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From the Giver Quartet series , Vol. 1

by Lois Lowry ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1993

Wrought with admirable skill—the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly...

In a radical departure from her realistic fiction and comic chronicles of Anastasia, Lowry creates a chilling, tightly controlled future society where all controversy, pain, and choice have been expunged, each childhood year has its privileges and responsibilities, and family members are selected for compatibility.

As Jonas approaches the "Ceremony of Twelve," he wonders what his adult "Assignment" will be. Father, a "Nurturer," cares for "newchildren"; Mother works in the "Department of Justice"; but Jonas's admitted talents suggest no particular calling. In the event, he is named "Receiver," to replace an Elder with a unique function: holding the community's memories—painful, troubling, or prone to lead (like love) to disorder; the Elder ("The Giver") now begins to transfer these memories to Jonas. The process is deeply disturbing; for the first time, Jonas learns about ordinary things like color, the sun, snow, and mountains, as well as love, war, and death: the ceremony known as "release" is revealed to be murder. Horrified, Jonas plots escape to "Elsewhere," a step he believes will return the memories to all the people, but his timing is upset by a decision to release a newchild he has come to love. Ill-equipped, Jonas sets out with the baby on a desperate journey whose enigmatic conclusion resonates with allegory: Jonas may be a Christ figure, but the contrasts here with Christian symbols are also intriguing.

Pub Date: April 1, 1993

ISBN: 978-0-395-64566-6

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1993

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | GENERAL GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS | SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

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by Lois Lowry ; illustrated by P. Craig Russell

by Lois Lowry

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by Lois Lowry ; illustrated by Jonathan Stroh

From the Caraval series , Vol. 2

by Stephanie Garber ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 29, 2018

Dark, seductive, but over-the-top: Characters and book alike will enthrall those who choose to play.

Garber returns to the world of bestseller Caraval (2017), this time with the focus on younger, more daring sister Donatella.

Valenda, capital of the empire, is host to the second of Legend’s magical games in a single year, and while Scarlett doesn’t want to play again, blonde Tella is eager for a chance to prove herself. She is haunted by the memory of her death in the last game and by the cursed Deck of Destiny she used as a child which foretold her loveless future. Garber has changed many of the rules of her expanding world, which now appears to be infused with magic and evil Fates. Despite a weak plot and ultraviolet prose (“He tasted like exquisite nightmares and stolen dreams, like the wings of fallen angels, and bottles of fresh moonlight.”), this is a tour de force of imagination. Themes of love, betrayal, and the price of magic (and desire) swirl like Caraval’s enchantments, and Dante’s sensuous kisses will thrill readers as much as they do Tella. The convoluted machinations of the Prince of Hearts (one of the Fates), Legend, and even the empress serve as the impetus for Tella’s story and set up future volumes which promise to go bigger. With descriptions focusing primarily on clothing, characters’ ethnicities are often indeterminate.

Pub Date: May 29, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-250-09531-2

Page Count: 464

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FAMILY | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT ROMANCE

by Stephanie Garber

More by Stephanie Garber

THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS

From the girl of fire and thorns series , vol. 1.

by Rae Carson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2011

Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...

Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.

Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra , but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra —can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION

by Rae Carson

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The giver, book 1, common sense media reviewers.

Riveting, expertly crafted novel shows utopia's flaws.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

The Giver shows young readers a key example of a u

The cost of utopia can be dystopia. A life without

Jonas risks his life to save a toddler. He realize

Jonas is horrified when he learns that unwanted me

Jonas begins experiencing "stirrings" and sexual d

As soon as they enter puberty, children begin taki

Parents need to know that Lois Lowry's The Giver is a thoughtful and original novel that examines a flawed utopian society. In the world of the book, a "Receiver" holds all of the community's memories connected with pain, love, and desire so that no other people experience those feelings. The Giver …

Educational Value

The Giver shows young readers a key example of a utopian novel. It also encourages them to think critically about a life without pain, love, or desire.

Positive Messages

The cost of utopia can be dystopia. A life without suffering is, by nature, a life without love.

Positive Role Models

Jonas risks his life to save a toddler. He realizes that he no longer cares for himself; all that matters is rescuing Gabriel.

Violence & Scariness

Jonas is horrified when he learns that unwanted members of their society are executed. He also receives memories of war, and feels the pain and thirst of a wounded soldier. Jonas falls from a bicycle and cuts his leg.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Jonas begins experiencing "stirrings" and sexual dreams, but the only one he describes in detail involves realizing that he wants a girl his age to remove her clothes.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

As soon as they enter puberty, children begin taking a daily pill to control "Stirrings."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Lois Lowry 's The Giver is a thoughtful and original novel that examines a flawed utopian society. In the world of the book, a "Receiver" holds all of the community's memories connected with pain, love, and desire so that no other people experience those feelings. The Giver is the first of a four-volume series, and it won the 1994 Newbery Medal. Lowry adapted it for an excellent graphic novel in 2019, and it was made into a 2014 film . The novel has a few disturbing scenes, such as when Jonas experiences the suffering of a wounded soldier, and when he learns that his community euthanizes unwanted people. There are also mild references to sexual desire ("stirrings"). The Giver is an excellent and thought-provoking example of a dystopian novel, and it is often assigned in fifth grade or middle school English classes.

Where to Read

Community reviews.

• Parents say (117)
• Kids say (393)

Based on 117 parent reviews

For Intellectuals and Free-Thinkers ONLY

A book every young teen should read, what's the story.

In Lois Lowry's THE GIVER, Jonas is part of a community where there is no pain, no crime, no greed, and no unhappiness. There is also no love, no desire, and no colors or music. At each birthday, every child in the community reaches a new milestone that's commemorated with a special ceremony. Ultimately, at age 12, each child receives a life assignment for which he or she will begin training. When Jonas receives his life assignment to be the Receiver of Memories, his mentor, The Giver, trains Jonas by transferring to him memories of a past that the others in the community can't even imagine, in which there was war, hunger, and disease, but also color, weather, and strong emotions. Gradually, Jonas comes to understand, and resent, the choices that were made to create his world, and the terrible secrets behind its perfection. Together, he and The Giver concoct a plan to change their world.

Is It Any Good?

This classic dystopian novel is not only entertaining but also a perfect book to discuss in a family or classroom setting. The Giver examines the trade-offs of a utopian society through the eyes of a sensitive 12-year-old boy. Author Lois Lowry invites readers to consider the pros and cons of Jonas' community and imagine a life without highs and lows. Is a life with no suffering worth living without music or color? Would you give up love if it meant never feeling pain? Jonas is a beautifully realized, big-hearted 12-year-old living a rich individual life in a colorless, faceless world, and his predicament is intensely compelling.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the utopian society depicted in The Giver . What do you like or dislike about this community?

The Giver is categorized as a dystopian novel. What are the elements of a dystopian novel? What other dystopian stories have you read? Which are your favorites?

Why do you think The Giver is considered a classic and is often assigned in school? What does it have to teach kids and teens?

Book Details

• Author : Lois Lowry
• Genre : Contemporary Fiction
• Topics : Brothers and Sisters , Friendship , Great Boy Role Models
• Book type : Fiction
• Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Children's Books
• Publication date : January 1, 1993
• Publisher's recommended age(s) : 12 - 14
• Number of pages : 180
• Award : Newbery Medal and Honors
• Last updated : March 23, 2020

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Reviews of The Giver by Lois Lowry

Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio

by Lois Lowry

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Book Summary

Twelve-year-old Jonas lives in a seemingly ideal world. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver does he begin to understand the dark secrets behind this fragile community.

1994 Newbery Medal winner. Twelve-year-old Jonas lives in a seemingly ideal world. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver does he begin to understand the dark secrets behind this fragile community.

It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened. No. Wrong word, Jonas thought. Frightened meant that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen. Frightened was the way he had felt a year ago when an unidentified aircraft had overflown the community twice. He had seen it both times. Squinting toward the sky, he had seen the sleek jet, almost a blur at its high speed, go past, and a second later heard the blast of sound that followed. Then one more time, a moment later, from the opposite direction, the same plane. At first, he had been only fascinated. He had never seen aircraft so close, for it was against the rules for Pilots to fly over the community. Occasionally, when supplies were delivered by cargo planes to the landing field across the river, the children rode their bicycles to the river bank and watched, intrigued, the unloading and then the takeoff directed to the west, always away from the community. But the aircraft a ...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

• In The Giver, each family has two parents, a son, and a daughter. The relationships are not biological but are developed through observation and a careful handling of personality. In our own society, the makeup of family is under discussion. How are families defined? Are families the foundations of a society, or are they continually open for new definitions?
• In Jonas’s community, every person and his or her experience are precisely the same. The climate is controlled, and competition has been eliminated in favor of a community in which everyone works only for the common good. What advantages might “Sameness” yield for contemporary communities? Is the loss of diversity worthwhile?
• Underneath the placid calm of Jonas’...
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Sunday, December 23, 2018

The giver by lois lowry review.

17 comments:

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The New York Times

Artsbeat | book review podcast: the final book in lois lowry’s ‘giver’ quartet, book review podcast: the final book in lois lowry’s ‘giver’ quartet.

