What We're Reading: Great Reads, the Direct Approach

Writing in the first person can often be indulgent and uninteresting, but when done right it can bring illuminating perspective. Here are a handful of stories we published this year that make deft use of a personal approach to a range of subjects. [The New York Times] What We’re Reading If your friends would enjoy our recommendations of stories from around the web, forward this email and invite them to sign up at [nytimes.com/wwr]. Writing in the first person can often be indulgent and uninteresting, but when done right it can bring illuminating perspective. Here are a handful of stories we published this year that make deft use of a personal approach to a range of subjects. [author] Jake Silverstein Editor in chief, Times Magazine [Large Image] Vincenzo Pinto/Agence France-Presse – Getty Images [David’s Ankles] Sam Anderson’s reported essay explores the microfractures in the ankles of Michelangelo’s famous sculpture. Sam used his own obsession with the David as a way of setting up the story’s themes. [Go »] [Large Image] Glenna Gordon for The New York Times [Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City] Nikole Hannah-Jones’s masterful public-interest story used her own experience as the mother of a daughter entering the New York City school system to explore that system’s enduring inequities. [Go »] [Large Image] Jun Cen [Making House] This beautiful essay by Rachel Cusk, about domesticity, is deeply personal and revelatory, yet it maintains such powerful restraint throughout. [Go »] [Large Image] Alamy [Last Taboo] A searing essay by Wesley Morris, about how American pop culture can’t deal with black male sexuality, takes several surprising and deeply affecting swerves into personal territory. [Go »] [Large Image] Christopher Anderson/Magnum, for The New York Times [The Mysterious Metamorphosis of Chuck Close] The writer of this profile, Wil Hylton, used his own entanglements with the story to deepen our understanding of the great painter Chuck Close’s situation. [Go »] Make a friend’s day: Forward this email. Get this from a friend? [Sign up here]. Share your feedback on What We’re Reading. Email us at [wwr@nytimes.com] This is an automated email. Please do not reply directly to this email. You received this message because you signed up for [NYTimes.com]'s What We're Reading newsletter. Click to [unsubscribe]. [Copyright 2016 The New York Times Company]. [NYTimes.com] 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018