At the New York Times, a profile of Nikki Giovanni, the poet, children’s book author, and nonfiction writer with over thirty books to her credit. Looking back at her career, Giovanni says, “I thought 50 years ago that I could make a big difference in the world. What I know now is that I will not allow the world to make a big difference in me. That’s what’s incredibly important. I’m not going to let the fact that I live in a nation with a bunch of fools make a fool out of me.”
At the New Republic, Ryu Spaeth looks at the lengthy editor’s note attached this week to Elif Batuman’s 2018 New Yorker feature on Japan’s “rent-a-family” industry. The note clarifies that while “three central figures” of the story made false claims about their biographies to both Batuman and a fact-checker, the magazine “remains confident” of the piece’s value. Unlike in the case of Ruth Barrett, who colluded with a source for an Atlantic story (since removed) about niche sports and the Ivy League this fall, Spaeth acknowledges that Batuman is perhaps the victim here. Still, Spaeth finds her “urge to spin a bigger story” and “‘good faith’ effort to find some overarching meaning in this esoteric tale about rental families” a fatal flaw worth investigating.
No Depression looks at the best music books of 2020, including The Meaning of Soul, Wagnerism, and Dolly Parton’s memoir, Songteller.
Senator Elizabeth Warren’s memoir, Persist, will be published on April 20th by Henry Holt.
Longform lists their picks for the Top Ten stories of 2020, including pieces on the pandemic, George Floyd, Donald Trump’s taxes, “a quarantine facial-hair experiment,” and more.
At the Columbia Journalism Review, Lauren Harris and Gabby Miller recap the disastrous year for the business side of journalism, with cutbacks, layoffs, and furloughs as a result of the pandemic.