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This week in The New York Times Book Review, Robin Wasserman reviews “Son,” by Lois Lowry, the fourth book in her groundbreaking “Giver” quartet. It’s the first book for young adults featured on the cover of the Book Review since Christopher Hitchens wrote about “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” in 2007. The protagonist of “Son” is 14-year-old Claire, who fights to find her child in a society that denies there is any value in maternal bonds. Ms. Wasserman writes:

With their sparse world building and fantastical touches, “The Giver” books have always flirted with allegory. In this last volume, Lowry fully embraces fable: Claire is more archetype than girl, the ur-mother in search of her unnamed son. There’s even a nightmarish monster lurking in the wood. What at first seems an odd note of fairy-tale villainy makes sense upon the realization that, unlike its predecessors, “Son” is not the story of a character confronting a damaged human society. It’s the story of a humanity battered by inhuman forces: Nature. Age. Maybe even evil.

On this week’s podcast, Ms. Lowry discusses “Son”; Julie Bosman has notes from the field; Evgeny Morozov talks about Andy Greenberg’s “This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World’s Information”; and Gregory Cowles has best-seller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host.

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Giver (Lowry)

Book Reviews A powerful and provocative novel New York Times Jonas lives in a perfect society. There is no pain, poverty, divorce, delinquency, etc. One's life's work is chosen by the Elders. At the Ceremony of 12, Jonas is shocked to learn that he has been awarded the most prestigious honor. His assignment will be that of Receiver of Memories. He studies with "the Giver," a man he comes to love. Within time he learns the horrifying secrets of his community and must make a decision that will test his courage, intelligence, and stamina. This is a stunning, provocative science fiction story that will inspire discussion. Children's Literature Winner of the 1994 Newbery Medal, Lowry's thought-provoking fantasy challenges adolescents to explore important social and political issues. The Giver trains twelve-year-old Jonas as the next Receiver of Memory, the community's receptacle of past memories. This seemingly utopian society (without pain, poverty, unemployment, or disorder) is actually a body- and mind-controlling dystopia (without love, colors, sexual feelings, or memories of the past). In an exciting plot twist, Jonas courageously resolves his moral dilemma and affirms the human spirit's power to prevail, to celebrate love, and to transmit memories. From the book jacket's evocative photographic images—The Giver in black and white; trees in blazing color—to the suspenseful conclusion, this book is first-rate. Just as Lowry's Number the Stars (which received the 1990 Newbery Medal) portrays the Danish people's triumph over Nazi persecution, The Giver engages the reader in an equally inspiring victory over totalitarian inhumanity. The ALAN Review Winner of the 1994 Newbery Medal, this thought-provoking novel centers on a 12-year-old boy's gradual disillusionment with an outwardly utopian futuristic society.... Lowry is once again in top form...unwinding a tale fit for the most adventurous readers. Publishers Weekly In a complete departure from her other novels, Lowry has written an intriguing story set in a society that is uniformly run by a Committee of Elders. Twelve-year-old Jonas's confidence in his comfortable "normal" existence as a member of this well-ordered community is shaken when he is assigned his life's work as the Receiver. The Giver, who passes on to Jonas the burden of being the holder for the community of all memory "back and back and back,'' teaches him the cost of living in an environment that is "without color, pain, or past.'' The tension leading up to the Ceremony, in which children are promoted not to another grade but to another stage in their life, and the drama and responsibility of the sessions with The Giver are gripping. The final flight for survival is as riveting as it is inevitable. The author makes real abstract concepts, such as the meaning of a life in which there are virtually no choices to be made and no experiences with deep feelings. This tightly plotted story and its believable characters will stay with readers for a long time. — Amy Kellman, The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh School Library Journal The simplicity and directness of Lowry's writing force readers to grapple with their own thoughts. Booklist In a radical departure from her realistic fiction and comic chronicles of Anastasia, Lowry creates a chilling, tightly controlled future society where all controversy, pain, and choice have been expunged, each childhood year has its privileges and responsibilities, and family members are selected for compatibility.... Wrought with admirable skill—the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly provocative novel. Kirkus Reviews

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• About the Book

Lois Lowry’s New York Times bestseller, THE GIVER is the quintessential dystopian novel, followed by its remarkable companions, GATHERING BLUE, MESSENGER and SON. Jonas's world is perfect. Everything is under control. There is no war or fear of pain. There are no choices. Every person is assigned a role in the community. When Jonas turns 12 he is singled out to receive special training from The Giver. The Giver alone holds the memories of the true pain and pleasure of life. Now, it is time for Jonas to receive the truth. There is no turning back.

The Giver by Lois Lowry

• Publication Date: October 2, 2018
• Genres: Dystopian , Fiction , Science Fiction , Young Adult 12+
• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
• ISBN-10: 1328471225
• ISBN-13: 9781328471222

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Review: The Giver by Lois Lowry

The Giver (The Giver Quartet #1) Lois Lowry Clarion Books Published April 26, 1993

Amazon | bookshop | goodreads, about the giver.

In Lois Lowry’s Newbery Medal–winning classic, twelve-year-old Jonas lives in a seemingly ideal world. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver does he begin to understand the dark secrets behind his fragile community.

Life in the community where Jonas lives is idyllic. Designated birthmothers produce newchildren, who are assigned to appropriate family units. Citizens are assigned their partners and their jobs. No one thinks to ask questions. Everyone obeys. Everyone is the same. Except Jonas.

Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory does he begin to understand the dark, complex secrets behind his fragile community. Gradually Jonas learns that power lies in feelings. But when his own power is put to the test—when he must try to save someone he loves—he may not be ready. Is it too soon? Or too late?

Told with deceptive simplicity, this is the provocative story of a boy who experiences something incredible and undertakes something impossible. In the telling it questions every value we have taken for granted and reexamines our most deeply held beliefs.

The Giver  has become one of the most influential novels of our time. Don’t miss the powerful companion novels in Lois Lowry’s Giver Quartet:  Gathering Blue, Messenger,  and  Son .

I think this is the third or fourth time I’ve read this book, but definitely the first since I’ve been blogging. I would like to read and review all four books in the quartet. The second book, GATHERING BLUE , is one I’ve read before, but I haven’t read the other two.

One of the things that stood out to me this time reading the book is the way that Jonas’s role in the pivotal moment in the book is to ride his bike for scene after scene. Whereas back at home, the community members are reeling from the presence of Jonas’s memories, and the Giver is busy helping them process the new feelings.

Reading the book again as an adult, I find it an interesting choice that we follow Jonas out of the community and don’t witness the other community members experiencing those memories. Jonas really wanted his family and Fiona to experience the emotions and memories he experienced.

I love the book, though. Jonas journeys from passively following instructions and believing that the rules of the community are all for the best. As he learns about pain and loneliness (both from the Giver’s memories and his new role which mandates that he not speak about his training to anyone) he begins to question the way the community operates. He begins to wonder if the “sameness” which forbids anyone experiencing color, emotions, or individuality actually robs the community of something precious and valuable.

It’s an important idea, especially in the current conversations about book banning and restrictions on conversations about identity. Is there a point at which we harm ourselves by so completely sanitizing books and conversations? Do we diminish or lose the ability to empathize with others or process the existence of pain in the world this way?

Anyway. All that to say that I’m glad I reread THE GIVER. It’s been thirty years since the book was first published, and it still clearly has some important things to say.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages  12 up.

Representation Jonas and the Giver both have light eyes. That appears to be a marker for the ability to receive memories. No other race details given.

Profanity/Crude Language Content None.

Romance/Sexual Content Jonas feels attraction toward his friend Fiona.

Spiritual Content The community celebrate the life of members when they reach a certain age, before a “ceremony of release” in which a community worker euthanizes the member with an injection.

Violent Content Jonas watches a ceremony of release in which an adult injects and euthanizes a small child. Jonas experiences memories of war in which a soldier on a battlefield dies, crying out for water. He also experiences starvation and grief in memories.

Drug Content Community leaders instruct Jonas to take a daily medication to stop any feelings of attraction/arousal.

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2 responses to review: the giver by lois lowry.

It has been a very long time since I’ve read The Giver. I think I need to read it again. Thanks for reminding me.

Thanks, Rosi. I started out with the intention of reading the whole series. I thought I’d read the first two books before, but it had been so long, I wanted to reread them before moving onto books three and four. I will probably listen to those as audiobooks this year.

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The Giver by Lois Lowry - review

The Giver has recently been made into a film, and so, with the suggestion of one of my bookish friends, I picked the book up to see what the story was like, and wasn't disappointed in the slightest.

The Giver is a morally driven and interesting story about a young boy called Jonas who lives in a society free of crime and sadness. At the age of 12, children are assigned their jobs, which they will train for and do for the rest of their lives. Everything is chosen; from your parents to your partner. Jonas stands apart from the community when he is chosen to become the new "Memory Keeper". Society has been kept free of all the negative aspects of life because for as long as it has been formed, there has been someone who holds all the bad and good memories of the past within them. This is both bad and good for the inhabitants because, although they are protected from harm, they are also not exposed to the wonderful aspects of life.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book because, even though it is supposed to be more of a children's book than young adult, the storyline is complex enough to hold the attention of older readers. I really enjoyed Jonas as a character because his character development from a scared boy, to someone willing to risk his future to save the community, is enjoyable to follow. This book shows the path of growing up; at first we are scared to accept that there are new responsibilities, but as we slowly get used to it we want to move more and more away from childhood.

