American adults gave money for Haiti, part of a monumental response totaling $16.3 billion in pledges. But three years later the relief effort has foundered. It’s most basic promises—to build safer housing for the homeless, alleviate severe poverty, and strengthen Haiti to face future disasters—remain unfulfilled. The Big Truck That Went By presents a sharp critique of international aid that defies today’s conventional wisdom; that the way wealthy countries give aid makes poor countries seem irredeemably hopeless, while trapping millions in cycles of privation and catastrophe. Katz follows the money to uncover startling truths about how good intentions go wrong, and what can be done to make aid “smarter.”With coverage of Bill Clinton, who came to help lead the reconstruction; movie-star aid worker Sean Penn; Wyclef Jean; Haiti’s leaders and people alike, Katz weaves a complex, darkly funny, and unexpected portrait of one of the world’s most fascinating countries. The Big Truck That Went By is not only a definitive account of Haiti’s earthquake, but of the world we live in today.
Oriana Fallaci: The Journalist, the Agitator, the Legend
Cristina De Stefano - 2013
To retrace Fallaci's life means to retrace the course of history from World War II to 9/11. As a child, Fallaci enlisted herself in the Italian Resistance alongside her father. Her hatred of fascism and authoritarian regimes would accompany her throughout her life. Covering the entertainment industry early on in her career, she created an original, abrasive interview style, focusing on her subject's emotions, contradictions, and facial expressions more than their words. When she grew bored of interviewing movie stars and directors, she turned her attention to the greatest international figures of the time: Khomeini, Gaddafi, Indira Gandhi, and Kissinger, placing herself front and center in the story. Reporting from the front lines of the world's greatest conflicts, she provoked her own controversies wherever she was stationed, leaving behind epic collateral damage in her wake. Thanks to unprecedented access to personal records, Cristina De Stefano brings back to life a remarkable woman whose groundbreaking work and torrid love affairs will not soon be forgotten. Oriana Fallaci allows a new generation to discover her story, and witness the passionate, persistent journalism that we urgently need in these times of upheaval and uncertainty.
Play it Again: An Amateur Against the Impossible
Alan Rusbridger - 2013
It is not the kind of job that leaves time for hobbies. But in the summer of 2010, Rusbridger determined to learn, in the course of a year, Chopin’s Ballade No.1 in G minor, one of the most beautiful and challenging pieces of music ever composed. With passages that demand feats of memory, dexterity, and power, even concert pianists are intimidated by its pyrotechnical requirements. Rusbridger’s timing could have been better. The next twelve months witnessed the Arab Spring and the Japanese tsunami and were bookended by The Guardian breaking two major news stories: WikiLeaks and the News of the World phone-hacking scandal. It was a defining year for The Guardian and its editor. In Play It Again, Rusbridger recounts trying to carve out twenty minutes a day to practice, find the right teacher, the right piano, the right fingering—even if it meant practicing in a Libyan hotel in the midst of a revolution. He sought advice from legendary pianists, from historians and neuroscientists, and even occasionally from secretaries of state. But was he able to conquer the piece? A book about distraction, absorption, discipline, and desire, Play It Again resonates far beyond the realm of music, for anyone with an instinct to “wall off a small part of . . . life for creative expression.”
Here I Am: The Story of Tim Hetherington, War Photographer
Alan Huffman - 2013
Tim won many awards for his war reporting, and was nominated for an Academy Award for the critically acclaimed documentary, Restrepo. Hetherington's dedication to his career led him time after time into war zones, and unlike some other journalists, he did not pack up after the story had broken.In Here I Am, journalist and freelance writer Alan Huffman tells Hetherington's life story, and through it analyzes what it means to be a war reporter in the twenty-first century. Huffman recounts Hetherington's life from his first interests in photography, through his critical role in reporting the Liberian Civil War, to his tragic death in Libya. Huffman also traces Hetherington's photographic milestones, from his iconic and prize-winning photographs of Liberian children, to the celebrated portraits of sleeping U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. Here I Am explores the risks, challenges, and thrills of war reporting, and is a testament to the unique work of people like Hetherington, who risk their lives to give a voice to people ravaged by war.
Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief
Lawrence Wright - 2013
Based on more than two hundred personal interviews with both current and former Scientologists--both famous and less well known--and years of archival research, Lawrence Wright uses his extraordinary investigative skills to uncover for us the inner workings of the Church of Scientology: its origins in the imagination of science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard; its struggles to find acceptance as a legitimate (and legally acknowledged) religion; its vast, secret campaign to infiltrate the U.S. government; and its dramatic efforts to grow and prevail after the death of Hubbard.At the book's center, two men whom Wright brings vividly to life, showing how they have made Scientology what it is today: The darkly brilliant L. Ron Hubbard--whose restless, expansive mind invented a new religion tailor-made to prosper in the spiritually troubled post-World War II era. And his successor, David Miscavige--tough and driven, with the unenviable task of preserving the church in the face of ongoing scandals and continual legal assaults.We learn about Scientology's esoteric cosmology; about the auditing process that determines an inductee's state of being; about the Bridge to Total Freedom, through which members gain eternal life. We see the ways in which the church pursues celebrities, such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, and how young idealists who joined the Sea Org, the church's clergy, whose members often enter as children, signing up with a billion-year contract and working with little pay in poor conditions. We meet men and women "disconnected" from friends and family by the church's policy of shunning critical voices. And we discover, through many firsthand stories, the violence that has long permeated the inner sanctum of the church.In Going Clear, Wright examines what fundamentally makes a religion a religion, and whether Scientology is, in fact, deserving of the constitutional protections achieved in its victory over the IRS. Employing all his exceptional journalistic skills of observations, understanding, and synthesis, and his ability to shape a story into a compelling narrative, Lawrence Wright has given us an evenhanded yet keenly incisive book that goes far beyond an immediate exposé and uncovers the very essence of what makes Scientology the institution it is.
Wheelmen: Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France, and the Greatest Sports Conspiracy Ever
Reed Albergotti - 2013
In a sport constantly dogged by blood-doping scandals, he seemed above the fray. Then, in January 2013, the legend imploded. He admitted doping during the Tours and, in an interview with Oprah, described his "mythic, perfect story" as "one big lie." But his admission raised more questions than it answered—because he didn’t say who had helped him dope or how he skillfully avoided getting caught.The Wall Street Journal reporters Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O'Connell broke the news at every turn. In Wheelmen they reveal the broader story of how Armstrong and his supporters used money, power, and cutting-edge science to conquer the world’s most difficult race. Wheelmen introduces U.S. Postal Service Team owner Thom Weisel, who in a brazen power play ousted USA Cycling's top leadership and gained control of the sport in the United States, ensuring Armstrong’s dominance. Meanwhile, sponsors fought over contracts with Armstrong as the entire sport of cycling began to benefit from the "Lance effect." What had been a quirky, working-class hobby became the pastime of the Masters of the Universe set.Wheelmen offers a riveting look at what happens when enigmatic genius breaks loose from the strictures of morality. It reveals the competitiveness and ingenuity that sparked blood-doping as an accepted practice, and shows how the Americans methodically constructed an international operation of spies and revolutionary technology to reach the top. It went on to become a New York Times Bestseller, a Wall Street Journal Business Bestseller, and win numerous awards, including a Gold Medal for the Axiom Business Book Awards. At last exposing the truth about Armstrong and American cycling, Wheelmen paints a living portrait of what is, without question, the greatest conspiracy in the history of sports.
Lucky Peach, Issue 6
David Chang - 2013
The issue’s split into two parts: pre-and post-apocalypse. MICHAEL POLLAN talks problems (mostly self-inflicted) and solutions (hint: it involves cooking). We spend a day with BREN SMITH of Thimble Island Oysters, a sustainable 3D ocean farm. We offer tips on how to stock your bomb shelter and the low-down on MREs. Part two fast forwards to the End itself: overfished oceans, zombie takeovers, and werebeavers. MAGNUS NILSSON fashions a frankenchicken in 2034; TED NUGENT schools us on how to survive (eat your pets, use your weapons); TARTINE’s CHAD ROBERTSON shows us how to bake bread in a postapocalyptic “oven.” You’ll learn how to make butter (start with a cow) and harvest honey (be careful!). Plus: what’s your sign Sustainability horo-scopes show what’s in store.
Lucky Peach, Issue 7
David Chang - 2013
ANTHONY BOURDAIN talks Deliverance, Apocalypse Now, and Southern Comfort. HAROLD MCGEE schools us about the (possibly) harmful substances that travel from plastic to-go containers and into our food. ROY CHOI waxes poetic on “the Aloha spirit.” JASON POLAN visits the most beautiful Taco Bell in the world. And it wouldn’t be a travel issue without travel tips galore: how to avoid traveler’s diarrhea (BENJAMIN WOLFE), the ins and outs of street food (RICK BAYLESS), and all about traveling with kids (NAOMI DUGUID). Ultimately, we learn that getting lost means finding good stuff in places we least expect it: chicken tamales at a gay cantina in Mérida; the world’s most dangerous chicken in Rio de Janeiro; an epic sub on the Jersey Shore. Plus: the history of curry—the world’s best traveled dish—from bunny chow to fish-head curry, along with recipes too.PLUS:Travel tips from AZIZ ANSARI, JONATHAN GOLD, MARIO BATALI, and morePunk rock touring with BROOKS HEADLEYOn the road with ANDY RICKEREating camel with ANISSA HELOUCocktail recipes straight from the minibarDispatches from Crete, Tartarstan, North KoreaNew fiction by JACK PENDARVISHawaiian recipes from ROY CHOI and CHRISTINA TOSI
Texting 1, 2, 3
Rachel Wise - 2013
Trigg tells Samantha and Michael that they should write an article about texting, they are both annoyed. Texting? Texting is just something kids do for fun. Where’s the story in that? But when Michael’s older brother gets into a car accident while texting, they suddenly realize how important their assignment actually is. Michael asks Mr. Trigg if he can write an additional sidebar to their article, and when the next issue of the Cherry Valley Voice comes out, the whole school is buzzing. Michael’s words have really affected everyone—the principal even puts a framed copy of the article in the main hallway outside of his office. Sam has always loved journalism, but now she experiences firsthand how much her words (and Michael’s) can truly impact the way people behave. What started out as a “fluff piece” turns out to be the story of the year!
When I Wear My Alligator Boots: Narco-Culture in the US-Mexico Borderlands
Shaylih Muehlmann - 2013
In particular, the book explores a crucial tension at the heart of the war on drugs: despite the violence and suffering brought on by drug cartels, for the rural poor in Mexico’s north, narcotrafficking offers one of the few paths to upward mobility and is a powerful source of cultural meanings and local prestige. In the borderlands, traces of the drug trade are everywhere: from gang violence in cities to drug addiction in rural villages, from the vibrant folklore popularized in the narco-corridos of Norteña music to the icon of Jesús Malverde, the patron saint of narcos, tucked beneath the shirts of local people. In When I Wear My Alligator Boots, the author explores the everyday reality of the drug trade by living alongside its low-level workers, who live at the edges of the violence generated by the militarization of the war on drugs. Rather than telling the story of the powerful cartel leaders, the book focuses on the women who occasionally make their sandwiches, the low-level businessmen who launder their money, the addicts who consume their products, the mules who carry their money and drugs across borders, and the men and women who serve out prison sentences when their bosses' operations go awry.
Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin
Ben Judah - 2013
Fragile Empire is the fruit of Judah’s thorough research: a probing assessment of Putin’s rise to power and what it has meant for Russia and her people. Despite a propaganda program intent on maintaining the cliché of stability, Putin’s regime was suddenly confronted in December 2011 by a highly public protest movement that told a different side of the story. Judah argues that Putinism has brought economic growth to Russia but also weaker institutions, and this contradiction leads to instability. The author explores both Putin’s successes and his failed promises, taking into account the impact of a new middle class and a new generation, the Internet, social activism, and globalization on the president’s impending leadership crisis. Can Russia avoid the crisis of Putinism? Judah offers original and up-to-the-minute answers.
The Life and Death of the Spanish Republic: A Witness to the Spanish Civil War
Henry Buckley - 2013
The copies of the book, stored in a warehouse in London, were destroyed during the Blitz and only a handful of copies of his unique chronicle were saved. Now, 70 years after its first publication, this exceptional eyewitness account of the war is republished with a new introduction by Paul Preston. The Life and Death of the Spanish Republic is a unique account of Spanish politics throughout the entire life of the Second Republic, combining personal recollections of meetings with the great politicians of the day with eyewitness accounts of dramatic events. This important book is one of the most enduring records of the Spanish Republic and the civil war and a monumental testimony to Buckley’s work as a correspondent.
The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science
Will Storr - 2013
Why don't facts work? Why, that is, did the obviously intelligent man beside him sincerely believe in Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden and a six-thousand-year-old Earth, in spite of the evidence against them? It was the start of a journey that would lead Storr all over the world--from Texas to Warsaw to the Outer Hebrides--meeting an extraordinary cast of modern heretics whom he tries his best to understand. He goes on a tour of Holocaust sites with David Irving and a band of neo-Nazis; experiences his own murder during past-life regression hypnosis; discusses the looming One World Government with iconic climate skeptic Lord Monckton; and investigates the tragic life and death of a woman who believed her parents were high priests in a baby-eating cult. Using a unique mix of highly personal memoir, investigative journalism, and the latest research from neuroscience and experimental psychology, Storr reveals how the stories we tell ourselves about the world invisibly shape our beliefs, and how the neurological "hero maker" inside us all can so easily lead to self-deception, toxic partisanship, and science denial.
Emergency Retold
Kuldip Nayar - 2013
Nandini Satpathy was elected to the state assembly after spending lakhs of rupees. Gandhian Jayaprakash Narayan raised the matter of corruption with the Prime Minister. Her defence was that the Congress had no money even to run the party office. When he found no response, he took the issue to the nation. One thing led to another until JP gave the call that the battle was between the people who wanted the government accountable and the government which was not willing to come clean. Acclaimed author Kuldip Nayar, says the true story behind Emergency, why it was declared and what it meant is relevant now since the driving force was corruption and corruption is the watch word again. With a new preface, the author reacquaints the current reader with the facts, lies and truths in an easy-to-understand, analytical style. He reveals the untold atrocities committed and the chief perpetrators and their modus operandi. A revelatory must-read on the 18 dark months of Democratic Indias history. About the Author: Kuldip Nayar A veteran journalist and former member of Parliament, Kuldip Nayar is India's most well-known and widely syndicated journalist. He was born in Sialkot in 1923 and educated at Lahore University before migrating to Delhi with his family at the time of Partition. He began his career in the Urdu newspaper, Anjam and after a spell in the USA worked as information officer of Lal Bahadur Shastri and Govind Ballabh Pant. He eventually became Resident Editor of the Statesman and managing editor of the Indian news agency, UNI. He corresponded for the Times for twenty five years and later served as Indian high commissioner to the UK during the V.P. Singh government. His stand for press freedom during the Emergency, when he was detained; his commitment to better relations between India and Pakistan, and his role as a human rights activist have won him respect and affection in both countries.
Photography and the American Civil War
Jeff L. Rosenheim - 2013
If the “War Between the States” was the test of the young republic’s commitment to its founding precepts, it was also a watershed in photographic history, as the camera recorded the epic, heartbreaking narrative from beginning to end—providing those on the home front, for the first time, with immediate visual access to the horrors of the battlefield.Photography and the American Civil War features both familiar and rarely seen images that include haunting battlefield landscapes strewn with bodies, studio portraits of armed Confederate and Union soldiers (sometimes in the same family) preparing to meet their destiny, rare multi-panel panoramas of Gettysburg and Richmond, languorous camp scenes showing exhausted troops in repose, diagnostic medical studies of wounded soldiers who survived the war’s last bloody battles, and portraits of both Abraham Lincoln and his assassin, John Wilkes Booth.Published on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg (1863), this beautifully produced book features Civil War photographs by George Barnard, Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, Timothy O’Sullivan, and many others.
Unthinkable: The Shocking Scandal of Britain's Trafficked Children
Kris Hollington - 2013
Yet many childcare experts reckon these crimes are just the tip of an iceberg of wide scale exploitation occurring across the country. The Deputy Children's Commissioner Sue Berelowitz said in June 2012 that there 'isn't a town, village or hamlet in which children are not being sexually exploited'. As this book goes to press, a gang of men similar to those convicted in Rochdale stands trial for similar crimes in Oxford. What is happening in Britain that means young vulnerable girls can be exploited in this way? Award-winning journalist Kris Hollington tells the inside story of some of the most shocking and heartbreaking crimes of recent years, focusing on the Rochdale case but also analysing recent cases in the London area that have echoes of the brutality of organised slavery. His findings expose how the British justice system is failing to protect children in the 21st century. It is a scandal that cannot be ignored.
Alligators in B-Flat: Improbable Tales from the Files of Real Florida
Jeff Klinkenberg - 2013
This is a writer who has never forgotten any of the mystery of this mysterious place, who never allowed his paradise to be paved over in concrete, at least inside his heart, and I could read him all day.”—Rick Bragg “If Jeff Klinkenberg isn’t careful, he might give journalism a good name.”—Carl Hiaasen “No one captures the old, secret Florida, the Florida of the swamps and forests where alligators and panthers rule, like Klinkenberg does. He uses his formidable reportorial skills to get fantastic (often hilariously funny) stories which belie the ghastly six-lane, strip-mall, gated-community, golf-course, air-conditioned, theme-parked Nature-wrecking Florida that most of its citizens know. Almost everything Klinkenberg writes is a public service as well as an enriching and educating experience.”—Diane Roberts, author of Dream State Florida is a civilized place with eighteen million residents and all of the modern amenities one might expect: fine universities, art museums, world-class restaurants, and luxury accommodations. It is also home to panthers, bears, rattlesnakes, and alligators. In this collection of essays about Florida culture—the things that make Florida “Florida”— Jeff Klinkenberg sets his sights on the contradictions that comprise the Sunshine State. With a keen eye for detail and a lyrical style, Klinkenberg takes us meandering through the swamps and back roads of Florida, stopping to acquaint us with the curious and kooky characters he meets along the way. These sometimes hilarious, sometimes reminiscent stories are as strange and mesmerizing as the people inhabiting this wacky peninsula. Klinkenberg is a journalist who conveys a deep fondness for his state and the curiosity behind his ongoing explorations in each story. Who else would engage a symphony orchestra tuba player to determine if bull gators will thunderously bellow back in a low B-flat during mating season (they do, but they only respond to that pitch). Readers will join Klinkenberg as he roams through the twisted roots of past and present, describing a beautifully swampy place that is becoming increasingly endangered. The traditional ways of the scallop shuckers, moss weavers, and cane grinders in his stories are now threatened by corporate greed, environmental degradation, and mass construction. From fishing camps and country stores to museums and libraries, Klinkenberg is forever unearthing the magic that makes Florida a place worth celebrating. Join him in contemplating Florida, both old and new, a place that is as quirky and enigmatic as it is burgeoning.
American Pastimes: the Very Best of Red Smith (The Library of America)
Red Smith - 2013
From the 1940s to the 1980s, his nationally syndicated columns for the New York Herald Tribune and later for The New York Times traversed the world of sports with literary panache and wry humor. “I’ve always had the notion,” Smith once said, “that people go to spectator sports to have fun and then they grab the paper to read about it and have fun again.” Now, writer and editor (and inventor of Rotisserie League Baseball) Daniel Okrent presents the best of Smith’s inimitable columns—miniature masterpieces that remain the gold standard in sportswriting.Here are Smith’s indelible profiles of sports luminaries, which show his gift for distilling a career’s essence in a single column. Unforgettable accounts of historic occasions—Bobby Thompson’s Shot Heard ’Round the World, Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series, the first Ali-Frazier fight—are joined by more offbeat stories that display Smith’s unmistakable wit, intelligence, and breadth of feeling. Here, too, are more personal glimpses into Smith’s life and work, revealed in stories about his lifelong passion for fishing and in “My Press-Box Memoirs,” a 1975 reminiscence for Esquire collected here for the first time.A Special Publication of The Library of America.
The Best American Magazine Writing 2013
American Society of Magazine Editors - 2013
This year's selections include Pamela Colloff ( "Texas Monthly") on the agonizing, decades-long struggle by a convicted murderer to prove his innocence; Dexter Filkins ( "The New Yorker") on the emotional effort by an Iraq War veteran to make amends for the role he played in the deaths of innocent Iraqis; Chris Jones ( "Esquire") on Robert A. Caro's epic, ongoing investigation into the life and work of Lyndon Johnson; Charles C. Mann ( "Orion") on the odds of human beings' survival as a species; and Roger Angell ( "The New Yorker") on aging, dying, and loss. The former infantryman Brian Mockenhaupt (Byliner) describes modern combat in Afghanistan and its ability both to forge and challenge friendships; Ta-Nehisi Coates ( "The Atlantic") reflects on the complex racial terrain traversed by Barack Obama; Frank Rich ( "New York") assesses Mitt Romney's ambiguous candidacy; and Dahlia Lithwick ( "Slate") looks at the current and future implications of an eventful year in Supreme Court history. The volume also includes an interview on the art of screenwriting with Terry Southern from "The Paris Revie"w and an award-winning short story by Stephen King published in " Harper's" magazine.
America's Deadliest Export: Democracy – The Truth About US Foreign Policy and Everything Else
William Blum - 2013
Since World War II we have been conditioned to believe that America's motives in 'exporting' democracy are honorable, even noble. In this startling and provocative book, William Blum, a leading dissident chronicler of US foreign policy and the author of controversial bestseller Rogue State, argues that nothing could be further from the truth. Moreover, unless this fallacy is unlearned, and until people understand fully the worldwide suffering American policy has caused, we will never be able to stop the monster.
