Ari Shapiro tells his own story

The NPR host’s new memoir explores the power of storytelling in a divided world.

Ari Shapiro
Photo: Victor Jeffreys

Ari Shapiro is deeply invested in the power of storytelling. The co-host of NPR’s All Things Considered has spent his career listening to other people’s stories and relaying them to public radio listeners. But, he says, like most journalists, he has often felt like he needed to put himself—his identity, his opinions, his point of view—in a box to do that work.

“I started to feel like it was time to open the box and explore what was inside,” Shapiro says. “What I found was that over time, there are stories that have shaped the person I am, and on the flipside, the person I am has shaped some of the stories that I’ve told.”

In many ways, his new memoir The Best Strangers in the World is an exploration of that interplay. It’s also a chronicle of the many lives and stories he’s encountered over more than two decades as a journalist—from his youth as the only out gay kid at his Portland high school to his time as a White House correspondent during the Obama administration, to visiting war zones and reporting on the Pulse nightclub massacre. There are also “musical interludes;” Shapiro is a frequent guest singer with the band Pink Martini and has created a cabaret show with Tony-winner Alan Cumming.

“I realized over the course of writing this book that…

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