American Life

Generally speaking, when TV turns its hungry eye onto real people, the result is exploitive, mocking, or as fake as the plump lips on "The Real Housewives of Orange County. " No matter how waggishly funny the "Daily Show" correspondents are, or how noble Diane Sawyer may think she is, or how yellow Nancy Grace can't help but be, the human beings they interview wind up as driven prey. The TV adaptation of "This American Life" really tries not to pounce on its subjects. Like the public-radio show on which it's based, the new Showtime series projects respect for the "ordinary"...

‘I saw many signs in this campaign," said Richard Nixon the day after he was elected president in 1968. "But the one that touched me the most was one that I saw in Deshler, Ohio, at the end of a long day of whistle-stopping . . . A teenager held up a sign, ‘Bring Us Together.' And that will be the great objective of this administration at the outset: to bring the American people together. " Nixon had started using the phrase "Bring Us Together" a couple weeks earlier, after one of his aides spotted the youngster with the sign.

It's comforting to believe that doing the "right" things - working hard, finding the perfect home in a nice town, sending your kids to the best schools - can ensure that your life will turn out the way you want. In his new novel, "Norumbega Park," Anthony Giardina, who lives in Northampton, traces the 40-year history of a family who believed that such things could insulate them from the vicissitudes of life and must wrestle with disappointment and regret when reality doesn't meet expectations.

Journalism Public service: The Philadelphia Inquirer for its exploration of violence in the city's schools. Breaking news reporting: The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News staff for its coverage of a deadly tornado. Investigative reporting: Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eileen Sullivan, and Chris Hawley of The Associated Press for coverage of the New York Police Department's spying program that monitored daily life in Muslim communities. Explanatory reporting: David Kocieniewski of The New York Times for his series explaining how the nation's wealthiest citizens and corporations exploited loopholes...

Who would imagine that a book on an assassinated American president would read more like a riveting medical thriller than simply a work of well-researched history? Yet, according to Arthur Healey, a soft-spoken CPA and resident of Dedham, Candice Millard's "Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President," is "really a dramatic story about the state of politics, medicine, and American life in the late 19th century. " The 68-year-old Healey, who said he has little time to read, particularly during tax season, has always preferred biographies...

‘I saw many signs in this campaign," said Richard Nixon the day after he was elected president in 1968. "But the one that touched me the most was one that I saw in Deshler, Ohio, at the end of a long day of whistle-stopping . . . A teenager held up a sign, ‘Bring Us Together.' And that will be the great objective of this administration at the outset: to bring the American people together. " Nixon had started using the phrase "Bring Us Together" a couple weeks earlier, after one of his aides spotted the youngster with the sign.

Second of two parts (Read Part 1) TO MANY liberals, Rick Perry's audacious pledge to make Washington as "inconsequential in your life as I can" is tantamount to a pledge to bring back the Dark Ages. Commenting on Twitter as the Texas governor announced his presidential candidacy, longtime Washington journalist Howard Kurtz wondered: "Perry wants to make DC ‘inconsequential in your life.' Does that include Medicare, Soc Sec, vets' programs, air safety, FDA?" Former Bobby Kennedy aide Jeff Greenfield ran through a litany of Washington's contributions to American...

Squirrel, it's what's for dinner During Herbert Hoover's 1928 presidential campaign, ads claimed that previous Republican presidents had "put the proverbial ‘chicken in every pot.'" So what had been in the pot before then? Writing in the environmental magazine Grist, Heather Smith says that it was squirrel — once a more commonly served meat in America than chicken. Until the mid-20th century, Smith explains, squirrel hunting was a perfectly normal part of American life.

WOLFEBORO, N.H. - Step through the door and a transitional period in the nation's history is illustrated with vehicles. A sleek, stylish 1941 Ford Explorer is parked next to a 1942 Ford military Jeep, both high-production models. What a difference a year makes when a country goes to war. The Wright Museum showcases American life from 1939 to 1945, the duration of World War II. With more than guns and ammo, it highlights the "Greatest Generation" on the home front and on battlefields in Europe.

WASHINGTON - It's not just the American dollar that's losing value. A government agency has decided that an American life isn't worth what it used to be. The "value of a statistical life" is $6.9 million, the Environmental Protection Agency reckoned in May - a drop of nearly $1 million from five years ago. The Associated Press discovered the change after a review of cost-benefit analyses over more than a dozen years. Though it may seem like a harmless bureaucratic recalculation, the devaluation has real consequences.