The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism
Trevor Aaronson - 2013
A groundbreaking work of investigative journalism, The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism exposes how the FBI has, under the guise of engaging in counterterrorism since 9/11, built a network of more than 15,000 informants whose primary purpose is to infiltrate Muslim communities to create and facilitate phony terrorist plots so that the Bureau can then claim it is winning the war on terror.An outgrowth of Trevor Aaronson's work as an investigative reporting fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, which culminated in an award-winning cover story in Mother Jones magazine, The Terror Factory reveals shocking information about the criminals, con men, and liars the FBI uses as paid informants--including the story of an accused murderer who has become one of the Bureau's most prolific terrorism snitches--as well as documenting the extreme methods the FBI uses to ensnare Muslims in terrorist plots, which are in reality conceived and financed by the FBI.The book also offers unprecedented detail into how the FBI has transformed from a reactive law enforcement agency to a proactive counterterrorism organization that traps hapless individuals in manufactured terrorist plots in order to justify the $3 billion it spends every year fighting terrorism.
Before the Chop: LA Weekly Articles 2011-2012
Henry Rollins - 2013
For reasons of space, the Weekly must often slightly truncate the pieces and also sees fit to change the name of the piece. So, what you read there isn’t always what I sent them. This is one of the reasons I wanted to put this book out. Also, knowing there are a lot of people out there without the time to go to some website and read something every week, I thought it would be a good idea to have the articles all in one place. I hope you enjoy the book and thank you. - Henry
Cotton Tenants: Three Families
James Agee - 2013
The book shattered journalistic and literary conventions. Critic Lionel Trilling called it the “most realistic and most important moral effort of our American generation.” The origins of Agee and Evan's famous collaboration date back to an assignment for Fortune magazine, which sent them to Alabama in the summer of 1936 to report a story that was never published. Some have assumed that Fortune's editors shelved the story because of the unconventional style that marked Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, and for years the original report was lost.But fifty years after Agee’s death, a trove of his manuscripts turned out to include a typescript labeled “Cotton Tenants.” Once examined, the pages made it clear that Agee had in fact written a masterly, 30,000-word report for Fortune.Published here for the first time, and accompanied by thirty of Walker Evans’s historic photos, Cotton Tenants is an eloquent report of three families struggling through desperate times. Indeed, Agee’s dispatch remains relevant as one of the most honest explorations of poverty in America ever attempted and as a foundational document of long-form reporting. As the novelist Adam Haslett writes in an introduction, it is “a poet’s brief for the prosecution of economic and social injustice.”Co-Published with The Baffler magazine
Women in War: The Micro-Processes of Mobilization in El Salvador
Jocelyn Viterna - 2013
Why do women become guerrilla insurgents? What experiences do they have in guerrilla armies? And what are thelong-term repercussions of this participation for the women themselves and the societies in which they live?Women in War answers these questions while providing a rare look at guerrilla life from the viewpoint of rank-and-file participants. Using data from 230 in-depth interviews with men and women guerrillas, guerrilla supporters, and non-participants in rural El Salvador, Women in War investigates whysome women were able to channel their wartime actions into post-war gains, and how those patterns differ from the benefits that accrued to men. By accounting for these variations, Women in War helps resolve current, polarized debates about the effects of war on women, and by extension, develops ournascent understanding of the effects of women combatants on warfare, political violence, and gender systems.In the process, Women in War also develops a new model for investigating micro-level mobilization processes that has applications to many movement settings. Micro-level mobilization processes are often ignored in the social movement literature in favor of more macro- and meso-level analyses. Yetindividuals who share the same macro-level context, and who are embedded in the same meso-level networks, often have strikingly different mobilization experiences. Only a portion are ever moved to activism, and those who do mobilize vary according to which paths they follow to mobilization, whatskills and social ties they forge through participation, and whether they continue their political activism after the movement ends. By examining these individual-level variations, a micro-level theory of mobilization can extend the findings of macro- and meso-level analyses, and improve ourunderstanding of how social movements begin, why they endure, and whether they change the societies they target.
The Storied South: Voices of Writers and Artists
William Ferris - 2013
Vann Woodward. Masterfully drawn from one-on-one interviews conducted by renowned folklorist William Ferris over the past forty years, the book reveals how storytelling is viscerally tied to southern identity and how the work of these southern or southern-inspired creators has shaped the way Americans think and talk about the South.The Storied South offers a unique, intimate opportunity to sit at the table with these men and women and learn how they worked and how they perceived their art. The volume also features 45 of Ferris's striking photographic portraits of the speakers and a CD and a DVD of original audio and films of the interviews.
The Modern Magazine: Visual Journalism in the Digital Era
Jeremy Leslie - 2013
The Modern Magazine features the best editorial design, looking in particular at how magazines have adapted to respond to digital media.Encompassing mainstream and independent publishing, and graphic and editorial design, The Modern Magazine explores the issues now facing the industry, examining changes to the basic discipline of combining text and image for the global, Internetsavvy consumer.The book looks at key developments in the field, interviewing a broad range of specialists to discover their understandings of the current state of the industry and how different areas of publishing influence each other.Incorporating great visuals and genuine insight into the process of their creation, The Modern Magazine chronicles these exciting changes, providing a resource for designers, with interviews with major figures, summaries of new developments and trends, links to blogs, and more.
The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantanamo Bay
Jess Bravin - 2013
By the following January the first of these prisoners arrived at the U.S. military’s prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they were subject to President George W. Bush’s executive order authorizing their trial by military commissions. Jess Bravin, the Wall Street Journal’s Supreme Court correspondent, was there within days of the prison’s opening, and has continued ever since to cover the U.S. effort to create a parallel justice system for enemy aliens. A maze of legal, political, and moral issues has stood in the way of justice—issues often raised by military prosecutors who found themselves torn between duty to the chain of command and their commitment to fundamental American values.While much has been written about Guantanamo and brutal detention practices following 9/11, Bravin is the first to go inside the Pentagon’s prosecution team to expose the real-world legal consequences of those policies. Bravin describes cases undermined by inadmissible evidence obtained through torture, clashes between military lawyers and administration appointees, and political interference in criminal prosecutions that would be shocking within the traditional civilian and military justice systems. With the Obama administration planning to try the alleged 9/11 conspirators at Guantanamo—and vindicate the legal experiment the Bush administration could barely get off the ground—The Terror Courts could not be more timely.
Stories & Other Writings
Ring Lardner - 2013
Scott Fitzgerald and Edmund Wilson. Like Mark Twain before him and James Thurber after, he was a master of many forms and moods, his literary signatures being a virtuoso, surrealistic tomfoolery that looks forward to S. J. Perelman and a dark edginess that feels contemporary.Now, The Library of America and editor Ian Frazier celebrate his achievement with a major collection of Lardner’s most enduring work. Here, in one volume for the first time, are the finest stories, the full texts of You Know Me Al, The Big Town, and the long out-of-print The Real Dope, and a generous sampling of humor pieces, sports reporting, song lyrics, surrealist playlets, and letters.Lardner began as a Chicago-based sports writer, and it was in the jargon of ball players that he wrote You Know Me Al (1916), the best-selling work that launched his literary career and earned the admiration of writers as diverse as Virginia Woolf and H. L. Mencken. Comprising the unvarnished letters of its comically self-admiring hero, bush-leaguer turned big-leaguer Jack Keefe, You Know Me Al’s brilliant burlesque of the egotism of sports stardom remains as fresh as ever. Lardner’s unrivaled ear for the rhythms and hilarious oddities of the American language as actually spoken was matched by a rare gift for inspired nonsense, whether he was writing a travel narrative from the vantage point of a four-year-old (The Young Immigrunts), a play set in “the Outskirts of a Parchesi Board,” or the story of Red Riding Hood “like I tell it to my little ones when they wake up in the morning with a headache after a tough night.”Lardner could find something to laugh about in the tiniest circumstance, but all the laughter could not mask the sardonic view he often took of the lives he described. Sharp and dispassionately observant of the American scene, his best stories (among them such masterpieces as “The Golden Honeymoon,” “Haircut,” “The Love Nest,” “A Day with Conrad Green,” and “Who Dealt?”) cast a devastating eye on the hypocrisies and prejudices of everyday life. His garrulous narrators, blissfully devoid of self-knowledge, are given just enough room to reveal themselves in all their petty scheming and unacknowledged resentment.Equal parts antic and acerbic, here is a body of writing that Mencken called a “mine of authentic Americana.” (Lardner’s play June Moon, which he co-authored with George S. Kaufman, is collected in George S. Kaufman & Co.: Broadway Comedies.)
Strange Days: The Adventures of a Grumpy Rock 'n' Roll Journalist in Los Angeles
Dean Goodman - 2013
He took a royal tour of the Tennessee home of Johnny and June Carter Cash—and was astounded to see that June was a hoarder. Ice-T, as all good hosts should, played him a porno clip. Mike Love was unsympathetic when his guest swallowed a fly during a tense interview. Among Goodman’s other career highlights: being emboldened by Isaac Hayes to shave his head, dancing on stage with Iggy Pop, and getting one of his biggest scoops from Sporty Spice.Underappreciated artists such as guitar icon Steve Cropper, the Velvet Underground’s John Cale and Doug Yule, and Michael Nesmith of the Monkees also get their due. Some stars weren’t able to be interviewed. One chapter centers on Ray Charles’ funeral, which was more of a raucous, all-star concert ending with a quick peek at Ray’s body."Strange Days" also details the nuts-and-bolts of music journalism: deep research, the thrill of a successful interview, the agony of a disastrous one, the drudgery of transcribing the contents and turning the nuggets of wisdom into a story.Awards shows were the bane of Goodman’s existence. They allow rich and famous people to become even richer and more famous, and he was part of the problem by covering them. "Strange Days" recounts one such event where he innocently asked Garth Brooks about his disastrous foray into rock music as “Chris Gaines.” Brooks ripped Goodman, and the other “journalists” in the room applauded the singer. Goodman reveals that he spent his spare time preparing obituaries of people who could—or really ought to—die soon, but he is reconciled to the likelihood that one of his subjects, Charlie Sheen, will outlive him. The action is set largely during the 1990s, the last hurrah of the music industry before Napster and corporate stupidity ruined everything. It recalls a relatively innocent time when there were more than three major labels and people didn’t watch concerts through smartphones.For Goodman, the ’90s marked a second coming-of-age. He moved to the USA from his native New Zealand in 1992, after multiple viewings of Oliver Stone’s Doors movie inspired him to live like Jim Morrison on Venice Beach. That grew old after a few months, and he resumed his journalism career at Reuters, the global news agency, switching from business reporting to showbiz. He quickly got up close and personal with his rock-star heroes. For better or worse.Goodman lives in Los Angeles with his wife and memories.Read more at www.deangoodman.com and www.strangedaysbook.com.