Throughout the book, Jonas' loss of trust in his parents is also important in communicating the morals of the story. At the beginning, when Jonas is a normal child in the community, he trusts his parents completely as is expected. However, after The Giver shows Jonas the tape of his Father "releasing" a new born child, a process in which the child is killed and disposed of, Jonas ultimately loses his trust and admiration of his father. This moment is what forces Jonas to leave the community, even before The Giver has planned for him to. I enjoyed this transition in Jonas because he begins to defy the life which is set out for him. It is symbolic of the change from the innocent mind of a child into the questioning and educated mind of an adult.

The ambiguity of the ending is also another aspect which makes this book interesting to read. There are two possible meanings behind the ending; either Jonas and Gabriel freeze to death together on the sled, or they have really found "Elsewhere". Ultimately, the ending still shows us that, whatever happens, Jonas has made choices for himself rather than being told what to do. Whatever happens to him, it is still better than his life in the community would ever have been.

The community is a metaphor for restriction and censoring; it limits the choices of an individual until they have none left, removing joy from life. By leaving the community Jonas has already made an individual choice, and this demonstrates to the reader that it is better to live your life the way you would like to, than be held back by others and never really be happy. I think this is an important message for children and young adults today, as experiences such as bullying in schools limit people from being themselves.

This book was easily read in a couple of hours because of its simple but gripping storyline and its interesting characters. The Giver was so powerful because it's one of a rare few young adult books which leaves the ending up to you. The ending of The Giver is powerful because we have a choice in what it means; just as Jonas made a sacrificial choice for the good of the community, you have to decide for yourself too.

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves dystopian worlds, and well as people who like a book to let them think for themselves!

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11 Things You May Not Know About The Giver

By ali parr | mar 8, 2018.

Lois Lowry’s 1993 young adult hit The Giver has a more complex history than you may have known.

1. A visit to Lowry’s father in a nursing home helped inspire the novel.  

In his later years, Lowry’s father lost much of his long-term memory, which got Lowry thinking about the power and importance of memories: Without them, there can be no pain. She began to imagine a society where the past was deliberately forgotten so that the members could live in “peaceful ignorance.” This version of reality may relieve the people of pain, but its fatal flaw is that it also takes away valuable connections to the past and the possibility of lasting human relationships.

In a 1994 speech , Lowry touched on this visit and the questions it sparked: “We can forget pain, I think. And it is comfortable to do so. But I also wonder briefly: is it safe to do that, to forget?” 

2. The Giver on the cover was celebrated in his own right.  

In 1979, years before she wrote The Giver, Lowry was working as a journalist when she interviewed painter Carl Gustaf Nelson. The Swedish-born painter had lived in New York and taught painting in Boston before retiring to Maine’s Cranberry Island. Nelson’s art earned him spots in prestigious shows like the Whitney Biennial, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection contains two of his pieces . Lowry visited Nelson at his home off the coast of Maine, and while there she got the chance to photograph him. 

3. Nelson may also have inspired the Giver.  

In her 1994 Newbery Award acceptance speech , Lowry reminisced about meeting Nelson: “I spend a good deal of time with this man, and we talk a lot about color. It is clear to me that although I am a highly visual person—a person who sees and appreciates form and composition and color—this man’s capacity for seeing color goes far beyond mine … Now and then I wish, in a whimsical way, that he could have somehow magically given me the capacity to see the way he did.” 

4. Nelson had something in common with the Giver.

Nelson passed away in 1988, but his face stuck with Lowry. She loved the interesting picture of Nelson so much that she held on to it, and later turned it into cover art. The choice of Nelson as the cover model would turn out to have a deeper meaning for Lowry. The artist had spent the last few years of his life in blindness, which sparked a connection. As Lowry explained in a 2006 interview with Teachingbooks.net, “[His] life was filled with color … for him to lose color, as the Giver in the book begins to lose color, seemed such a wonderful analogy that I’ve always been glad his photograph is on the cover.” 

5. Some readers condemn the book as pro-euthanasia or pro-abortion.  

The book’s concept of “release,” depicted by a man killing a newborn baby with a lethal injection, has been cited as evidence that Lowry is promoting euthanasia, suicide, or possibly abortion, but she debunks these theories. She says that those sorts of accusations are often from people who haven’t read the book thoroughly, and therefore are missing her point altogether.

6. The book received some harsh reviews  …

Like many successful YA novels, The Giver hasn’t been a critical darling. Author Debra Doyle complained , “Personal taste aside, The Giver fails the Plausibility Test for me. … Things are the way they are because The Author is Making a Point; things work out the way they do because The Author’s Point Requires It.” 

7. … But it won over other critics.  

On the other hand, The New York Times’ Karen Ray wrote that although there were “occasional logical lapses,” the book is still “sure to keep older children reading. And thinking.” Lowry also claimed the annual Newbery Award for “the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children." 

More importantly, the novel reached its target audience. It resonated with young readers so well that it’s sold over 12 million copies . A 2003 review by Rome, Ga., seventh-grader Michael Butler leads off with a view that’s shared by many of his peers: “ The Giver is one of the many great books in our society today.” 

8. Lowry got the news of her Newbery win in an odd place.

Lowry had already won the medal in 1990 for Number the Stars, but the committee had trouble locating her to share the good news about her second win in 1994. Eventually, the committee reached the author by radiogram, a necessary step since she was traveling in Antarctica. “I was feeling on top of the world, though, technically speaking, I was actually at the bottom,” she quips on her personal website .  

9. It took Jeff Bridges over 20 years to turn the book into a film.  

The actor became interested in adapting the novel for the screen in the early ‘90s but repeatedly got jammed up by studios and battles over ownership rights. The original plan was for Bridges to direct his father, Lloyd Bridges, in the title role, but this plan was canceled with the elder Bridges’ death in 1998. The film remained stuck in development hell for almost 15 years until Bridges was given the green light in 2012. The movie was released in 2014 starring Bridges (as the Giver), Meryl Streep, Brenton Thwaites, Odeya Rush, Cameron Monaghan, and featuring Katie Holmes, Alexander Skarsgård, and Taylor Swift.

10. Readers inundated Lowry with questions about the ending …  

Lowry loved the novel’s ambiguous ending, but it drove readers crazy. She even mentioned it in her Newbery speech: “Those of you who hoped that I would stand here tonight and reveal the ‘true’ ending, the ‘right’ interpretation of the ending, will be disappointed. There isn’t one. There’s a right one for each of us, and it depends on our own beliefs, our own hopes.”

Lowry was so sold on the novel’s ambiguity that she even told interviewers that she would never write a sequel to clarify Jonas’s fate even as reader letters requesting closure flooded her mailbox.

11. ... until she finally gave in.  

The passionate reader reaction made Lowry reconsider her anti-sequel stance. In a 2012 interview in Entertainment Weekly she explained, “I didn’t have any intention of writing a sequel. I liked the ambiguity of the ending. Over the years, though, it became clear that younger readers in particular did not.”  

Lowry set out to give the people what they wanted, a mission that yielded three more novels. Gathering Blue, Messenger, and Son round out the “loose quartet” set in this universe, but Lowry did not intend to create a series. In an interview with The Wire in 2012 , Lowry said, “I had not intended [ Gathering Blue ] as even related to The Giver , I was creating another interesting world, to me, where things were different, and as I went along I realized I could answer some questions … I put in, at the end of Gathering Blue , the reference to the boy Jonas. … Four years later I did the third book, and they were not sequels, really, they were set at a different place at more or less the same time.”

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‘the giver’: what the critics are saying.

Phillip Noyce's adaptation of Lois Lowry's dystopian novel stars Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Brenton Thwaites, Alexander Skarsgard, Katie Holmes, Taylor Swift and Odeya Rush

By Ashley Lee

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The Giver , out Friday, brings Lois Lowry ‘s 1993 Newbery Medal-winning young-adult novel to the big screen, with Jeff Bridges playing the title character after a 20-year journey to adapt the dystopian title.

Directed by Phillip Noyce , The Weinstein Co. and Walden Media $30 million film also stars  Meryl Streep , Brenton Thwaites , Alexander Skarsgard , Katie Holmes , Taylor Swift , Cameron Monaghan , Odeya Rush and Emma Tremblay , and is expected  to debut in the mid-teens. It will be playing in roughly 3,000 locations.

Read what top critics are saying about The Giver :

The Hollywood Reporter ‘s film critic John DeFore  calls it “an agreeable YA riff on Orwell — via Logan’s Run — topped with the kind of magic-transformative baloney that passes for an ending in too many otherwise-fine Hollywood adventures.” He notes that “Noyce is unsurprisingly capable,” “Streep is wasted as the heavy, enforcing conformity,” and Skarsgard “more than anyone in the cast finds a way to embody Sameness while being unmistakably human.”

In the world of The Giver , “with the exception of the psychic sessions between Jonas and the Giver, everything about this scenario is grounded in the physical world; order is maintained not by some ancient magic, but by technology, pharmaceuticals and old-fashioned authoritarianism.” Therefore, of its lazy ending, he writes, “the hurdle Jonas eventually faces is more akin to the enchanted object that a wizard-battling hero can simply smash to break the spell enslaving his kingdom. Wham-bam, no need for feel-good scenes of the peace he has brought to his fellow peasants. This easy out should go over especially badly with readers attached to the novel’s much more ambiguous end — though to be fair, audiences by now are so used to this type of nonsense that it hardly even registers.”