Who would imagine that a book on an assassinated American president would read more like a riveting medical thriller than simply a work of well-researched history? Yet, according to Arthur Healey, a soft-spoken CPA and resident of Dedham, Candice Millard's "Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President," is "really a dramatic story about the state of politics, medicine, and American life in the late 19th century. " The 68-year-old Healey, who said he has little time to read, particularly during tax season, has always preferred biographies...

Squirrel, it's what's for dinner During Herbert Hoover's 1928 presidential campaign, ads claimed that previous Republican presidents had "put the proverbial ‘chicken in every pot.'" So what had been in the pot before then? Writing in the environmental magazine Grist, Heather Smith says that it was squirrel — once a more commonly served meat in America than chicken. Until the mid-20th century, Smith explains, squirrel hunting was a perfectly normal part of American life.

It's comforting to believe that doing the "right" things - working hard, finding the perfect home in a nice town, sending your kids to the best schools - can ensure that your life will turn out the way you want. In his new novel, "Norumbega Park," Anthony Giardina, who lives in Northampton, traces the 40-year history of a family who believed that such things could insulate them from the vicissitudes of life and must wrestle with disappointment and regret when reality doesn't meet expectations.

SCHOENBERG: "A SURVIVOR FROM WARSAW"" VERDI: REQUIEM Boston University Symphony Orchestra and Symphonic Chorus. At: Symphony Hall. Nov. 21, 8 p.m. $25, $10 student rush. 617-266-1200, www.bostonsymphonyhall.org I once ate breakfast in Arnold Schoenberg's home. Not in Vienna, where he came of age, nor in Berlin, where he shaped the musical life of the Weimar Republic from a lofty academic post. This was his home in Los Angeles, where he settled in 1934 after fleeing the Third Reich.

At churches, we prayed. At fire stations, we laid wreaths. At football stadiums, hands and baseball caps over hearts, we lifted our voices in song and familiar chants of "USA!" — our patriotism renewed once more as we allowed ourselves to go back in time, to the planes and the towers and the panic and the despair, to the memories that scar us still. On Sunday, the 10th anniversary of the nation's worst terror attack, Americans remembered — in our own ways, all across the land — a day that is simply impossible to forget.

Second of two parts (Read Part 1) TO MANY liberals, Rick Perry's audacious pledge to make Washington as "inconsequential in your life as I can" is tantamount to a pledge to bring back the Dark Ages. Commenting on Twitter as the Texas governor announced his presidential candidacy, longtime Washington journalist Howard Kurtz wondered: "Perry wants to make DC ‘inconsequential in your life.' Does that include Medicare, Soc Sec, vets' programs, air safety, FDA?" Former Bobby Kennedy aide Jeff Greenfield ran through a litany of Washington's...

Journalism Public service: The Philadelphia Inquirer for its exploration of violence in the city's schools. Breaking news reporting: The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News staff for its coverage of a deadly tornado. Investigative reporting: Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eileen Sullivan, and Chris Hawley of The Associated Press for coverage of the New York Police Department's spying program that monitored daily life in Muslim communities. Explanatory reporting: David Kocieniewski of The New York Times for his series explaining how the nation's wealthiest citizens and corporations exploited loopholes...

ANDY WARHOL By Arthur C. Danto Yale University, 192 pp., $24 Arthur C. Danto, philosopher and art critic, takes Andy Warhol very seriously as an artist, activist, filmmaker, critic of pop and high culture, and celebrity icon. Neither a memoir of the philosopher nor a biography of his subject, this small and provocative work is “a study of what makes Warhol so fascinating an artist from a philosophical perspective.’’ Danto credits Warhol with raising the question of art in a new form.

Unlike the immigrant protagonists of Gish Jen’s previous novels, Hattie Kong, 68 and living in the United States since she was 12, has, to all appearances, left her half-Chinese origins behind and become thoroughly American. Widowed and retired after a long teaching career, she has moved to Riverlake, a small town in upstate New York. She takes full part in community life: She is a member of a women’s walking and yoga group, a regular at town meetings, a baker of cookies, active in good causes, and a vigilantly helpful neighbor.