Fault Lines
Beverly Bell - 2013
Since the 7.0 magnitude earthquake of January 12, 2010, that struck the island nation, killing more than a quarter-million people and leaving another two million Haitians homeless, Bell has spent much of her time in Haiti. Her new book, Fault Lines, is a searing account of the first year after the earthquake. Bell explores how strong communities and an age-old gift culture have helped Haitians survive in the wake of an unimaginable disaster, one that only compounded the preexisting social and economic distress of their society. The book examines the history that caused such astronomical destruction. It also draws in theories of resistance and social movements to scrutinize grassroots organizing for a more just and equitable country.Fault Lines offers rich perspectives rarely seen outside Haiti. Readers accompany the author through displaced persons camps, shantytowns, and rural villages, where they get a view that defies the stereotype of Haiti as a lost nation of victims. Street journals impart the author's intimate knowledge of the country, which spans thirty-five years. Fault Lines also combines excerpts of more than one hundred interviews with Haitians, historical and political analysis, and investigative journalism. Fault Lines includes twelve photos from the year following the 2010 earthquake.Bell also investigates and critiques U.S. foreign policy, emergency aid, standard development approaches, the role of nongovernmental organizations, and disaster capitalism. Woven through the text are comparisons to the crisis and cultural resistance in Bell's home city of New Orleans, when the levees broke in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Ultimately a tale of hope, Fault Lines will give readers a new understanding of daily life, structural challenges, and collective dreams in one of the world's most complex countries.
Disunion: Modern Historians Revisit and Reconsider the Civil War from Lincoln's Election to the Emancipation Proclamation
Ted Widmer - 2013
Since its debut, The New York Times' acclaimed web journal entitled 'Disunion' has published hundreds of original articles and won multiple awards, including "Best History Website" from the New Media Institute and the History News Network. Following the chronology of the secession crisis and the Civil War, the contributors to Disunion, who include modern scholars, journalists, historians, and Civil War buffs, offer contemporary commentary and assessment of the Civil War as it unfolded chronologically. Now, this commentary has been gathered together and organized in one volume. In The New York Times: Disunion, historian Ted Widmer has curated more than 100 articles that span events beginning with Lincoln's presidential victory through the Emancipation Proclamation. Topics include everything from Walt Whitman's wartime diary to the bloody guerrilla campaigns in Missouri and Kansas. Esteemed contributors include William Freehling, Adam Goodheart, and Edward Ayers, among others. The book also compiles new essays that have not been published on the Disunion site by well-known historians such as David Blight, Gary Gallagher, and Drew Gilpin Faust. Topics include the perspective of African-American slaves and freed men on the war, the secession crisis in the Upper South, the war in the West (that is, past the Appalachians), the war in Texas, the international context, and Civil War-era cartography. Portraits, contemporary etchings, and detailed maps round out the book.
Springsteen on Springsteen: Interviews, Speeches, and Encounters
Jeff Burger - 2013
No one is better qualified to talk about Springsteen than the man himself, and he’s often as articulate and provocative in interviews and speeches as he is emotive onstage and in recordings. While many rock artists seem to suffer through interviews, Springsteen has welcomed them as an opportunity to speak openly, thoughtfully, and in great detail about his music and life. This volume starts with his humble beginnings in 1973 as a struggling artist and follows him up to the present, as Springsteen has achieved almost unimaginable wealth and worldwide fame. Included are feature interviews with well-known media figures, including Charlie Rose, Ted Koppel, Brian Williams, Nick Hornby, and Ed Norton. Fans will also discover hidden gems from small and international outlets, in addition to radio and TV interviews that have not previously appeared in print. This collection is a must-have for any Springsteen fan.
Black Metal: Prelude to the Cult
Dayal Patterson - 2013
Some were made for the book but never made it into the main text, others date back ten years to the publishing of Dayal's first zine Crypt, and plenty inbetween. 64 pages. (Includes MAYHEM, ARCHGOAT, CLANDESTINE BLAZE, TAAKE, GORGOROTH, IMPALED NAZARENE, BEHERIT, 1349/SATYRICON, MANIAC/SKITLIV, ENTHRONED, HORNA/BEHEXEN, SIGH, MARDUK, HADES and more).
Let Freedom Ring: Stanley Tretick's Iconic Images of the March on Washington
Kitty Kelley - 2013
All of the marchers—black, white, Christian, and Jew—shared the same dream: freedom and equality for 19 million African Americans. Almost 300,000 strong, the marchers poured into Washington, D.C., to bear witness, to hear the immortal words of Martin Luther King, Jr., and to petition Congress to pass the President's Civil Rights bill.Stanley Tretick, a seasoned photojournalist best known for his iconic images of President Kennedy and his family, was also in the crowd, drawing inspiration from the historic scenes unfolding before him. In this magnificent book, his stirring photographs of that day are published for the first time. Accompanied by an insightful essay and captions from bestselling author Kitty Kelley, as well as a moving foreword by Marian Wright Edelman, Let Freedom Ring commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington and celebrates the crescendo of the Civil Rights movement in America.
Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline
Elesha J. Coffman - 2013
Coffmansituates this narrative within larger trends in American religion and society. Under the editorship of Charles Clayton Morrison from 1908-1947, the magazine spoke out about many of the most pressing social and political issues of the time, from child labor and women's suffrage to war, racism, andthe internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. It published such luminaries as Jane Addams, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Martin Luther King Jr. and jostled with the Nation, the New Republic, and Commonweal, as it sought to enlarge its readership and solidify its position as the voice of liberalProtestantism. But by the 1950s, internal strife between liberals and neo-orthodox and the rising challenge of Billy Graham's evangelicalism would shatter the illusion of Protestant consensus. The coalition of highly educated, theologically and politically liberal Protestants associated with themagazine made a strong case for their own status as shepherds of the American soul but failed to attract a popular following that matched their intellectual and cultural clout.Elegantly written and persuasively argued, The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline takes readers inside one of the most important religious magazines of the modern era.
Bring the Noise: The Best Pop Culture Essays from Barrelhouse Magazine
Tom McAllisterJill Talbot - 2013
BRING THE NOISE is a collection of the magazine’s greatest hits, plus five new pieces produced exclusively for this anthology. Inside, a roster of accomplished and respected authors grapples with a wide range of topics, including Thin Lizzy, dive bars, Barry Bonds, Bob Dylan’s beard, pro wrestling, The Hills, roller derby, Adrian Grenier, and Magnum, P.I.Passionate, insightful, and funny, this collection is simultaneously a celebration and a critical dissection of the ways in which pop culture affects us all.Table of ContentsIntroduction: On the Stupid Things We Loveby Tom Mcallister, Barrelhouse nonfiction editorBefore Adrian Grenier Got Famousby Sarah SweeneyJamby Paul CrenshawHome of the Poor and Unknownby Chad SimpsonAll Aboard the Bloated Boat: Arguments in Favor of Barry Bondsby Lee KleinHipster Mosaicby Johannes LichtmanIrish on Both Sidesby Tom WilliamsFor the Love of Good TVby Melanie Springer MockThis is Not Their Job: The Never-ending Reality of The Hillsby Patrick BrownBabyfacesby W. Todd KanekoA Myopic Appreciation of Roller Derbyby Louisa SpaventaHome From the Warby Steve KistulentzWhat it Means to Grow Bob Dylan’s Beardby John ShortinoReturn to Ozby Matt SailorWe Know the Drillby Leslie Jill PattersonThis Essay Doesn’t Rockby Joe OestreichDrummingby Nic BrownLost Callsby Jill Talbotthe illustrated story: On Tubes, by Ted Stevensby Brian Furuness, comicked by Kevin Thomasthe swayze questionWhat’s your Favorite Patrick Swayze Movie?
L'Americain: A Photojournalist's Life
John Launois - 2013
They sent correspondents and photojournalists to the ends of the earth to record history in the making. Among this elite was the photographer, John Launois. During the 1960s and 1970s, the final decades of the “golden age of photojournalism,” John Launois blossomed as one of the most resourceful, inventive, prolific, highly paid, and widely traveled photojournalists at work during that period.Launois made himself the master of the deeply researched photo essay, and his published work appeared in Life, The Saturday Evening Post, National Geographic, Fortune, Time, Newsweek, Look, Rolling Stone, Paris Match, London’s Sunday Times, and many other American, European, and Asian publications.This is his story told in his own words: from his youth amid the poverty and terror of German-occupied France during World War II when he dreamed of coming to America, to his lean “noodle years” in the Far East as he struggled to master his craft, to his years in America as a successful photographer and globetrotting adventurer. It was during this time that he recorded some of the most iconic images of the period—presidents, the Beatles, Malcolm X, wars, riots, and natural disasters. He also writes very candidly of the terrible toll the demands of his work imposed on his family, his loves, and himself. Through it all, he mingled with the rich, powerful, and downtrodden alike, always marveling that he had come so far.
Afghanistan: On the Bounce
Robert L. Cunningham - 2013
Afghanistan: On the Bounce brilliantly conveys the full range of the troops’ experiences—on patrol, in combat, in the chow line, and in religious services—through photographs, stories, diagrams, and removable ephemera.As a documentation/production specialist in Afghanistan, photographer Robert L. Cunningham accompanied soldiers of 40 different units on 132 combat missions, following them during their typical on-base routines as well as into hazardous situations. Here are detailed examinations of the servicemembers’ weapons, uniforms, vehicles, and gear, along with reflections on duty, insights into valor and heroism, and clear-eyed humor about life on deployment.
Photojournalists on War: The Untold Stories from Iraq
Michael Kamber - 2013
Michael Kamber interviewed photojournalists from many leading news organizations, including Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press, the Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, Magnum, Newsweek, the New York Times, Paris Match, Reuters, Time, the Times of London, VII Photo Agency, and the Washington Post, to create the most comprehensive collection of eyewitness accounts of the Iraq War yet published. These in-depth interviews offer first-person, frontline reports of the war as it unfolded, including key moments such as the battle for Fallujah, the toppling of Saddam’s statue, and the Haditha massacre. The photographers also vividly describe the often shocking and sometimes heroic actions that journalists undertook in trying to cover the war, as they discuss the role of the media and issues of censorship. These hard-hitting accounts and photographs, rare in the annals of any war, reveal the inside and untold stories behind the headlines in Iraq.
Mickey Mouse Color Sundays, Vol. 1: Call of the Wild
Floyd Gottfredson - 2013
taking him from Uncle Mortimer’s Inferno Gulch ranch to the icy peak of frigid Mount Fishflake! Back home in Mouseton, Mickey welcomes a famous co-star — Donald Duck — and nearly lives to regret it!Floyd Gottfredson, artist of the Sunday Mickey Mouse from 1932-38, created the most famous Mickey tales ever told in print. These long-form color strips, many never before reprinted in the USA, also feature the work of later Donald Duck master Al Taliaferro. Collectively, they form a group that fans have been seeking for a lifetime!Highlights include "Mickey’s Nephews," introducing Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse, and "Dr. Oofgay’s Secret Serum," which turns Horace Horsecollar into a brainwashed wild mustang! Classic gag stories round out the book, offering manic Mouse mischief at a fever pitch.Restored from Disney’s line art sources and enhanced with an eye-popping recreation of the strips' original color, Call of the Wild also brings you more than 40 pages of chromatic supplementary features! You'll enjoy rare Gottfredson drawings, vintage publicity material, and fascinating commentary by a prismatic pack of Disney scholars, including an appreciation of Gottfredson by celebrated alternative cartoonist Kevin Huizenga.NOTE: Mickey Mouse Color Sundays: Call of the Wild contains cartoon violence and historically dated content presented in context.