The New York Times ‘ Manohla Dargis notes that “the enervating hash of dystopian dread, vague religiosity and commercial advertising-style uplift is nothing if not stale,” adding that scenes “mostly evoke one of those tear-jerking commercials that sell their wares with gurgling babies and squirming puppies.” The script is deemed “lamentable” and the film is “saddled with cheap digital effects and sets that needed more money or imagination or both.” Though the book paved the way for The Hunger Games  and Divergent, both film adaptations helped to make The Giver more marketable, yet “scene by formulaic scene, narrative cliche by cliche — [it] can’t help but come off as a poor copy of those earlier pictures.”    

The       Los Angeles Times ‘ Kenneth Turan says, “It’s not that there’s anything terribly wrong with The Giver , … It’s more that the resulting film has a bland, earnest, even pokey quality that no amount of tinkering with the book’s plot has rectified,” pointing out its inherently action-less plot and twice-written script. The “added action sequences and increased melodrama feel half-hearted, where whatever stabs at tension and conflict we see have a clunky, manufactured air. … The problem with The Giver  is not that it departs from the book by adding things such as surveillance drones and hints of romance, it’s that it has been unable to find a way to make the essence of the novel cinematically involving.”

The Boston Globe ‘s Ty Burr writes that it’s “a family-friendly dystopian nightmare that won’t offend anyone but won’t get them very excited, either.” The production design of going from black-and-white to color “ works, to a point, allowing us to access the world’s greater beauty at the same speed with which Jonas does. The sequences between the hero and the Giver are easily the film’s most interesting — they dramatize the birth of awareness — even if Bridges pushes his character’s great age into caricature at times. Thwaites does sincere well and existential agony rather less well. Streep seems to have summoned the minimum amount of her immense talent for this very sketchy role.”

USA Today ‘s Claudia Puig  gives the film two stars out of four and praises the adult performances over the teen character portrayals. “While the 1993 book was a thoughtful, subtle meditation on mind control and the blandness of life in a pseudo-Utopia, the movie doesn’t convey that depth, … it lacks the resonance and mythic quality of Lowry’s literary allegory.” The memory sequences are less poignant onscreen than in prose, now like “a United Colors of Benetton ad,” but the “movie’s weakest segment is an extended action climax that turns this potent allegory — and its open-ended denouement — into a generic action thriller, complete with drones and menacing enforcers racing around on motorized bikes.”

Email: [email protected] Twitter: @cashleelee

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Book Reviews

The Giver by Lois Lowry: Book Review

My Synopsis:

Jonas is twelve years old, which means that it’s almost time for his community’s elders to announce which career he and each of his peers will begin training for in earnest. He ponders which tasks best suit him as he goes to classes, volunteers, and while he and his family discuss their feelings every evening after dinner.

Finally, the day of the Ceremony of Twelve arrives. Jonas realizes something is amiss when the announcer skips him and moves on to the next boy. He’s nervous and confused until the Chief Elder finally calls his name last and gives him the Assignment of the Receiver of Memories. He doesn’t even know what this Assignment entails because there can only be one Receiver and that person remains aloof. He quickly learns that the Receiver holds memories going back generations to a time when the world was quite different, everyone was more unique, and everyone felt both greater pain and greater pleasure.

This was published in 1993, when I was 15 years old, and I must have just barely missed having it as assigned reading in school. While it’s probably a classic to many of you, this was the first time I’ve read it. I was surprised by how unsettling it is.

Jonas’s world seems almost perfect at first. Everyone apologizes, no one has temper tantrums, and no one is treated differently than anyone else. Every child receives the same number of toys at the same time. No one is hungry and no one is sick. But what happens when someone does get sick or old or just doesn’t fit in? That’s where the unease creeps in.

As I read this, I could only think of Camazotz in A Wrinkle in Time . I’ve re-read that book fairly recently and I still remember the fear I felt for the boy who drops his ball. It’s a dropped ball–what’s the big deal? But he stands out as different and that is never a good thing in Camazotz. Jonas’s community has the same feel.

This is a short book, at almost five hours, and I wasn’t ready for it to end. The ending is ambiguous and I’ll be honest–I want closure.

I listened to this as read by Ron Rifkin. It was okay on audio but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this narrator. There was something about the high voice he used for children and the breathless way he ran phrases together that didn’t quite work for me. Also, when I listened through my ear buds instead of on my speaker phone, I could hear his lips smacking and that always freaks me out. I really didn’t care for the synthesizer music that was in the background at seemingly random moments. Others might not feel the same though.

I highly recommend this for a thought-provoking look at how narrow the differences are between a utopia and a dystopia. Sameness sounds comforting until you’re the one who’s just a little bit different.

Banned Books Week:

The Giver has been banned and challenged many, many times since its publication. It was number 11 on the list of the 100 most challenged books in the ’90s . It stayed on the list in the ’00s and the ’10s although it didn’t rank quite as high.

As I listened, I knew exactly when I got to a scene that would outrage some parents. Jonas is twelve, which means that he’s feeling some “stirrings,” as his parents call them. He has one dream that I thought was actually fairly innocent. These are feelings that the target age group can relate to and they’re a natural part of growing up. There’s also the infanticide, euthanasia, and some complaints referred to suicide but I must have missed that. I didn’t feel that any of these scenes are graphic or gratuitous. They aren’t easy things to read about or discuss. I get it. Parents are within their rights to ask for a different book for their own children. But making decisions for an entire community is just not cool. Ironically enough, that’s exactly the kind of thinking that probably led to Jonas’s dystopia.

Similar Books:

If you liked The Giver , you might also like my reviews of these other banned/challenged books:

• Blankets by Craig Thompson
• Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison
• Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

Reading Challenges:

Buy The Giver from Malaprop’s Bookstore in beautiful Asheville, NC or

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I definitely prefer books that leave you with some closure too! I was in school at the right age to read this, but was homeschooled during the years that it was assigned, so I still haven’t gotten to it.

I read this sometime in the late 90s (pre-blogging days), as an adult, and thought it was fantastic. I have a copy in my TBRR (To Be Re-Read) stack/list and should get to it soon. Thanks for the heads-up about the audio. I hate it when a narrator makes audible noises.

I read this one as an adult also, and really enjoyed it. (Hearing your thoughts on the audiobook, I’m glad I read it for myself, though.) It’s creepy and thought-provoking. It’s been a little while, but I think the suicide reference was about a kind of voluntary euthanasia? Maybe the person who had Jonas’ position before him? I’m not positive, though. It didn’t stand out to me as something needing a separate content warning, at any rate.

I think the Giver is an excellent book and provides so much for students/readers to think and talk about.

I read this years ago, and I’m so glad it’s still capturing readers. I agree that it’s up to the individual what they read or will allow their children to read, not some panel of “judges”.

I missed this as well when it came out. I read it for the first time about 8-10 years ago. It was interesting but it didn’t hit me like I thought it would. I think my son will be reading it this year in his English class. I may re-read it with him and see how he views it. Did you see the movie they did a few years ago?

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The Giver 25th Anniversary Edition: A Newbery Award Winner (Giver Quartet) Hardcover – Illustrated, October 2, 2018

• Print length 256 pages
• Language English
• Grade level 7 - 9
• Lexile measure 760L
• Dimensions 5.5 x 0.91 x 8.25 inches
• Publisher Clarion Books
• Publication date October 2, 2018
• ISBN-10 9781328471222
• ISBN-13 978-1328471222
• See all details

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Editorial Reviews

“A powerful and provocative novel." — New York Times

"Wrought with admirable skill—the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly provocative novel." — Kirkus Reviews   (starred review)

“Lowry is once again in top form raising many questions while answering few, and unwinding a tale fit for the most adventurous readers.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“The simplicity and directness of Lowry's writing force readers to grapple with their own thoughts.” — Booklist (starred review)

“Lois Lowry has written a fascinating, thoughtful science-fiction novel. The story is skillfully written; the air of disquiet is delicately insinuated. And the theme of balancing the virtues of freedom and security is beautifully presented." — Horn Book (starred review)

" The Giver  has things to say that cannot be said too often, and I hope there will be many, many young people who will be willing to listen. A warning in narrative form." — Washington Post

About the Author

Lois Lowry is the author of more than forty books for children and young adults, including the New York Times bestselling Giver Quartet and the popular Anastasia Krupnik series. She has received countless honors, among them the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, the California Young Reader Medal, and the Mark Twain Award. She received Newbery Medals for two of her novels, Number the Stars and The Giver .

Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1328471225
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Clarion Books; 25th edition (October 2, 2018)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781328471222
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1328471222
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 10+ years, from customers
• Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 760L
• Grade level ‏ : ‎ 7 - 9
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.91 x 8.25 inches
• #34 in Teen & Young Adult Fiction about Emotions & Feelings
• #69 in Teen & Young Adult Coming of Age Fantasy
• #136 in Teen & Young Adult Dystopian

About the author

Lois Lowry is known for her versatility and invention as a writer. She was born in Hawaii and grew up in New York, Pennsylvania, and Japan. After studying at Brown University, she married, started a family, and turned her attention to writing. She is the author of more than forty books for young adults, including the popular Anastasia Krupnik series. She has received countless honors, among them the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, the California Young Reader's Medal, and the Mark Twain Award. She received Newbery Medals for two of her novels, NUMBER THE STARS and THE GIVER. Her first novel, A SUMMER TO DIE, was awarded the International Reading Association's Children's Book Award. Several books have been adapted to film and stage, and THE GIVER has become an opera. Her newest book, ON THE HORIZON, is a collection of memories and images from Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, and post-war Japan. A mother and grandmother, Ms. Lowry divides her time between Maine and Florida. To learn more about Lois Lowry, see her website at www.loislowry.com

author interview

A CONVERSATION WITH LOIS LOWRY ABOUT THE GIVER

Q. When did you know you wanted to become a writer?

A. I cannot remember ever not wanting to be a writer.

Q. What inspired you to write The Giver?

A. Kids always ask what inspired me to write a particular book or how did I get an idea for a particular book, and often it’s very easy to answer that because books like the Anastasia books come from a specific thing; some little event triggers an idea. And some, like Number the Stars, rely on real history. But a book like The Giver is a much more complicated book, and therefore it comes from much more complicated places—and many of them are probably things that I don’t even recognize myself anymore, if I ever did. So it’s not an easy question to answer.

I will say that the whole concept of memory is one that interests me a great deal. I’m not sure why that is, but I’ve always been fascinated by the thought of what memory is and what it does and how it works and what we learn from it. And so I think probably that interest of my own and that particular subject was the origin, one of many, of The Giver.

Q. How did you decide what Jonas should take on his journey?

A. Why does Jonas take what he does on his journey? He doesn’t have much time when he sets out. He originally plans to make the trip farther along in time, and he plans to prepare for it better. But then, because of circumstances, he has to set out in a very hasty fashion. So what he chooses is out of necessity. He takes food because he needs to survive. He takes the bicycle because he needs to hurry and the bike is faster than legs. And he takes the baby because he is going out to create a future. Babies—and children—always represent the future. Jonas takes the baby, Gabriel, because he loves him and wants to save him, but he takes the baby also in order to begin again with a new life.

Q. When you wrote the ending, were you afraid some readers would want more details or did you want to leave the ending open to individual interpretation?

A. Many kids want a more specific ending to The Giver. Some write, or ask me when they see me, to spell it out exactly. And I don’t do that. And the reason is because The Giver is many things to many different people. People bring to it their own complicated beliefs and hopes and dreams and fears and all of that. So I don’t want to put my own feelings into it, my own beliefs, and ruin that for people who create their own endings in their minds.

Q. Is it an optimistic ending? Does Jonas survive?

A. I will say that I find it an optimistic ending. How could it not be an optimistic ending, a happy ending, when that house is there with its lights on and music is playing? So I’m always kind of surprised and disappointed when some people tell me that they think the boy and the baby just die. I don’t think they die. What form their new life takes is something I like people to figure out for themselves. And each person will give it a different ending. I think they’re out there somewhere and I think that their life has changed and their life is happy, and I would like to think that’s true for the people they left behind as well.

Q. In what way is your book Gathering Blue a companion to The Giver?

A. Gathering Blue postulates a world of the future, as The Giver does. I simply created a different kind of world, one that had regressed instead of leaping forward technologically as the world of The Giver has. It was fascinating to explore the savagery of such a world. I began to feel that maybe it coexisted with Jonas’s world . . . and that therefore Jonas could be a part of it in a tangential way. So there is a reference to a boy with light eyes at the end of Gathering Blue. Originally I thought he could be either Jonas or not, as the reader chose. But since then I have published two more books—Messenger, and Son—which complete The Giver Quartet and make clear that the light-eyed boy is, indeed. Jonas. In the book Son readers will find out what became of all their favorite characters: Jonas, Gabe, and Kira as well, from Gathering Blue. And there are some new characters—most especially Claire, who is fourteen at the beginning of Son— whom I hope they will grow to love.

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Customers find the narrative very thought-provoking and mysterious. They also praise the writing quality as extremely well written and simple. Readers describe the book as fantastic for all ages. They appreciate the themes as incredible, kind, and providing for all their needs. Opinions are mixed on the plot, with some finding it satisfying and gentle, while others say it's bland and unanswered. Reader opinions also differ on the emotional content, with others finding it very emotional and vivid, while other find it distressing and annoying. Reader also disagree on the length, with one finding the chapters short enough and the print large enough, while another feels the book is too short for a concept as broad as The Giver.

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Customers find the narrative thought-provoking, providing an abundance of conversational topics appropriate in multiple settings. They also say the story is intense, surprising, and sad. Readers say the book can be enjoyed at different levels and provides many shocks and surprises. They appreciate the subtle yet powerful questioning of free will and the rendition upon perspective of reality.

"...While a very good book for adults, it is also a true masterpiece for its intended audience , children...." Read more

"...What is missing in the people’s lives? The Giver is a very thought-provoking book .Jonas lives in this community...." Read more

"...The first book that we listened to was 'The Giver'. What a captivating , albeit bleak, fictional world Ms. Lowry has created!..." Read more

"...At its core, "The Giver" serves as a poignant commentary on the dangers of conformity and the erosion of individuality in the face of authoritarian..." Read more

Customers find the writing quality of the book extremely well written, easily descriptive, and quick to read. They also appreciate the simplicity of the story conveyed through the chapters, and the author's choice of powerful subject. Readers also mention that the book is imaginative, creative, and poetic at times.

"...It is a book that is, in a way, simple in its complexity ...." Read more

"...From beginning to end, this book held my rapt attention. It was beautifully written and thought provoking. '..." Read more

"...We should be concerned about what our children read. Reading is an intimate experience ...." Read more

"...Words must be appropriately used. Speech is controlled , ordered, restricted...." Read more

Customers like the adult content in the book. They say it's a fantastic book for all ages, and children would identify with the plot. They also say it’s wholesome and a good story about friendship.

"...While a very good book for adults , it is also a true masterpiece for its intended audience, children...." Read more

"... An all-around great story ! I'll probably download the next books in the series for our next road-trip to take "Nana" home after the holidays." Read more

"This story is great for children and adults as I think it can relate to their lives, while also giving people a fantasy world that everyone dreams..." Read more

"...I had read it sooner - It tells a poignant story that is appropriate for almost all ages (I would recommend it for middle schoolers and above), and..." Read more

Customers find the writing style fresh, flowing well, and clean. They also say it's a quick read that carries them along.

"...It can be read in a few hours , but that does not decrease its impact, which is something like that of a sledgehammer...." Read more

"...She also enjoyed the book. Reading about 30min a day she finished pretty quickly . I think this is a book all youth need to read...." Read more

"...Her writing is fresh, flows well , and carries the reader along at an amazing pace that builds tension well and guide the reader at the same time...." Read more

"...In some parts, the story skips forwardl months, skipping very valuable time that could be used to fill out the story, and flesh out the characters..." Read more

Customers find the messages in the story incredible, poignant, and relevant. They also say the book teaches the importance of love, family, friends, color, and change. Readers say the novel leaves a lasting impression and brings up themes of freedom, uniqueness, and individuality.

"...from the Giver, he experiences pain and suffering but also love and freedom of choice . He also begins to see the world in color...." Read more

"...The Giver is an amazing book ...." Read more

"...of the story conveyed through the chapters; a positive message for everyone to read 2. The Giver!..." Read more

"...surprising, sad but at the same time beautiful and teach the real meaning of love and sacrifice ...." Read more

Customers are mixed about the plot. Some find it amazing, stunning, and satisfying. They appreciate the story and timeliness of the events. They say it makes the reader question their wants, desires, and hopes. However, others say the plot seems bland, the ending was left on a cliffhanger, and the book seems unfinished. They also say the author didn't describe it clearly.

"...What a captivating, albeit bleak, fictional world Ms. Lowry has created! I was absolutely spellbound by her storytelling...." Read more

"...With that said, I found the entirety of this story very morose , which I suppose coincides with its topic of a society void of feelings and..." Read more

"...Nevertheless, this classic bested me. It makes the reader question their wants , their desires, their hopes...." Read more

"...There is a sense of ambiguity about the ending when you get to it...." Read more

Customers are mixed about the emotional content. Some find the book very emotional, sad, touching, and shocking. Others say that the dystopian novel is too grim for them, lacking extreme emotions, and having a strong feeling of deja vu.

"...What a captivating, albeit bleak , fictional world Ms. Lowry has created! I was absolutely spellbound by her storytelling...." Read more

"...The story begins in a utopia. No one feels pain , no one is unhappy...." Read more

"...I can't explain it, but there is a strong feeling of deja vu for me throughout the novel...." Read more

"... Heartbreaking , moving, and thought provoking. Well done" Read more

Customers are mixed about the length of the book. Some find the chapters short enough that students, even those who are initially resistant, can read them. They also like the simplicity of the story, and the print is large enough for their less than perfect vision. However, some customers feel the book is too short for a concept as broad as the giver.

