On identity: men who created it, women who lost it, a writer who escaped it

A weekly roundup of some favorite things, for your reading and listening pleasure

By Kari Howard • July 21, 2017

Marion Abrahams-Welsh grew up with four generations of her family on hilly Sheppard Street in the Cape Town neighborhood known as District Six.

In a South African cookbook-memory book, recapturing a life that was lost to apartheid

"Huis Kombuis" offers an old-fashioned spin on multimedia storytelling: a collective memoir with lovingly hand-stitched recipes honoring a demolished neighborhood -- and a past that couldn't be destroyed

By Heather Richie • July 20, 2017

“And one day he made an error, and then struck out, and it sounded like all of Fenway was booing, and he ran to the bench with his head down, the red rising in his face, the shame in his belly, and the rage. Ted thought: These are the ones who cheered, the fans I waved my cap to? Well, never again.”

Richard Ben Cramer, "What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?" Esquire, June 1986.

By Kari Howard • July 19, 2017

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Notable Narrative: Jason Fagone and “What Bullets Do to Bodies”

By Davis Harper

June 26, 2017

The writer talks about his Huffington Post Highline profile of a trauma surgeon, and wanting readers to get a “visceral sense of what physically happens inside a person when he’s shot”

It’s officially summer: Don’t forget to take some great reads along to the beach

By Kari Howard

June 23, 2017

A weekly roundup of some favorite things, for your reading and listening pleasure

5(ish) Questions: Bonnie Ford and “The Promise Rio Couldn’t Keep”

By Kara Voght

June 22, 2017

As other outlets predicted disaster for the 2016 Olympics water events, the writer for ESPN's Outside the Lines painted a picture more reflective of the lived human experience than a purely data-driven one

One Great Sentence

“We cross our bridges as we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and the presumption that once our eyes watered.”

By Kari Howard

June 21, 2017

Why is it great? Tom Stoppard is one of our greatest wordsmiths, wildly intelligent and witty, while still revealing the pathos of his characters. This line is a perfect example of his genius. It uses … Read more

Notable Narratives

Notable Narrative: Susan Dominus and “Is an Open Marriage a Happier Marriage?”

By Davis Harper

June 20, 2017

The New York Times Magazine writer talks about how her controversial story changed her views on non-monogamy -- and made her appreciate her own marriage more

Narrative News

The lunacy and the sorrow: journalists capturing the sweep of our lives

By Kari Howard

June 16, 2017

A weekly roundup of some favorite things, for your reading and listening pleasure

Narrative News

Now’s a good time to read some highlights of the global effort to honor Javier Valdez

By Kari Howard

June 15, 2017

Journalists came together to voice their outrage over the Mexican journalist's murder with a campaign called #ourvoiceisourstrength

5 Questions