The Imagine Project: Stories of Courage, Hope and Love
Dianne Maroney - 2013
The soulful photographs incite curiosity about each person, and through their captivating narratives, youll experience the essence of each remarkable life. Youll find yourself reflecting on their incredible paths of personal fulfillment and transformation, and perhaps turn inward to reflect upon your own.
In Love with Art: Francoise Mouly's Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman (Exploded Views)
Jeet Heer - 2013
As well-versed in literature as he is in comics, he always gets at the peculiar, poetical texture of his subject not only by what he writes, but how he writes it--clearly, mellifluously, and beautifully. Our humble discipline is singularly lucky to have him telling its story."--Chris WareIn a partnership spanning four decades, Francoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman have become the pre-eminent power couple of cutting-edge graphic art. Their landmark magazine Raw, which first published artists such as Ben Katchor, Chris Ware, and Charles Burns, brought an avant-garde sensibility to comics and, along with Spiegelman's legendary graphic novel Maus, completely revolutionized the form. As art editor of the New Yorker since 1993, Mouly has remade the face of that venerable magazine with covers that capture the political and social upheavals of the last two decades, such as the black-on-black cover after 9/11 and the infamous Barack Obama fist-bump cartoon. Based on exclusive interviews with Mouly, Spiegelman, and a pantheon of comics artists--including Dan Clowes, Barry Blitt, Anita Kunz, and Adrian Tomine--In Love with Art is both an intimate portrait of Mouly and a rare, behind-the-scenes look at some of today's most iconic images. Through the prism of an uncommonly successful relationship, the book tells the story of one of the most remarkable artistic transformations of our time.Jeet Heer's writing has appeared in the Guardian, Slate, Boston Globe, the American Prospect, and the Virginia Quarterly Review.
What Lies Across the Water
Stephen Kimber - 2013
or a valiant freedom fighter? Is the man who tries to stop the bomber a threat to national security... or a hero of the people?It depends.What Lies Across the Water is a narrative nonfiction thriller. About terrorists who blow up airplanes and try to overthrow governments. About intelligence agents who try to stop them.The twist is that these terrorists are not Muslim. They’re Cuban exiles. And the men trying to stop them? Cuban intelligence agents.What Lies Across the Water examines the post-9/11 Bush doctrine—“Any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime”—by focusing on what happened in Miami and Havana in the 1990s when the American government—and Miami’s Cuban violent exile community—ratcheted up their attacks against Cuba.Cuba responded by sending intelligence agents to South Florida to penetrate the plotters.What Lies Across the Water uses an in-the-moment narrative to tell the parallel, converging, diverging stories of the exile militants, Cuban intelligence officers and FBI agents as they clash in Havana, Miami and the Straits of Florida. The story moves from the streets of Little Havana to real Havana’s Tropicana nightclub, from the hotel bar at the Copacabana Hotel to the inner sanctum of the White House—and back.What Lies Across the Water climaxes when Cuba’s intelligence agents—the Cuba Five—are arrested and sentenced to long prison terms while the exile terrorists go free.Who’s really a terrorist and who’s really a freedom fighter?***"I have been following the case of the Cuban Five for over a decade and have translated dozens of articles about their case. I have also translated entire books on exile violence against Cuba, but this book offered tidbits that I was unaware of, drew connections that I had not noticed before, and most importantly to me, confirmed some suspicions and dispelled a few rumors that I was unsure about. I am confident that even expert Cubanologists will find What Lies Across the Water useful, informative, at times infuriating, but always entertaining." — Havana Times**"The author’s clear, flowing, and often seat-gripping, even entertaining, narrative is an added plus. The book is highly recommended..." — Counterpunch
Dying for the Truth: Undercover Inside the Mexican Drug War by the Fugitive Reporters of Blog del Narco
Blog del Narco - 2013
More than this, it also speaks of corruption and violence from the government itself.Many journalists in Mexico have been killed and silenced. Blog del Narco is not run by professional journalists, but it's the only forum for the true story of the violent drug war.Dying for the Truth is the first and only book release that contains both text and images, many of them gruesome, from this vital public forum.This book contains both the original Spanish-language posts in addition to their English translations. Truth is risky, and sometimes it's also harsh. Here is the reality of the Mexican Drug War, created in part by American demand for the products controlled by the cartels and their government collaborators.The Blog del Narco authors live anonymously and under threat in Mexico and aspire to relocate to the United States.
And Yet ...
Christopher Hitchens - 2013
For more than forty years, Hitchens delivered to numerous publications on both sides of the Atlantic essays that were astonishingly wide-ranging and provocative. The judges for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, posthumously bestowed on Hitchens, praised him for the way he wrote “with fervor about the books and writers he loved and with unbridled venom about ideas and political figures he loathed.” He could write, the judges went on to say, with “undisguised brio, mining the resources of the language as if alert to every possibility of color and inflection.” He was, as Benjamin Schwarz, his editor at The Atlantic magazine, recalled, “slashing and lively, biting and funny—and with a nuanced sensibility and a refined ear that he kept in tune with his encyclopedic knowledge and near photographic memory of English poetry.” And as Michael Dirda, writing in the Times Literary Supplement, observed, Hitchens “was a flail and a scourge, but also a gift to readers everywhere.”The author of five previous volumes of selected writings, including the international bestseller Arguably, Hitchens left at his death nearly 250,000 words of essays not yet published in book form. And Yet… assembles a selection that usefully adds to Hitchens’s oeuvre. It ranges from the literary to the political and is, by turns, a banquet of entertaining and instructive delights, including essays on Orwell, Lermontov, Chesterton, Fleming, Naipaul, Rushdie, Pamuk, and Dickens, among others, as well as his laugh-out-loud self-mocking “makeover.” The range and quality of Hitchens’s essays transcend the particular occasions for which they were originally written. Often prescient, always pugnacious, and formidably learned, Hitchens was a polemicist for the ages. With this posthumous volume, his reputation and his readers will continue to grow.Christopher Hitchens was the cartographer of his own literary and political explorations. He sought assiduously to affirm—and to reaffirm—the ideas of secularism, reason, libertarianism, internationalism, and solidarity, values always under siege and ever in need of defending. Henry James once remarked, “Nothing is my last word on anything.” For Hitchens, as for James, there was always more to be said.
Society Is Nix: Gleeful Anarchy at the Dawn of the American Comic Strip
Peter Maresca - 2013
From the Yellow Kid to the Captain and the Kids, these are the origins of the American comic strip, created at a time when there were no set styles or formats, when artistic anarchy helped spawn a new medium. This book features the earliest offerings (1895 to 1915) from the famous and lesser-known cartoonists who where there when comics were born-over 150 creations from more then 50 superb artists, most reprinted for the first time ever. And all in the original broadsheet size and brilliant colors. Chris Ware calls "Society Is Nix, "a mind-blowing portable museum retrospective of the raw, tangled ferocity and frustration that went into the making of America." Art Spiegelman exclaimed, ..."never thought anything like this could exist outside my dream life."
Lucky and Good: Risk, Decisions & Bets for Investors, Traders & Entrepreneurs
John Sherriff - 2013
In "Lucky and Good," John Sherriff, former Enron Europe CEO, shares his insights about what went right and wrong at Enron, his current business of betting on lawsuits as well as tales from the poker table and the sporting world to provide very useful and entertaining advice for anyone in business.
Amor and Exile: True Stories of Love Across America's Borders
Nathaniel Hoffman - 2013
"Amor and Exile" is the story of American citizens-including Veronica, Ben, J.W., and Nicole-who fall in love with undocumented immigrants only to find themselves trapped in a legal labyrinth, stymied by their country's de facto exclusion of their partners. Journalist Nathaniel Hoffman visited both sides of the border to document the lives of these couples caught in the crossfire of America's high stakes political fight over immigration. In his disarming and precise style, Hoffman also traces the historical relationship between immigration, love and marriage. Lending an authentic voice to "Amor and Exile," coauthor Nicole Salgado delivers a searing first-person account of life in the U.S. with her husband while he was undocumented, her tortured decision to leave the country with him, and their seven years of exile and starting over together in Mexico. "Amor and Exile" tells of love that transcends borders-a story shared by hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens-cutting through the immigration debate rhetoric and providing a courageous perspective for one of the most vexing policy problems of our...
Mississippi Hill Country Blues 1967
George Mitchell - 2013
L. Burnside, Jessie Mae Hemphill, and Othar Turner. Thisjourney yielded recordings of music now on cherished and touted albums and CDs. From Mitchell'sfieldwork many others discovered the region and its distinctive style of blues. Some of the musiciansMitchell recorded had their lives transformed following his visit.The historic photographs in George Mitchell's Mississippi Hill Country Blues 1967 capture avibrant blues tradition at the moment of its discovery. Intimate, without posturing or pandering, thesephotographs provide a raw, authentic look at African American blues musicians, their families, andtheir stomping grounds in the Mississippi Hill Country at a time when blues music remained a lively, though waning, part of their community and blues musicians were viewed with respect and pride.Blues musicians brought pleasure and release to people wrestling with severe poverty and pervasivediscrismination.Mitchell's ability to connect with his subjects is evident in his arresting images. The musicians--and their families and friends--welcomed him in their homes and at rent parties and fife and drumpicnics. They posed for portraits. They let him hang around with his camera while they cooked supperor danced up a storm. The book includes Mitchell's interviews, conducted at the time he took the photos, with four of themusicians, who talk about their music, their lives, and the times in which they live. Running throughoutis the author's recounting of his experience of the seminal musicological odyssey.
Dreamers: An Immigrant Generation's Fight for Their American Dream
Eileen Truax - 2013
They grow up here, going to elementary, middle, and high school, and then the country they call home won’t—in most states—offer financial aid for college and they’re unable to be legally employed. In 2001, US senator Dick Durbin introduced the DREAM Act to Congress, an initiative that would allow these young people to become legal residents if they met certain requirements. And now, more than ten years later, in the face of congressional inertia and furious opposition from some, the DREAM Act has yet to be passed. But recently, this young generation has begun organizing, and with their rallying cry “Undocumented, Unapologetic, and Unafraid” they are the newest face of the human rights movement. In Dreamers, Eileen Truax illuminates the stories of these men and women who are living proof of a complex and sometimes hidden political reality that calls into question what it truly means to be American.
