Oprah Daily Reveals the Cover of Ari Shapiro’s “The Best Strangers in the World”
A host of NPR’s All Things Considered since 2015, Ari Shapiro has long sought to connect with others. As one of the very few Jewish kids in Fargo, North Dakota, he’d circulate among classrooms each December, menorah and dreidel in hand, educating his gentile peers on Hanukkah. That desire to mingle, to swap tales, has propelled his career as a journalist. Next March, Harper One is publishing his memoir-in-essays, The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening, which blends personal history with transfixing accounts from people he’s met across the globe. In an exclusive, Oprah Daily reveals the jacket design, a photo of the author in back of a truck parked in a desert, a stylish type overlay.
Shapiro notes that his young experiences kindled a passion for public speaking, the edifying exchange of ideas and perspectives. After his family relocated to Portland, Oregon, he came out as gay and discovered a queer underground that nurtured him during adolescence. He embraced the role of “ambassador” (his term) to LGBTQ-resistant acquaintances and communities, helping them “to break out of their bubbles.” In 2004 he vaulted into the limelight when he and his college boyfriend were “unwittingly filmed” as they married in San Francisco, just after the city’s mayor (and now California’s governor), Gavin Newsom, declared same-sex marriage legal in his jurisdiction. As a media frenzy ensued, a video clip of the couple made its way onto NBC’s Nightly News, forcing a confrontation between Shapiro’s identity and profession. “Who I am is not negotiable,” he says.
Fortunately, both marriage and career have flourished. Shapiro claims that he “models a level of vulnerability” that builds bridges across political divides. He’s a busy man: On the side, he performs in a band, Pink Martini, and tours with a cabaret show, Och and Oy, with actor Alan Cumming. His book lavishly details the hijinks and byways of his journey, but his commitment to journalism burns clear, like a blue flame. Is journalism in crisis? “Oh, yeah,” he says, but networks and consumers alike are adapting rapidly. He opines that rigorous reporting may be “less provocative, less sexy, less easy than click-and-share,” alluding to the dopamine hit of social media, but it’s more essential than ever.
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