The Pulitzer Prizes winners have been announced: Bloomberg News’s Zachary R. Mider was awarded a prize for explanatory reporting on corporate tax dodgers. Carol D. Leonnig of The Washington Post was awarded a national reporting award for her coverage of security lapses in the Secret Service. The New York Times won an international reporting award for its coverage of the Ebola break in West Africa. Lisa Falkenberg of the Houston Chronicle was given the award for commentary for her columns about grand jury abuses. Mary McNamara, a TV critic for the Los Angeles Times was awarded a prize for criticism. A list of the all the winners and finalists can be found here. Below is a short list of other features that were honored today.
The New York Times
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Rest in Peace: Stories About Death Care
I’ve been thinking: What would my life look like if I were not afraid of death? Thinking too closely about not existing, not having a consciousness, sends me spiraling into a panic attack. Protestant Christians believe in an afterlife—a heaven, a hell. I did, too, for a while. I was confident, fervent, about heaven. I was no longer afraid to die. Now I’m not so sure. Nothingness scares me, but so does an eternity spent somewhere else.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Rest in Peace: Stories About Death Care
I’ve been thinking: What would my life look like if I were not afraid of death? Thinking too closely about not existing, not having a consciousness, sends me spiraling into a panic attack. Protestant Christians believe in an afterlife—a heaven, a hell. I did, too, for a while. I was confident, fervent, about heaven. I was no longer afraid to die. Now I’m not so sure. Nothingness scares me, but so does an eternity spent somewhere else.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Who Was the Poet Frank Stanford?
With the recently released What About This: Collected Poems of Frank Stanford, the work of a brilliant, difficult, much-mythologized and little-known American poet is finally widely available. Frank Stanford’s short life was a study in contradictions: his childhood was divided between the privilege of an upper-crust Memphis family and summers deep in the Mississippi Delta; he was a […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
America’s Journalism Scandals Can Be Divided Into Three General Categories
On the rogues’ gallery of American journalism scandals.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Why We Dream About Our Childhood Homes
Sigmund Freud called dreams ”the royal road to the unconscious” and theorized that they reflected highly individual unconscious wishes. His student Carl Jung, who later broke with him, thought the recurring use of enduring symbols in dreams, like mazes, mirrors and snakes, reflected something more collective and universal. *** Many people interviewed said they dreamed […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
McDonald’s and the Science of Drive-Through Lane Wait Times
Ten years ago, customers placing orders in the drive-through lane at McDonald’s would have their food in about two and a half minutes (or 152 seconds, if you want to get precise). Today, the same order takes a bit over three minutes (or 189.5 seconds) on average, according to analyst research from Janney Montgomery Scott. […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
We Were Awful to Monica Lewinsky But We’d Like to Think We’d Act Differently Today
Ms. Lewinsky was quickly cast by the media as a “little tart,” as The Wall Street Journal put it. The New York Post nicknamed her the “Portly Pepperpot.” She was described by Maureen Dowd in The New York Times as “ditsy” and “predatory.” And other women — self-proclaimed feminists — piled on. “My dental hygienist […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Jeffrey Eugenides Imagines His Favorite Writers Together at a Dinner Party
The waiter arrives. When he asks about food allergies, Kafka hands him a written list. Then he excuses himself to go to the bathroom. As soon as he’s gone, Kundera says, “The problem with Kafka is that he never got enough tail.” We all snicker. Joyce orders another bottle of wine. Finally, he turns and looks at me through his dark glasses. “I’m reading your new book,” he says. “Oh?” I say. “Yes,” says Joyce.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Trauma and Joy: Four Stories About Adoption
The stories of adoptees are not open-and-shut case files—they are complex and messy. In these particular stories, you’ll meet a young woman who fought for her three brothers, a group of stridently anti-adoption adoptees, an eager couple waiting by the phone, and another couple coping with the myth of post-racism.