The Watchdog That Didn't Bark: The Financial Crisis and the Disappearance of Investigative Journalism
Dean Starkman - 2013
He locates the roots of the problem in the origin of business news as a market messaging service for investors in the early twentieth century. This access-dependent strain of journalism was soon opposed by the grand, sweeping work of the muckrakers. Propelled by the innovations of Bernard Kilgore, the great postwar editor of the Wall Street Journal, these two genres merged when mainstream American news organizations institutionalized muckraking in the 1960s, creating a powerful guardian of the public interest. Yet as the mortgage era dawned, deep cultural and structural shifts--some unavoidable, some self-inflicted--eroded journalism's appetite for its role as watchdog. The result was a deafening silence about systemic corruption in the financial industry. Tragically, this silence grew only more profound as the mortgage madness reached its terrible apogee from 2004 through 2006.Starkman frames his analysis in a broad argument about journalism itself, dividing the profession into two competing approaches--access reporting and accountability reporting--which rely on entirely different sources and produce radically different representations of reality. As Starkman explains, access journalism came to dominate business reporting in the 1990s, a process he calls "CNBCization," and rather than examining risky, even corrupt, corporate behavior, mainstream reporters focused on profiling executives and informing investors. Starkman concludes with a critique of the digital-news ideology and corporate influence, which threaten to further undermine investigative reporting, and he shows how financial coverage, and journalism as a whole, can reclaim its bite.
The Noisiest Book Review in the Known World
Lolita Lark - 2013
The reviews are quirky, conversational, and sarcastic; as the editor reminds readers: “What we do is not namby-pamby stuff.” The editors of RALPH have collected in these two volumes what they deem the 160+ best and brightest book reviews written since the company’s inception. With titles of essays such as “How to Kick a Duck,” “When I Was a German: An English Woman Living in Nazi Germany,” “Johann Sebastian Bach and the Aliens,” and “Two Hundred Horse-Power Cheeses,” The Noisiest Book Review in the Known World comments on a wide variety of books in a distinctively snarky voice. Perfect for cynical fans of journalistic works.
Sketching Guantanamo: Court Sketches of the Military Tribunals, 2006-2013
Janet Hamlin - 2013
military base in Guantanamo, Cuba, opened in January, 2002 in the wake of the 9-11 attacks to house alleged terrorists -- off the American mainland, unaccountable to the U.S. judiciary -- in "indefinite detention." Newer and more permanent prisons were later built miles away, and continue to house terrorist suspects today. The United States government does not allow photographs of the military trials at Guantanamo, but beginning in 2006, Janet Hamlin went to Guantanamo as a courtroom sketch artist to serve as a visual witness to the courtroom prceedings and provide worldwide media with artwork drawn during them. She has been the only sketch artist covering these trials from 2006 to the present time. Sketching Guantanamo is both a collection of her most potent and revealing sketches drawn during this period, as well a chronicle of her experience at Guantanamo. Before entering the viewing booth behind multi-paneled soundproof glass in the back of the court, Hamlin is daily subjected to thorough searches, wanding, and metal detecting in three separate checkpoints. The U.S. government and even detainees can demand that certain details be "smudged" or even changed. When one detainee who had just pled guilty demanded that sketches of him not be released, Hamlin staged a four-hour sit-in until the authorities relented. Hamlin's drawings and her accompanying text provide rare insight into the military courts of Guantanamo. The trials are considered notorious and historic, among the most carefully censored trials in recent U.S. history, and sketches are the only visuals the world is allowed to see. Sketching Guantanamo features nearly 150 drawings, as well as photographs of the surrounding facilities that enhance the artist's illustrations and her running commentary. It also includes a foreword by Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award winner Carol Rosenberg, a member of a reporting team that won a 2001 Pulitzer Prize.
Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy
Robert W. McChesney - 2013
But according to Robert W. McChesney, arguments on both sides fail to address the relationship between economic power and the Internet.McChesney’s award-winning Rich Media, Poor Democracy skewered the assumption that a society drenched in commercial information is a democratic one. In Digital Disconnect, McChesney returns to this provocative thesis in light of the advances of the digital age. He argues that the sharp decline in the enforcement of antitrust violations, the increase in patents on digital technology and proprietary systems and massive indirect subsidies and other policies have made the internet a place of numbing commercialism. A handful of monopolies now dominate the political economy, from Google, which garners a 97 percent share of the mobile search market, to Microsoft, whose operating system is used by over 90 percent of the world’s computers. Capitalism’s colonization of the Internet has spurred the collapse of credible journalism and made the internet an unparalleled apparatus for government and corporate surveillance and a disturbingly antidemocratic force.In Digital Disconnect, Robert McChesney offers a groundbreaking critique of the Internet, urging us to reclaim the democratizing potential of the digital revolution while we still can.
Seymour Hersh: Scoop Artist
Robert Miraldi - 2013
From his exposé of the My Lai massacre in 1969 to his revelations about torture at Abu Ghraib prison in 2004, Hersh has consistently captured the public imagination, spurred policymakers to reform, and drawn the ire of presidents. From the streets of Chicago to the newsrooms of the most powerful newspapers and magazines in the United States, Seymour Hersh tells the story of this Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author. Robert Miraldi scrutinizes the scandals and national figures that have drawn Hersh’s attention, from My Lai to Watergate, from John F. Kennedy to Henry Kissinger. This first-ever biography captures a stunningly successful career of important exposés and stunning accomplishments from a man whose unpredictable and quirky personality has turned him into an icon of American life and the unrivaled “scoop artist” of American journalism.
Wild Among Us: True Adventures of a Female Wildlife Photographer Who Stalks Bears, Wolves, Mountain Lions, Wild Horses and Other Elusive Wildlife
Pat Toth-Smith - 2013
"My book helps people to face their fears and do things they never thought they could do. I have always had a philosophy that it is worse to let my fear stop me, then to fail at the task." This book was based on the author's actual life experiences, in which she conquered her own fears relied on her intuition to survive and became stronger for it. It's a fascinating series of autobiographical stories told by Pat Toth-Smith. The story telling pulls you into her perilous world, where you share the strange and sometimes dangerous situations she navigates as she travels the highways and wilderness areas of North America. In the end it all seems worth it when we see the results of her labors, the stunning wildlife photos, the vivid observations of the animal’s behavior and the hard earned knowledge gleaned from learning on the job. Wild Among Us is unique in that it has the aesthetic beauty of a fine art photo book combined with the powerful stories of pursuit, danger and life-threatening wildlife encounters.
Afghanistan: A Distant War
Robert Nickelsberg - 2013
Since the attack on the World Trade Center, Afghanistan has evolved from a country few people thought twice about to a place that evokes our deepest emotions. TIME magazine photographer Robert Nickelsberg has been publishing his images of this distant yet all too familiar country since 1988, when he accompanied a group of mujahideen across the border from Pakistan. This remarkable volume of photographs is accompanied by insightful texts from experts on Afghanistan and the Taliban. The images themselves are captioned with places, dates, and Nickelsberg's own extensive commentary. Timely and important, the book serves as a reminder that Afghanistan and the rest of the world remain inextricably linked, no matter how much we long to distance ourselves from its painful realities.
Inequality: A New Zealand Crisis
Max Rashbrooke - 2013
Differences in income have grown faster than in most other developed countries.New Zealand society is being reshaped, stretching to accommodate new distance between those who ‘have’ and those who ‘have not’. Income inequality is a crisis that affects us all.A diverse gathering of New Zealand scholars, journalists, researchers, business leaders, workers, students and parents share these pages. Their voices speak to the complex shape of income inequality, and its effects on the communities of these Pacific islands.
The Museum of Defeats
John Dolan - 2013
Their queasy descriptions make it clear that most Anglo travel writers find the idea of an entire museum devoted to violations of Mexico’s sovereignty depressing, or just plain weird." So begin's John "The War Nerd" Dolan's visit to Mexico City, and his exploration of the city's "Museum of Defeats" First published in NSFWCORP and now available as an ebook, this remarkable essay delivers an important life lesson: Whatever heel is grinding your face into the dirty street at the moment, don’t worry; there will be another along sooner or later—usually sooner.
The Snowball Effect: Communication Techniques to Make You Unstoppable
Andy Bounds - 2013
That's the point of it. So, what do you want to achieve following your communication? Do you want someone to answer 'yes'? Do you want to improve your relationships? Do you want people to understand exactly what you're talking about, first time? Whatever you want to achieve, you'll need decent communication to get there, and expert and bestselling author Andy Bounds shows us exactly how to nail our communication. Using the same conversational style that made "The Jelly Effect" so popular, "The Snowball Effect" is packed with short, rapid fire sections complete with visuals and special features to help us get serious results from our communication.The "Snowball Effect" explains how to: - Persuade people to say "yes" more quickly, more often - Enjoy your job more - because you'll be calling the shots for a change - Remove the communication frustrations you feel all too often - Get more done, more quickly - because you're getting people on your side faster (these techniques have saved people at least one month every year).
The Keka Collection
Cynthia M. Dagnal-Myron - 2013
For five wild years she traveled with, interviewed and reviewed 70's and 80's legends like Kiss, Queen, the Who, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Traffic Rod Stewart, Cheap Trick, Peter Frampton, Todd Rundgren and Brian Eno. She also interviewed stars like John Travolta, Kirk Douglas, Richard Pryor and the then unknown cast of "Star Wars--and dated Arnold Schwarzenegger. Once.And then one day...she walked away from all of it. And never looked back.After moving to the Southwest in the early 80’s, she became a public relations liaison for The Hopi Tribe, and moved to their reservation where she eventually returned to her first career, teaching. Three years later, she married a Hopi artist and became part of his proud—and very large—family. She continued to publish regularly in Working Mother and elsewhere, but only when spirit moved. With a daughter to raise, children to teach and the wide turquoise skies of the Hopi reservation to gaze upon, her spirit was otherwise occupied most of the time.Over 20 years later, left free to “just be,” having retired early to do precisely that, she started a blog on Open Salon to take stock of what had gone before and ponder what might come next. She wrote of the triumphs and challenges of midlife, celebrating family, friends and the Southwestern way of life she’d grown to love.But she gradually began to chronicle and comment upon the times she lived in--sometimes with deep affection, sometimes with righteous indignation. Salon editors took note, placing her blog posts on the covers of Open Salon and Salon itself. A British magazine reprinted one of her most popular posts about her “rock and roll summers” in London. A controversial post about the Trayvon Martin shooting prompted the producers of the TV and radio show Democracy Now, to invite her discuss her own experiences “walking while black” and to celebrate her 5th grade teacher and beloved role model, Mamie Till Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till, the 16-year-old boy whose lynching was one of the watershed events leading to the Civil Rights Movement.Soon an old Sun Times colleague, Roger Ebert, discovered that the young woman with the infectious laugh with whom he’d sat “desk-to-desk” for five years was doing some of the best writing of her life. Supportive as ever, he began to Tweet and Facebook her articles regularly. And the “hits” catapulted her to the top of the Open Salon popularity charts each time.Week after week, readers urged her to “…make a book out of all this!”This…is their book.And the story of her life.
