Billy Barr moved into a remote part of the Rocky Mountains in search of solitude over 40 years ago. To avoid boredom, he documented snow levels, animal sightings, and the date flowers first bloomed. “…collectively his work has become some of the most significant indication that climate change is rearranging mountain ecosystems more dramatically and quickly than anyone imagined.”
America
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Death Penalty on Display
At The Texas Observer, Robin Ross writes on the rise of dark tourism — the macabre fascination with the Huntsville’s Texas Prison Museum — site of America’s first lethal injection.
Posted inEditor's Pick, Nonfiction, Quotes
The Death Penalty on Display
At The Texas Observer, Robin Ross writes on the rise of dark tourism — the macabre fascination with the Huntsville’s Texas Prison Museum — site of America’s first lethal injection.
Posted inBlog Post, Discussions, Uncategorized
Could You Afford a $400 Emergency? Neal Gabler Says His Financial Confession ‘Was Not an Easy One to Write’
If there are two things Americans are good at, it’s mishandling our finances, and using Twitter to judge those who are in worse shape than us. Thus we have the perfect Atlantic cover story this week—a refreshingly honest and desparingly relatable personal essay by writer Neal Gabler about his many financial mistakes, as well as […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Terry Gross, National Interviewer: 40 Years of Fresh Air
In The New York Times Magazine Susan Burton profiles “national interviewer” Terry Gross, who celebrates 40 years behind the microphone as the host of NPR’s Fresh Air.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘A Century of Public Policy Designed to Segregate and Impoverish its Black Population’
As I described in the Making of Ferguson, the federal government maintained a policy of segregation in public housing nationwide for decades. This was as true in northeastern cities like New York as it was in border cities like Baltimore and St. Louis. In 1994, civil rights groups sued the Department of Housing and Urban […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Ellen Willis on Community and Long-Distance Bus Travel
The legendary Ellen Willis (first-ever pop critic for The New Yorker, feminist role model extraordinaire, etc.) passed away in 2006, but her work is enjoying a second renaissance thanks to The Essential Ellen Willis, a 2014 collection edited by her daughter Nona Willis Aronowitz. Earlier this month the National Book Critics Circle posthumously awarded Willis their top prize in criticism […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Can the Navel-Gazing Norwegian Novelist Tell Us Anything About America?
Peter deemed my proposed plan — driving 12 hours back east to Maine to glimpse my dreamed-of American landscape — completely unrealistic, and rightly so, as I realized with a sudden sense of shame. At the same time, I had the feeling that he really wanted me to see Detroit. And why not? It was […]
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
Interview: Maya Rao on Spending a Month Working as a Cashier in the Bakken
On “being a woman in a place where women could be in demand as much as the oil”
Posted inUncategorized
“I’ve been teaching high school social studies for 18 years, so it’s hard for me to be shocked by the behavior of students. But every once in a while, someone manages to surprise me. One day last year I looked up at the auditorium stage to hear one of my students deliver a speech that […]