Newspapers Are a Great Learning Resource

I look forward to Sunday mornings as I enjoy our local church service (albeit online these days), family time, and the Sunday edition of each newspaper. For me, our home town paper offers so much from a local level highlighting events, upcoming sales, and local reviews of books and restaurants. However, the paper that I look forward to is the Sunday edition of The New York Times.

While I am a "New Yorker", I live in upstate New York so reading about happenings in the city is exciting. However, it is more than the lifestyle type of article that catches my interest. I find The New York Times Magazine, their Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday print edition of The New York Times, loaded with fascinating articles from varied topics like making homemade ice cream, national intelligence, medical insights, growing fruits, or pressing flowers to name a few. It offers feature articles longer than those found in newspapers.

Two sections of the Sunday edition that are of high interest to me include "At Home" and "The New York Times Book Review". The "At Home" section this past week offered great articles on topics such as storm preparedness, kids going back to college, as well as college at home, and ideas about how to fix up your back porch for comfort this fall. There are usually different and delicious recipes shared offering five to cook that week. The recipes are pretty much built around items you can easily get locally, or some you may already have in your kitchen.

To add to the variety of topics, there are articles about finances and the new family economic situation to reducing anxiety. Let me just add one more item that I found fun, but also tied into another part of the Sunday edition offering that I'll discuss later. It is "The Votes for Women's Game" https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/15/at-home/play-suffrage-game.html which takes each player through "the continuing battle for suffrage through three quarters of the states that would have to vote to ratify the amendment before it would officially become part of the Constitution". There is a citation stating that "This game was originally created for the book Finish the Fight!: The Brave and Revolutionary Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote written by the New York Times journalists Veronica Chambers, Jennifer Schuessler, Ammisha Padnani, Jennifer Harlan, Sandra E. Garcia and Vivian Wang. I will add this is a book I am going to find and read.

Of course, "The New York Times Best Seller Book List" is generally offered in our local newspapers, and I am interested in knowing what books are most popular that week. However, the section of The New York Times Sunday edition offers so much more. There are, of course, ads for books that I must say do offer a brief review, picture, and further enticement to encourage reading. The "New and Noteworthy" page introducing a few new books and the "What We're Reading" offering a personal recommendation and brief summary. There is generally an interview with an author, and other great genre specific articles offering recommended reading. Recently the "Beach Reads: Summer Stories" by Elizabeth Egan offered a great take on what was traditionally a beach read is now a good book on a summer's night to allow a bit of escapism. She also recommends seven books, offering a summary of each.

Finally, as hinted at earlier, I enjoyed and learned so much from The New York Times special section from August 16, 2020 on "How American Women Won the Right to Vote".The articles, the primary sources shared, political posters, cartoons, and data are incredible and enlightening. All of the articles are wonderful which makes this print special section a keeper. I particularly liked "How American Women Got the Vote" by Veronica Chambers leading off this section. As Chambers wrote, "As the 19th Amendment, which established women's right to vote, turns 100, an attempt to clarify its murky history- and what lies ahead". Such a timely read and important to look back upon such historical events and heroes.

Finally, articles and more can be found using the link that follows continuing this fantastic coverage of the suffrage movement and it's legacy. https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/women-suffrage-100?smid=rd. 

I'll also add that I just subscribed to The New York Times taking advantage of their $1 per week for a year digtal subscription. This is a limited time offer. Check it out at https://tinyurl.com/y6nufxv7.