The Best Business Writing 2013
Dean Starkman - 2013
This year's selections include John Markoff (New York Times) on innovations in robot technology and the decline of the factory worker; Evgeny Morozov (New Republic) on the questionable value of the popular TED conference series and the idea industry behind it; Paul Kiel (ProPublica) on the ripple effects of the ongoing foreclosure crisis; and the infamous op-ed by Greg Smith, published in the New York Times, announcing his break with Goldman Sachs over its trading practices and corrupt corporate ethos.Jessica Pressler (New York) delves into the personal and professional rivalry between Tory and Christopher Burch, former spouses now competing to dominate the fashion world. Peter Whoriskey (Washington Post) exposes the human cost of promoting pharmaceuticals off-label. Charles Duhigg and David Barboza (New York Times) investigate Apple's unethical labor practices in China. Max Abelson (Bloomberg) reports on Wall Street's amusing reaction to the diminishing annual bonus. Mina Kimes (Fortune) recounts the grisly story of a company's illegal testing--and misuse--of a medical device for profit, and Jeff Tietz (Rolling Stone) composes one of the most poignant and comprehensive portraits of the financial crisis's dissolution of the American middle class.
Great Irish Reportage
John Horgan - 2013
From Elizabeth Bowen to Colm Toibin, from Flann O'Brien to Maeve Binchy, some of Ireland's greatest writers have produced first-rate journalism. And from R.M. Smyllie and Conor Cruise O'Brien to Eamon Dunphy and Olivia O'Leary, Ireland has also produced a remarkable number of journalists who can really write. Now, for the first time, the best of Irish reportage - some of it legendary, some of it unjustly forgotten - is gathered into a single volume. Whether it's Kate O'Brien on the reinterment of W.B. Yeats or Emily O'Reilly on the election to Westminster of Gerry Adams, whether it's Hubert Butler on the Fetherd-on-Sea boycott or Joseph O'Connor at the 1994 World Cup, the pieces in Great Irish Reportage illuminate Irish life in a way that no other form of writing can.'There is so much to admire and digest between the covers ... All of them put you right there, right on the frontline, right in the moment' RTE Guide
'You'll learn much about this great little nation of ours, and what makes it tick, from this incredibly well chosen collection' Hot Press
'There are superb examples of reportage here that combine hard fact and descriptive narrative' Irish Times'Excellent ... In such time, the need for brave individuals to believe in the power of the words they write is essential. Despite changes in the media landscape in recent years ... it appears as if that hunger from journalists, to question, inspire, and hold those who we democratically elect to accountability, is as strong as ever' Sunday Independent
Best American Magazine Writing 2013
Sid HoltDexter Filkins - 2013
Selections belong to the categories of public interest reporting, features, criticism, commentary, and fiction. This yearOCOs selections include Iraqi War veteran Brian Mockenhaupt (Byliner) on modern combat in Afghanistan and its ability to both forge and challenge friendships; Mac McClellandOCOs (GQ) on his nightmarish stint picking and packing at an online shipping warehouse; Daniel Alarcn (HarperOCOs Magazine) on the strange social and political dynamics of PeruOCOs most infamous prison; Melissadel Bosque March (Texas Observer) on the secret dealings of MexicoOCOs deadliest smuggling corridor; Ta-Nehisi Coates (The Atlantic) on the complex racial terrain traversed by African American politicians; and Frank Rich (New York) on the late Nora Ephron and her invaluable contribution to American culture."
Lunch with the FT: 52 Classic Interviews
Lionel Barber - 2013
From film stars to politicians, tycoons to writers, dissidents to lifestyle gurus, the list reads like an international Who's Who of our times. Lunch with the FT is a selection of the best: 52 classic interviews conducted in the unforgiving proximity of a restaurant table. From Angela Merkel to Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs, Martin Amis to one of the Arab world's most notorious sons, this book brings you right to the table to decide what you think of or world's most powerful players.
Sick Justice: Inside the American Gulag
Ivan G. Goldman - 2013
Sick Justice explores the economic, social, and political forces that hijacked the criminal justice system to create this bizarre situation. Presenting frightening true stories of (sometimes wrongfully) incarcerated individuals, Ivan G. Goldman exposes the inept bureaucracies of America’s prisons and shows the real reasons that disproportionate numbers of minorities, the poor, and the mentally ill end up there. Goldman dissects the widespread phenomenon of jailing for profit, the outsized power of prison guards’ unions, California’s exceptionally rigid three-strikes law, the ineffective and never-ending war on drugs, the closing of mental health institutions across the country, and other blunders and avaricious practices that have brought us to this point. Sick Justice tells a big, gripping story that’s long overdue. By illuminating the system’s brutality and greed and the prisoners’ gratuitous suffering, the book aims to be a catalyst for reform, complementing the work of the Innocence Project and mirroring the effects of Michael Harrington’s The Other America: Poverty in the United States (1962), which became the driving force behind the war on poverty.
Sex Trafficking, Scandal, and the Transformation of Journalism, 1885-1917
Gretchen Soderlund - 2013
By tracing the history of high-profile print exposés on sex trafficking by journalists like William T. Stead and George Kibbe Turner, Soderlund demonstrates how controversies over gender, race, and sexuality were central to the shift from sensationalism to objectivity—and crucial to the development of journalism in the early twentieth century.
Deep Web for Journalists - Comms, Counter-Surveillance, Search
Alan Pearce - 2013
All journalists should be aware of the dangers they face in the digital world – the emerging battleground. Being a journalist in 2014 is more dangerous than it ever was. In addition to the usual threats, beatings, murders and war casualties, we are now being actively targeted online by intelligence agencies, law enforcement and others. These days it is not just journalists working in repressive regimes that need worry. We now know that the US and its cyber-allies – Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – actively monitor domestic journalists in their mass surveillance of the Internet. Edward Snowden has warned journalists that they are special targets and he has expressed surprise that news organizations rarely have any counter-measures in place. They harvest our contacts and monitor our telephone logs. They read our emails and texts. They follow our every move online and they keep tabs on every line we write. But it is not just intelligence agencies and law enforcement that we should worry about. All kinds of people have a vested interest in knowing about your next story – individual criminals and criminal organizations, political parties and extremist groups, law firms and the corporate giants. Large business interests have their own intelligence units. They know what is being said about them and by whom. They keep track of their competitors and they know when somebody starts asking awkward questions about them. If big business or anyone wanted to destroy a journalist’s reputation this is simplicity itself. The key is not to attract attention in the first place, and to learn to operate beneath the radar. But how can journalists safeguard their sources and communicate without being overheard? How can they conduct sensitive research without having to watch their backs? This book will show how to block intruders, set up secure communications, mask your identity online and browse and download anonymously, and store any amount of data without leaving a trace. If that wasn't enough, the Deep Web is also a largely-unknown research and information resource. If you know the right entry points, you can mine a rich seam of multimedia files, images, software and documents that you cannot find on the Surface Web. Deep Web for Journalists “offers an uncompromising diagnosis of the perils of online communications and should shatter the confidence many of us place in the unguarded ways of working online,” says Jim Boumelha, President of International Federation of Journalists in his Foreword to the book. Journalist, broadcaster and author Alan Pearce has covered conflicts from the Khmer Rouge to the Taliban for the BBC and Time Magazine, among others. He now teaches cyber-security skills and counter-surveillance to journalists.
Collapse of Dignity: The Story of a Mining Tragedy and the Fight Against Greed and Corruption in Mexico
Napoleon Gomez - 2013
Napoleón Gómez, head of the fiercely independent union that represented the workers, was appalled by what he found at the scene: labor department inspectors and the company operating the mine had ignored the egregiously hazardous state of the work site and were failing miserably at a rescue effort. Rather than focusing on saving lives, they were busy downplaying the company’s role in the collapse and selling false hope to the families camped out at the mouth of the mine. Less than a week after the explosion, Mexico’s labor secretary called off the rescue, leaving the lost men to their fates.The senseless tragedy—stemming directly from an insatiable hunger for profits—set off a massive confrontation between the National Miners’ Union and the transnational corporations that wield great power in the country’s government. Over seven tumultuous years, Gómez waged a battle against Mexico’s corrupt politicians and voraciously greedy businessmen, insisting that the mine blast was an "industrial homicide” and that those responsible must be held accountable for it.Told with candor and passion, Collapse of Dignity is Gómez’s account of the union’s fight, mounted in the face of traitors, armed aggression, death threats, and a political alliance extending all the way up to the presidential residence at Los Pinos. As he fends off absurdly complex legal charges, organizes the resistance from exile in Canada, and uncovers an anti-union conspiracy stretching back to years before the explosion, he only becomes more committed to fighting for the rights of Los Mineros—and by extension the workers of every country.Gómez’s story is one of outrage, but also one of hope. Though Collapse of Dignity lays bare sickening injustice and inexcusable aggression against the Mexican working class, it is at its core a fervent call for a global workers’ movement that will represent the fundamental rights of every person who works for a living.
The Sky Wept Fire
Mikail Eldin - 2013
By the end of the second war, he had become a battle-hardened war reporter and mountain partisan who had endured torture and imprisonment in a concentration camp. Eldin was fated to witness key events in Chechnya’s history: from the first day of the attack on Grozny, and the full-scale Russian invasion that followed it, to the siege of Grozny five years later that razed the city to the ground. Yet it is not merely the story of the battle for Chechnya: this is the story of the battle within the heart, the struggle to conquer fear, hold on to faith and preserve one’s humanity.
Love beneath the Napalm
James D. Redwood - 2013
Redwood’s collection of deeply affecting stories about the enduring effects of colonialism and the Vietnamese War over the course of a century on the Vietnamese and the American and French foreigners who became inextricably connected with their fate. These finely etched, powerful tales span a wide array of settings, from the former imperial capital of Hue at the end of the Nguyen Dynasty, to Hanoi after the American pullout from Vietnam, the Chinese invasion of Vietnam in 1979, contemporary San Francisco, and Schenectady, New York. Redwood reveals the inner lives of the Vietnamese characters and also shows how others appear through their eyes. Some of the images and characters in Love Beneath the Napalm—the look that Mr. Tu's burned and scarred face always inflicts on strangers in the title story; attorney and American Vietnam War–veteran Carlton Griswold's complicated relationship with Mary Thuy in "The Summer Associate"; Phan Van Toan's grief and desire, caught between two worlds in "The Stamp Collector"—provide a haunting, vivid portrayal of lives uprooted by conflict. Throughout, readers will find moments that cut to the quick, exposing human resilience, sorrow, joy, and the traumatic impact of war on all those who are swept up in it. "In his collection Love beneath the Napalm, James Redwood chronicles the choices made by those who survived the Vietnam War and their ensuing consequences. These stories, unusual and unexpected, recount how characters shape and construct their intimate and social landscapes in the wake of conflict. These are important, intimate stories that explore a time that is receding into historical memory. Redwood is an astute writer, and these stories are an impressive debut." —Sharon Dilworth, author of Year of the Ginkgo "As the escalation of the Vietnam conflict nears its golden anniversary, James Redwood celebrates in quiet sepia, reflecting all the complexities of the war in this shoebox full of grainy and glowing human portraits." —Robert Anderson, author of Ice Age “James D. Redwood’s Love beneath the Napalm is a beautifully written and very human testament to a people who suffered untold horrors during the Vietnam War. A haunting and very powerful collection of stories.” —James Carl Nelson, author of The Remains of Company D: A Story of the Great War and Five Lieutenants "Love beneath the Napalm recasts the fullness of Vietnam's suffocating and cruel trouble. The stench of the war's horror is given a freshly enraptured perspective that never wanders far from the witches' breath of the violence and lies still calling to sorrows no matter how dispersed. The only witnesses who are 'truly free,' as the author states in these quietly alarming and necessary stories that really do take hold, are wind and water." —David Matlin, author of A HalfMan Dreaming and Up Fish Creek Road and Other Stories
Report from Nuremberg: The International War Crimes Trial
Harold Burson - 2013
The original broadcasts have been lost forever, but the verbatim text - written by Harold Burson, founding chairman of one of the world’s leading public relations firms, Burson Marsteller, who at the time was a reporter for the Armed Forces Network - has been newly interpreted by an ensemble of some of our fine actors. This original production, published here for the first time and only in audio, blends journalism, history, re-enactment and performance, and reimagines what it was like to experience first-hand this groundbreaking trial and to witness close-up some of the most infamous figures in recent world history: members of the Nazi ruling class. The production is being released on the anniversary of the opening of the first and most famous trial, November 19, 1945.©2011 Harold Burson (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Life During Wartime: Resisting Counterinsurgency
Kristian Williams - 2013
Rafael, Alexander Reid Ross, Evan Tucker, Layne Mullett, Sarah Small, and Luce Guillen-Givins.