"...than that there was not many real foibles in this book, and the chapters were short and easy to read." Read more

"...The way Lois Lowry wrote these stories is breathtaking. They are not long books . The language is simple and straightforward...." Read more

"...3. Not enough chapters! Way too short ! Give me 400 pages worth of reading! XDMy Favorite Quotes:' “..." Read more

"...i think this book is kind of short though and read it in less than 12 hours...." Read more

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Eliza Barclay

Opinion Climate Editor

Houston Shows Why We Should Make Peace With Ugly Power Lines

When Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas on Monday, its winds were strong enough to take out 10 long-distance transmission lines and to knock down many trees that brought down power lines. All told, nearly three million people lost electricity. Many of them are still waiting for a local utility, CenterPoint, to restore their power. If, as predicted, the heat index hits the triple digits over the next few days, having power could be the difference between life and death.

Power outages aren’t a given when a big storm hits — by cutting down trees next to power lines and installing poles that can withstand hurricane-force winds, utilities can help keep the power on. That’s power that people could use to run their air conditioning and medical devices, keep their food cold and charge their phones.

Too few cities, however, are investing in storm-resistant infrastructure. One reason is that upgrading the power infrastructure is costly, and neither electricity customers nor cities or states are eager to foot the bill. Another more frustrating reason is that people often oppose tree removal or the installation of larger, hurricane-proof power lines because they don’t like the way they look.

According to Ed Hirs, an energy fellow at the University of Houston, residents have pushed back against upgrades to power infrastructure in both Houston and Austin. “Everybody likes their trees,” he told me. “And we plant trees really close to the lines. Nobody likes to trim the trees back because, well, the power lines are unsightly.” CenterPoint, he said, has “caught hell” in Houston for cutting down trees and installing a few weatherproofed power lines.

Tension between the strain that climate change places on infrastructure and the aesthetic preferences of a small number of community members continues to emerge across the country. A recent survey of solar and wind energy developers found that visual concerns were the most common form of local opposition to new projects — projects that will help shore up the grid against outages and blackouts. In California, residents who didn’t want two major solar projects impinging on their views (among other reasons) appealed the approval of one project several times; in Iowa, a major wind farm project’s approval is in doubt because local people said they were worried about the visual impact of the turbines, as well as noise.

Preparing for and adapting to climate change involves sturdy and by some standards ugly infrastructure — and it’s time that Americans start to see it as lifesaving instead. As The Economist put it on a memorable cover last year: “Hug Pylons, Not Trees.”

Paul Krugman

Opinion Columnist

A Beautiful Inflation Report

One of my go-to economic data experts emailed on Thursday morning about the latest inflation report , which showed prices actually falling in June and up only 3 percent over the past year. It was, he declared, “beautiful.”

Your aesthetic sense may vary, but we’ve now had two months of really good price data, enough to puncture the bubble of pessimism that, um, inflated early this year. And the implications of the good news are pretty big.

Early this year we had several bad reports, which led to widespread concern that inflation had stopped falling and might even be increasing; some even suggested that the Fed might want to increase interest rates rather than begin cutting.

Many economists argued, however, that the bad data was just noise, largely reflecting one-time price resets at the start of the year. They have now been vindicated. Note that the Federal Reserve focuses not on the Consumer Price Index but on an alternative measure, the personal consumption expenditure price index, which isn’t in yet for June. But estimates based on the data available so far suggest that the P.C.E. will come in at around 2.4 percent, close to the Fed’s 2 percent target. And since the Fed is supposed to skate to where the puck will be, not where it is right now, there’s now an overwhelming case for interest rate cuts.

Economists who told us not to panic over a few hot inflation reports aren’t the only people who have been vindicated. Taking a longer view, the White House economic team also has every right to a victory lap. Here’s what the team said three years ago :

No single historical episode is a perfect template for current events. But when looking for historical parallels, it is useful to concentrate on inflationary episodes that contained supply chain disruptions and a spike in consumer demand after a period of temporary suppression. The inflationary period after World War II is likely a better comparison for the current economic situation than the 1970s and suggests that inflation could quickly decline once supply chains are fully online and pent-up demand levels off.

That process took longer than expected, but in the end played out almost exactly the way they predicted. And yes, as someone who held similar views, I’m feeling some personal satisfaction.

Stepping back even further, whatever you think President Biden should do next — I’ve said my piece — the inflation news is a big vindication for Bidenomics. The administration was harshly criticized for its spending, which critics claimed would lead to ’70s-type stagflation. Well, it didn’t, and big spending has helped the U.S. economy power ahead of peer nations.

All in all, a very good morning on the economic front. Now, if we can only clean up the political mess … .

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Nicholas Kristof

The Biden Campaign Gets Petty With George Clooney

The calls for President Biden to withdraw from the presidential race have mostly been made lovingly, in tones of deep respect. Many of us have known and admired Biden for decades, and we believe he has had an excellent term in office.

Think of it this way: It’s precisely because you love your aging parents that you want them to give up the car keys.

Yet Biden’s pushback has been sad and sometimes petty. He denounced the suggestions as coming from “elites” and “big names” — which is rich coming from a president — and his team mocked the Democratic “ bed-wetting brigade .” Aides dismissed calls to step down as coming from failed presidential candidates like Senator Michael Bennet and Julián Castro, the former housing secretary, or from people in the Obama orbit, like David Axelrod.

Perhaps the most pathetic White House response was directed at George Clooney, who last month co-hosted the biggest Democratic fund-raiser ever for Biden. In a Times Opinion guest essay on Wednesday, Clooney praised Biden but also said that the Biden at the fund-raiser “was the same man we all witnessed at the debate” — and so called on him to withdraw.

“Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020,” Clooney wrote, reflecting his tone throughout the essay. “We need him to do it again in 2024.”

Biden’s pushback was less magnanimous, with one person in his circle telling a Times reporter: “The president stayed for over three hours, while Clooney took a photo quickly and left.”

As it happens, I know something about the circumstances of the event, and here’s what happened, according to someone involved in it. Biden’s team proposed a fund-raiser to be held in June, but Clooney was shooting a movie and offered the only date he could do it — which required him to then rush straight to the airport from the event. The campaign agreed and offered no pushback.

Clooney arrived early and spent hours being photographed with donors before opening the show — and then left from the event to fly to Italy for his movie shoot. Biden certainly didn’t complain; on the contrary, he left a thank-you message on Clooney’s voice mail.

And really? Biden’s team seemed to be suggesting that the president somehow has more stamina than George Clooney. That’s cringeworthy.

Perhaps the most interesting response to the Clooney essay came from Donald Trump in a Truth Social rant : “So now fake movie actor George Clooney, who never came close to making a great movie, is getting into the act. He’s turned on Crooked Joe like the rats they both are. What does Clooney know about anything?”

Trump seemed aghast at any pressure on Biden to withdraw from the race — perhaps because he realizes that the only Democratic presidential candidate weaker than him is the president. Finally, Trump may be right about something.

So let’s hope Biden and his team listen to those calling for him to rethink his position. It may be tempting to lash back, but it’s beneath him.

Farah Stockman

Editorial Board Member

Europe vs. Europe

Can Europe get on the same page with itself? That’s perhaps the biggest question lingering in the background of the NATO summit in Washington this week marking the 75th anniversary of the world’s most successful alliance.

Despite conventional wisdom that says Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine unified European allies against a common threat — and a joint declaration that underscores that point — there continue to be huge differences of opinion within Europe about how big a danger Vladimir Putin is. Jason Davidson , a political scientist who interviewed 98 security analysts in the United States, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Poland for his upcoming academic book about NATO, told me that Europeans have very different views about what constitutes the greatest threat.

“Italy, for instance, is far more concerned with instability from the Mediterranean than Russia,” he said, citing threats to maritime commerce and unauthorized immigration. Italy’s priority is widely shared by countries on NATO’s southern flank — Spain, Portugal, Greece and Turkey, he said. People in Poland, on the other hand, were universally concerned about Moscow.

But perhaps the biggest divide is between the European Union — which released a defense industrial strategy in March that aims to promote an indigenous defense industry — and NATO, which is busy reminding Americans how lucrative defending Europe can be for American firms, to ensure that the United States stays in the alliance. It’s not hard to find officials affiliated with the European Union and NATO criticizing one another’s visions for the defense of Europe.

“There is a risk that the E.U.’s strategy aims to simply replace ‘buy American’ with ‘buy French’ at a time when all allies must urgently work even closer together to boost defense production,” Oana Lungescu, a former NATO spokesperson and now a distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told me before the summit began. She said the Union’s plan risked undermining NATO by setting up alternative military standards and creating “confusion.”

The good news is that NATO devoted a section of its joint declaration at the summit to ironing out its differences with the European Union, which it called a “a unique and essential partner.” If Europe hopes to deter Putin and other threats, it had better put up a united front.

Meher Ahmad

Opinion Staff Editor

There’s So Much We Don’t Know About the Death Toll in Gaza

Last week in a letter to the medical journal The Lancet, three doctors attempted to answer a difficult question: How many Palestinian deaths could be attributed to Israel’s incursion into Gaza?

The doctors, who have backgrounds in research and public health, used a ratio derived from recent conflicts showing that three to 15 times as many people die from indirect causes as perish from direct bombardment. In their description, indirect deaths can extend months and years beyond the current conflict from “causes such as reproductive, communicable and noncommunicable diseases.” Using the latest death toll provided by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry (close to 37,000 deaths), the doctors say even a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths for each direct death would mean up to 186,000 Palestinian deaths “could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.”

