Word: readerly
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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According to Bob Giles, curator of the Nieman Foundation, the recipient of the award “drew no conclusions but required the reader to think about the circumstances and make his and her own judgements...
...self-important Ben Franklin, a work which ends before the Revolutionary War even begins, Brands breathes new life into the familiar story of the so-called “first American.” His style is unconventional and, at times, audacious. He begins by placing the reader at a cockfight on royal grounds that Franklin attended just before answering for colonial misbehavior in front of the British Parliament...
Local color adds tremendously to the novel; rather than set the tale in a generic Anytown, U.S.A., Montgomery places the action square in Baltimore. The reader will be delighted by small details like the Light Rail transit line and Dick’s Sporting Goods in Hunt Valley Mall (where one can actually buy paintball gear). Institutions and landmarks like the Baltimore Orioles and the Gunpowder River are not simply bandied about to lend an air of authenticity. Attention to such detail is crucial, as Montgomery uses his familiarity with fisherman’s lingo and military life to good...
...promise. It is here that her story takes off, beginning a whirling journey through a generally unexplored world, as Blumenfeld travels from her new home in Jerusalem to Europe, America and the Middle East, examining the ways revenge is treated in different cultures. Although at times the reader may wish for a stronger sense of chronology, the book skillfully combines personal journal with thoughtful analysis. Whether it’s in Sicily, where she learns of the Mafia’s ways, Albania, where she studies a popular local book that dictates acceptable methods of revenge, or Iran, where...
...book that draws the reader deep into the author’s mind, something with which Laura is not entirely comfortable—she became a journalist, she explains, because she wanted to write about others. There was, however, no way to avoid the profoundly personal nature of her story and, indeed, that is what makes it great. She recently talked with Bill Clinton, who called to praise the book and mentioned how he related to Laura’s brother’s difficulty with her parents’ divorce. While this public intimacy with her life...