Fighting for the Press
James C. Goodale - 2013
government policy on the war in Vietnam. These documents had been secretly leaked from the Department of Defense to reporters at the New York Times.There followed a period of intense debate, carried out in the board rooms of the newspaper, the offices of its legal counsel, and ultimately the law courts of the nation over whether or not publishing these documents would be in the country’s interest. The June 30, 1971 Supreme Court decision was a landmark in the history of press freedom.James Goodale, chief counsel for the Times during the Pentagon Papers, tells the behind-the-scenes stories of the internal debates – legal, political, economic and corporate – and the reasoning behind the strategy that emerged. Goodale narrative follows those weeks in June when the press’s freedom of speech came under its most sustained assault since the Second World War.This is the story of a constitutional victory whose lessons are as essential today as they were in the 1970s – and of the personalities involved, including a disillusioned intellectual, aggressive reporters, meticulous editors, a cautious publisher, a vengeful attorney general, a beleaguered president and, in the middle of it all, the lawyer who urged his clients to fight for the First Amendment.
Cartoons of World War II
Tony Husband - 2013
Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt and Mussolini were a gift for them and, as this collection shows, one they weren't about to turn down. This book shows that humour was one of the key weapons of war, with countries using cartoons to demoralise their opponents and maintain morale. Each country had its own style: the British liked understatement, showing people drinking cups of tea while bombs fell, whilst the Germans chose Churchill serving up a cocktail of blood, sweat and tears to an emaciated and sickly British lion. Showcasing the very best cartoons from Britain, the USA, Germany, Russia plus the work of all of WWII's greatest cartoonists, including Bill Mauldin, Fougasse, Emett, David Low and Graham Laidler (Pont), this book is guaranteed to make you laugh.
Last Stand: Ted Turner's Quest to Save a Troubled Planet
Todd Wilkinson - 2013
Last Stand gives us a new, unexpected lens through which to view a previously unsung hero of conservation and offers prescriptions for the future of conservation.
The Archive Effect: Found Footage and the Audiovisual Experience of History
Jaimie Baron - 2013
Baron analyses the way in which the meanings of archival documents are modified when they are placed in new texts and contexts, constructing the viewer's experience of and relationship to the past they portray. Rethinking the notion of the archival document in terms of its reception and the spectatorial experiences it generates, she explores the 'archive effect' as it is produced across the genres of documentary, mockumentary, experimental, and fiction films. This engaging work discusses how, for better or for worse, the archive effect is mobilized to create new histories, alternative histories, and misreadings of history.The book covers a multitude of contemporary cultural artefacts including fiction films like Zelig, Forrest Gump and JFK, mockumentaries such as The Blair Witch Project and Forgotten Silver, documentaries like Standard Operating Procedure and Grizzly Man, and videogames like Call of Duty: World at War. In addition, she examines the works of many experimental filmmakers including those of P�ter Forg�cs, Adele Horne, Bill Morrison, Cheryl Dunye, and Natalie Bookchin.
Firestorm: Surviving the Tasmanian bushfire (Guardian Shorts)
Jon Henley - 2013
Five children and their grandmother sheltering under an old wooden jetty as the air around them burns a fierce orange. Seen around the world, these were the images from the heart of the inferno that showed the Tasmanian township of Dunalley fighting for survival.On the morning of 4 January 2013, the people of Dunalley had watched with caution as a bush fire burned slowly on top of the hill. It was not an unusual occurrence – fires are a part of Australian life – and Dunalley had never been troubled before. They made their preparations, just in case. Even so, they had no idea what was about to hit them.In the aftermath of the Inala Road fire, Jon Henley visited Dunalley. Minute by minute, he reconstructed what had happened – the residents, the emergency services … the moment the flames struck the first houses.Firestorm explores what it means to live in a natural environment that has evolved to burn. Meteorologists and firefighters alike fear the growing ferocity of the fires it produces as Australia’s summers grow ever hotter. Scientific facts suggests that the Inala Road fire may have been just a hint of what is to come.'Firestorm' is the story of the terrifying fire, and of the remarkable and resilient character of its inhabitants as they seek to raise their homes from the ashes.But most of all, it is the story of the family under the jetty, clinging on as Dunalley burned.
Reinventing Professionalism: Journalism and News in Global Perspective
Silvio Waisbord - 2013
Media expert Silvio Waisbord takes this pressing issue as his theme and argues that "professional journalism" is both a normative and analytical notion. It refers to reporting that observes certain ethical standards as well as to collective efforts by journalists to exercise control over the news. Professionalism should not be narrowly associated with the normative ideal as it historically developed in the West during the past century. Instead, it needs to be approached as a valuable concept to throw into sharp relief how journalists define conditions and rules of work within certain settings. Professionalization is about the specialization of labor and control of occupational practice. These issues are important, particularly amidst the combination of political, technological and economic trends that have profoundly unsettled the foundations of modern journalism. By doing so, they have stimulated the reinvention of professionalism. This engaging and insightful book critically examines the meanings, expectations, and critiques of professional journalism in a global context.
Cutting Along the Color Line: Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America
Quincy T. Mills - 2013
The intimacy of commercial grooming encourages both confidentiality and camaraderie, which make the barber shop an important gathering place for African American men to talk freely. But for many years preceding and even after the Civil War, black barbers endured a measure of social stigma for perpetuating inequality: though the profession offered economic mobility to black entrepreneurs, black barbers were obliged by custom to serve an exclusively white clientele. Quincy T. Mills traces the lineage from these nineteenth-century barbers to the bustling enterprises of today, demonstrating that the livelihood offered by the service economy was crucial to the development of a black commercial sphere and the barber shop as a democratic social space.Cutting Along the Color Line chronicles the cultural history of black barber shops as businesses and civic institutions. Through several generations of barbers, Mills examines the transition from slavery to freedom in the nineteenth century, the early twentieth-century expansion of black consumerism, and the challenges of professionalization, licensing laws, and competition from white barbers. He finds that the profession played a significant though complicated role in twentieth-century racial politics: while the services of shaving and grooming were instrumental in the creation of socially acceptable black masculinity, barbering permitted the financial independence to maintain public spaces that fostered civil rights politics. This sweeping, engaging history of an iconic cultural establishment shows that black entrepreneurship was intimately linked to the struggle for equality.
Empty Places
Martin Roy Hill - 2013
America is clawing its way out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Washington pursues illegal and unpopular wars in Central America. In the wealthy desert playground of Palm Springs, storefronts that once catered to the rich sit empty and shuttered. Crowds of bored rich teenagers in designer clothing entertain themselves with expensive cars and cheap drugs, while those less fortunate haunt darkened street corners, offering themselves for sale. This is the country to which war correspondent Peter Brandt returns. Physically and mentally scarred by the horrors he’s covered, Peter comes home to bury his ex-wife, TV reporter Robin Anderson, only to discover she had been brutally murdered. With the local police unwilling to investigate her death, Peter sets out with retired cop Matt Banyon to expose Robin’s killer. They uncover a shadowy world of anti-communists, drug smugglers, and corrupt politicians, and lay bare old wounds—including Peter’s deep guilt over his failed marriage. In a final, cliff-hanging struggle, Peter faces his own fears—and death in a dark and empty place. A modern noir classic.
The Distance Between Us
Christopher Capozziello - 2013
Capozziello says, "The time I have spent with my brother, looking through my camera, has forced me to ask questions about suffering and faith and why anyone is born with disability. Nick has cerebral palsy. Taking pictures has been a way for me to deal with the reality of having a twin brother who struggles through life in ways that I do not." Capozziello's photographs take us on a journey through his worries and inquiries, ending his debut book with a different sort of question: what comes next? Part two of the book is a journey he and his brother take across the United States. The work has been shown throughout the United States and has won 33 national and international awards.Exceptional photographic work about a very difficult and highly emotional situation: one brother portraying his twin - one an excellent photojournalist, the other suffering from cerebral palsy. Presents outstanding photographic work that has won 33 national and international awards. This series of photographs has been exhibited throughout the United States and at the LUMIX Festival in Hannover, Germany. A must-have for photography enthusiasts.
Words And Deedes
W.F. Deedes - 2013
F. Deedes has reported on the most important events, affairs and issues that have affected Britain, Europe and the World. "Words and Deedes "brings together a life's work, selecting the very best of his journalism to give a unique overview of the best part of the last century.Starting as a cub reporter in 1931, Deedes' inimitable eye was cast over the world caught in economic depression and inching closer to another devastating war. Yet, whether describing his campaign to alleviate the hardships of disadvantaged children or the ruthlessness of Mussolini's war machine, Deedes' pieces seem as fresh and vibrant now as they did then. This vivid and immediate style suffuses all his writing, making each story relevant, whether it be recent or more than fifty years old.This remarkable volume charts a course through some of the most turbulent times the world has ever seen, and yet on every page there is something to enlighten, delight or amuse. With this collection, W. F. Deedes cements his place as one of the very finest journalists of this, or any other century.
Unbelievable: Stephen Glass Wants a Second Chance
Adam L. Penenberg - 2013
The expose was a watershed moment for online journalism and later became the basis of a movie starring Hayden Christensen. Now for the first time, Penenberg tells the story behind the story: including for the first time revealing what happened after his famous story went live. And, as Stephen Glass attempts to prove that he's rehabilitated enough to practice law (really), Penenberg considers whether modern journalism's most famous "fabulist" really does deserve a second chance.
On the Fringes of the Harmonious Society: Tibetans and Uyghurs in Socialist China
Trine Brox - 2013
Explores how the PRC's 'carrot and stick' approach to its two most problematic nationalities, the Tibetans and Uyghurs, has been implemented and reacted to in the economy, education, popular culture, religious policies and other arenas.