It’s a staggering number, but it’s an extrapolation from an estimated ratio. Given the information vacuum that is Gaza today, it’s an example of what happens when experts have little data to work with, giving rise to projections, dueling propaganda and, in the end, a narrowing window of accountability.

The death toll in Gaza has been contested from the start of the war. Israel sealed Gaza’s borders after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, making it virtually impossible for outside journalists and third-party organizations to independently verify the extent of the calamity taking place there.

The gap in verifiable coverage has opened the way for a macabre debate about the scale of the dead in Gaza. Skeptics and many Israeli officials see the Gaza Health Ministry as an unreliable source. The United Nations and other major international groups have said they have no reason to disbelieve the count. The Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its death count, and in May the U.N. revised its subtotal number of dead women and children to reflect only identified women and children, excluding unidentified bodies .

Yet many, including Human Rights Watch and a Biden administration official , believe the Health Ministry count to be low, in part because the number comes from hospital staff members and health workers who are strained under a collapsing infrastructure , often without proper training or equipment. Many Palestinians are reported to be dead and unidentifiable under rubble; several have described the smell of decomposing bodies as omnipresent in destroyed areas.

The letter to The Lancet is more a call for open documentation of casualties than anything else. Without access to Gaza, the outside world is left with an incomplete picture of the scale of the destruction, as Palestinians living there enter their tenth month of enduring widespread violence. It’s difficult to predict if and when a day will come for a true accounting of the casualties of this conflict. Until then, these grim ratios and estimations are what we have to try to comprehend the scale of the unimaginable.

David Firestone

Deputy Editor, the Editorial Board

Biden Should Listen Hard to Trump’s Ravings

Several voices in the Democratic Party are telling President Biden to either stay in the race or leave. He seems to be listening only to those telling him, against all evidence, that he can still win in November. But the real voice Biden should care most about isn’t that of a Democrat at all. The president should be required to watch all 80 minutes of the unhinged rant let loose by the Republican candidate on Tuesday in Florida.

It couldn’t really be called a speech; Donald Trump doesn’t give those. Instead, standing on his golf course in Doral, Trump just lobbed random lies and nonsense into the crowd, as if firing a T-shirt gun. There was no particular coherence or theme to it, beyond apocalyptic descriptions of the failures of the Biden administration, now featuring the new cartoon character “Laffin’ Kamala Harris.” His weird pauses and bumbled words often rivaled Biden’s speaking problems, and the content was far worse.

By pursuing legal charges against him and his cronies for trying to stay in power in 2020, Biden “and his thugs,” Trump said, “are turning America into Communist Cuba.” Biden “ doesn’t know what a synagogue is ,” he said. Electric cars are essentially golf carts and have to be recharged for three hours every 45 minutes, he said. Melania won’t buy him bacon anymore because it’s too expensive. He challenged Biden to a golf contest. And then, ignoring the statistics showing a sharp drop in crime in Washington, D.C., this year, he produced this twisted take on tourism at the city’s biggest attractions:

“Right now, if you leave Florida, ‘Oh, let’s go, darling, let’s look at the Jefferson Memorial, let’s look at the Washington Monument, let’s go and look at some of the beautiful scenes,’ and you end up getting shot, mugged, raped.” That would come as a shock to the crowds of tourists on the Mall in Washington this summer.

Trump’s remarks should prompt revulsion and an immediate desire to do whatever it takes to keep him from the White House. No sacrifice should be considered too great for this cause, even the self-sacrifice of Biden’s personal ambitions. By staying in the race, Biden is making it far more likely that a disordered fearmonger is going to displace him. Dave Wasserman, a prominent political analyst at Cook Political Report, says the race is no longer a tossup ; Trump has a considerable advantage since the debate, and Cook just shifted six important states in Trump’s direction.

The Biden campaign put out a sharp retort to Trump’s rant, but news releases won’t do the job when the infirmities of the man at the top of the Democratic ticket continue to drive away voters, state by state.

Serge Schmemann

Macron’s Gamble Has Opened the Door to ‘La Rupture’

Two terms crop up often in the French political lexicon: “la rupture” and “la cohabitation.” The former means the same as in English and is applied to any political parting of the ways — between candidates, parties, ideologies. “Cohabitation” refers to times when the president and the majority in the National Assembly fall into different political camps.

Both terms have been in heavy use since the second and final round of the surprise election President Emmanuel Macron called on June 10, after the far right scored big in elections to the European Parliament. Macron’s timing and calculations remain a bit puzzling, but stopping Marine Le Pen and her nationalist, anti-immigrant National Rally was one major goal; another was to achieve “clarity” in a muddled political landscape in which the president was growing increasingly unpopular. French elections come in two rounds, and Macron probably hoped that a strong showing by Le Pen in round one would shock the electorate into common sense in round two.

The gambit succeeded. After scoring big in the first round Le Pen was blocked in the second. But clarity was not to be. Rather than flock to Macron’s center, voters shifted to a hastily assembled bloc of left-wing parties called the New Popular Front, which included traditional Socialists, radical leftists, Communists and Greens. They are now the biggest grouping in the National Assembly, the French parliament.

That was the rupture. Now comes the challenge of cohabitation. The left-wing coalition is hardly favorable for Macron, especially given that the strongest party in the grouping, the aggressively named France Unbowed, is also the most radical, under the rabble-rousing Jean-Luc Mélenchon. He doesn’t get along with Macron, or most any of his partners, and has already demanded the prime ministry for his party.

The left, moreover, will go after many of Macron’s pet economic policies. Last year, the president unleashed fiery protests when he raised the retirement age from 62 to 64; the left wants to lower it to 60, along with other costly social spending the French economy is not in shape to handle. And Mélenchon, a supporter of the Palestinian cause, might try to recognize a Palestinian state.

There’s no indication yet of Macron’s choice for prime minister. He could try someone from his humbled party, or an acceptable leftist, or an apolitical technocrat. In any case, past bouts of cohabitation have not achieved much.

As for the far right, blocking the National Rally — again — may have brought relief, but it was hardly a victory. The party got 37 percent of the vote and increased its seats in the parliament from 89 to 142, the most of any single party. It can’t be dismissed as the radical fringe of nativists and antisemites the way it was in its early years.

So we’re likely to hear “rupture” a lot more.

Pamela Paul

It’s an Old Story: Great Authors Are Not Always Great People

Is a single transgression enough to torpedo a writer’s reputation — Virginia Woolf wearing blackface , for example? Or does the full-throated denouncement require a lifetime of racism, antisemitism, homophobia, sexism, Naziism or collaboration, along the lines of Jack London, Henry Miller, Thomas Mann or Jean Rhys?

All are writers who are still read.

But these are different times, and so the question arises anew with regard to recently named transgressors, Neil Gaiman and Alice Munro , both celebrated, even beloved figures.

Let’s go over what we know. With Alice Munro , the facts are straightforward and damning . According to an essay by Munro’s daughter Andrea Skinner in The Toronto Star, Munro stayed married to the man who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing her daughter.

With Neil Gaiman, the issue is knottier. The author was recently accused of sex abuse and rape , allegations he has emphatically denied . We don’t know what happened, but recent history shows that for some audiences, accusations alone are too often sufficient evidence. It doesn’t bode well.

The question of whether you can separate the art and the artist is old and vexing, with no clear answer, though the current cultural consensus holds strongly against. As Jean Luc Godard ( alleged to be antisemitic ) once said , “How can I hate John Wayne upholding Goldwater and yet love him tenderly when abruptly he takes Natalie Wood into his arms in the last reel of ‘The Searchers’?”

Even some who argue that, say, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot or Louis-Ferdinand Celine can still be appreciated despite reprehensible views or acts may also insist that artists whose work is closely tied to their personal lives, like Woody Allen or David Foster Wallace, for example, should be held to account.

In these latter-day cases, the verdict, spiked with envy and resentment, seems preordained. Will there be a double standard between Neil Gaiman, who is a prominent and commercially successful online figure, and Alice Munro, who led a humble, quiet existence in Canada and whose stature among the literati has achieved Joan Didion-level worship?

Most people in the literary world know that writers are flawed humans just like everyone else, only a little more so. Even so, most of us do not really know these people; we know them mostly through their writing.

Great writing is about human complexity, not the black-and-white moralizing of the internet mob. In the eyes of the wise reader, whatever our judgments of the authors, their writing only becomes yet more interesting, more telling, more potent.

Jamelle Bouie

The Anti-Abortion Movement Is Perverting the 14th Amendment

Donald Trump pushed the Republican Party’s platform committee to change its language on abortion, and on the surface it looks like an exercise in relative moderation.

Where the 2016 and 2020 Republican platforms called for a national abortion ban, demanded a constitutional amendment to establish due-process rights for embryos and fetuses and stated that “the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed,” the 2024 platform simply states the Republican Party’s belief that “the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied life or liberty without due process and that the states are, therefore, free to pass laws protecting those rights.”

This change, said NBC News and other outlets , is a “softening” of the party’s position on abortion.

But is it really?

