Throughout his broadcasting profession, journalist and host of NPR’s “All Things Considered” Ari Shapiro has made connections with folks from all walks of life. In his glowing memoir, The Best Strangers in the World: Stories From a Life Spent Listening, Shapiro intimately invitations readers into his childhood and past to point out them how his youthful curiosity and want to study have helped form him into the particular person he’s at present.
Shapiro was born in Fargo, North Dakota, however when he was nonetheless a toddler, his household relocated to Portland, Oregon, the place he embraced public talking. As a teen in Portland, he got here out as homosexual and joined the metropolis’s queer underground to nurture his sense of identification and group. Throughout the ebook, Shapiro explores his homosexual and Jewish identities and the stunning methods they’ve each affected and not affected his life.
After recounting the uncommon and virtually magical story of his path to changing into a bunch on “All Things Considered,” Shapiro delves into his most fascinating experiences as a reporter, together with a world incident in Ireland, a shock interview with President Barack Obama aboard Air Force One and an opportunity to report on the warfare in Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. Along with these tales, he provides some very entertaining vignettes about his aspect gig as a singer for the band Pink Martini.
However, Shapiro is at his finest when he’s discussing the most poignant and private moments in his life. “Happy Endings,” which describes his whirlwind 2004 marriage ceremony to his husband, Mike, and “The Other Man I Married,” about his finest buddy and former producer, Rich, are two of the strongest and most shifting items in the assortment. Full of emotion and wit, these essays remind readers how humorous and heartbreaking, usually in equal measure, life will be. They additionally emphasize that anybody can have impostor syndrome or really feel scared to be genuine, even once they’re somebody who has interviewed the president of the United States.
NPR listeners will particularly recognize this ebook as a trusty companion to “All Things Considered,” however you needn’t be an NPR listener to take pleasure in these essays. Personal and contemplative, but additionally humorous and at occasions devastating, The Best Strangers in the World will instill a newfound appreciation for the onerous work journalists do and a way of awe for the scope of historical past they get to look at up shut.
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