The lodestar for the anti-abortion movement has always been a constitutional guarantee of fetal personhood, which would outlaw abortion and threaten the legality of both IVF and hormonal birth control. (This endorsement of protection for fetal personhood also makes clear that the platform’s ostensible support for IVF is cheap political posturing.) To state, in the context of abortion, that the 14th Amendment guarantees due process and that legislatures are free to pass laws “protecting those rights” is to outright endorse the legal theory that the Constitution already outlaws abortion with or without amendment.

The new platform language may lack the specificity of the old, but it expresses the same basic commitment to vast restrictions on reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. Moreover, the Republican Party coalition is still grounded in the grass roots activity of anti-abortion groups and the ideological ambitions of movement jurists and politicians. The platform makes no real difference in their efforts to ban abortion and limit a woman’s right to live a free life and pursue her own vision of the good.

It should be said as well that in the same way it is perverse for conservative legal activists and Supreme Court justices to use the Reconstruction amendments — written and ratified to assist the formerly enslaved and enshrine a principle of anti-subordination in the Constitution — to dismantle this nation’s halting efforts at substantive racial equality, it is also perverse for the anti-abortion movement to use the 14th Amendment as a cudgel against bodily autonomy in the name of so-called fetal rights.

Animating that amendment, as well as the 13th, was the reality that Black Americans could not be secure in their persons — in their bodies and reproductive capacities — as long as the badges, incidents and vestiges of chattel slavery endured in the nation’s constitutional order. If, in other words, American slavery rested on reproductive enslavement — the forced birth and breeding of men and women for profit — then anti-slavery had to mean reproductive liberation.

What the anti-abortion movement wants is a dark and cruel inversion of what the Reconstruction framers intended.

The Second-Worst Decision Democrats Could Make Right Now

I was an early and enthusiastic fan of Kamala Harris when she first ran for president. She had an inspiring personal story and an impressive résumé. Here was someone who had been a senator, an attorney general and a prosecutor. She had been an advocate for recidivism reduction and other measures of criminal justice reform, and had proved she could be tough in the Senate, where her questioning was described as “prosecutorial.” She seemed gutsy and capable and a fine candidate for national office.

Wow, was I wrong. Look, it’s hard to shine as vice president — as John Adams put it, “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.” But Harris has also proved how easy it is to sink.

Between her high staff turnover, her ineffectiveness on migration and the border, her chronically low approval ratings and her often embarrassing public experiences — remember, Harris chose to subject herself to the cringe on “The Drew Barrymore Show” — she has not exuded competence or inspired confidence.

Yet despite Joe Biden insisting he can still drive, dagnabbit, talk of anointing Harris as his replacement has started to take hold. Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina said he would support Harris if Biden drops out, also proposing a mini-primary. “The Democratic Nominee in 2024 should be Kamala Harris,” the former congressman Tim Ryan wrote in Newsweek last week. “She is brilliant, compassionate, engaging, funny and totally down to earth,” he wrote, and “more importantly, she deserves a chance to go to the American people and show us her mettle.”

Choosing a presidential candidate should not be about someone proving herself or “deserving a chance.” It should be about who has the best chance. This should not be about advancing women, Black people or people of South Asian descent. It should be about beating back Donald Trump with the most electable and capable candidate possible.

That Harris leads Biden slightly in polls as a possible replacement candidate only shows how low that bar is. Those same polls suggest she would still lose against Trump.

If some racist or sexist Americans wouldn’t vote for Harris based on her ethnicity, race or sex, shame on them. But to argue against Harris is not inherently racist or sexist.

If Democrats are serious about not wanting to lose this election — and most important, preventing Trump from resuming power — they need to stop trying to make Harris happen and allow an open primary. Americans need a candidate who will win.

Michelle Cottle

Opinion Writer

What Primary Voters Didn’t Know About President Biden

Buckle up for another bumpy political week. As Washington lawmakers slouch back from their holiday break, they have been greeted by a defiant letter from President Biden, effectively daring them to try derailing his re-election bid.

Thank you for sharing your concerns, he wrote. “I am not blind to them.” That said, he continued, “I wouldn’t be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024.”

No matter how many times he repeats it, this assurance remains worthless. What high-ranking politician doesn’t believe in his own exceptionalism? I mean, Ron DeSantis was 100 percent convinced he was the best person to beat Trump this year, and we see where that got him.

But where Biden seems intent on making toxic mischief is with grand pronouncements about preserving democracy.

“We had a Democratic nomination process and the voters have spoken clearly and decisively,” he asserted, ticking through the number of votes, the percentage of the primary vote and the number of delegates he amassed — as if a re-election primary coronation is anything like an open race.

“Do we now just say this process didn’t matter?” he wrote. “That the voters don’t have a say? I decline to do that.” Only the voters decide the nominee, he said, not the press, pundits, donors or other “selected” groups of individuals. “How can we stand for democracy in our nation if we ignore it in our own party?”

So much to unpack. Let’s just go with this piece: While there is an abundance of Democratic pundits, donors and members of “selected” groups, I’m confident it’s not enough to account for the 59 percent of Democrats who, post-debate, fear Biden is too old for the job, according to the latest Times/Siena poll.

What about these voters? Or the 79 percent of independents who expressed similar anxiety? Do they not matter? Are we not concerned about their faith and trust as they grapple with apparently having been misled about the president’s fitness? How do they feel about Biden’s people stage-managing and shielding him to the point that it was almost impossible for voters to assess his fitness until absurdly late in the race? Are the voters who feel betrayed going to punish the entire Democratic Party come November?

Biden aggressively pitching the situation as him and the grass roots versus a bunch of snooty elites may make him feel tough. But it accomplishes little more than fueling discord and division within his own party. He needs to show people he is up to the job, and not just assert as much while pretending this is a crisis manufactured by bed-wetting establishment types.

The president and his team have proved they know how to write a strong and salty letter. If only that were all there was to the job.

Katherine Miller

Opinion Writer and Editor

The Big Decisions Facing Trump and Biden This Week

Every Monday morning on The Point, we kick off the week with a tipsheet on the latest in the presidential campaign. Here’s what we’re looking at this week:

This will be a very full, unpredictable week of politics. In terms of where everyone is: Donald Trump will hold rallies in Miami on Tuesday and near Pittsburgh on Saturday. President Biden will host a NATO summit in Washington beginning Tuesday, and is expected to hold a news conference on Thursday. He will also campaign in Detroit on Friday. Kamala Harris will hold a campaign event in Las Vegas on Tuesday, and Jill Biden will hold a slate of campaign events in the Southeast on Monday.

How strong is Biden’s support with congressional Democrats? This week might answer that. One thing I’ve seen in the last decade that will most likely shape the politics of it, though, is really about what elected officials say publicly; the public pays attention to what politicians say on the record, so if they back him or tell him to leave, voters will take that more seriously than the private commentary.

On Sunday, a number of Pennsylvania Democrats, including both senators, welcomed Biden at the airport, and there have been shows of support from people like Bernie Sanders and Joyce Beatty . A small number of House members, like Minnesota’s Angie Craig, have said publicly that he should step aside; there’s also been reporting on private meetings where additional Democrats have said he should withdraw.

There are elected officials like Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who said Sunday there were still voter concerns about Biden’s 2024 viability that the president needs to address this week. Congress is coming back to Washington on Monday, which might make things more chaotic in the short term, when a few hundred lawmakers, aides and reporters begin interacting. How congressional leaders like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries approach his candidacy seems likely to shape a lot.

Trump is widely expected to announce his vice-presidential pick this week — maybe J.D. Vance, Doug Burgum or Marco Rubio, though it could be someone else. That pick might not change people’s perceptions of Trump personally, but it might give a real lens to the rest of the campaign.

In 2012, for instance, whether Mitt Romney intended this or not, his selection of Paul Ryan affirmed the idea of their campaign as an ideological, austerity-minded one; in retrospect, that was probably the apex of entitlement-reform politics in America. Vance is now very much a post-Trump figure , and there’s a universe in which his selection makes the rest of Trump’s campaign and potential presidency look different and more ideologically aggressive and populist, compared with, say, Burgum, who is perceived as being more from the corporate, business world.

Republicans are also meeting, privately, about the party’s platform this week. Longtime anti-abortion activists are deeply unhappy with the reported plan to drop the party’s commitment to a national abortion ban in favor of Trump’s “states should decide” position that doesn’t really satisfy anyone, especially people who want abortion to be legal.

Maureen Dowd

On Congenital Liars, Then and Now

In his Friday back-against-the-wall interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, President Biden said of Donald Trump, “The man is a congenital liar.”

That rang some bells with longtime Times readers.

In 1996, when Bill Clinton was running for re-election, William Safire wrote a blistering Times column about Hillary Clinton called “ Blizzard of Lies. ” Citing Whitewater, Travelgate, exponential commodity trading profits and behavior in the wake of her friend Vince Foster’s death, he wrote: “Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady — a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation — is a congenital liar. Drip by drip, like Whitewater torture, the case is being made that she is compelled to mislead, and to ensnare her subordinates and friends in a web of deceit.”

Then the kerfuffle began. Bill Clinton said he wanted to punch Safire in the face . His spokesman, Mike McCurry, told reporters: “The president, if he were not the president, would have delivered a more forceful response to that on the bridge of Mr. Safire’s nose.”

Safire was presented with a pair of red boxing gloves on “Meet the Press.”

The famous Times wordsmith, who had a column called “On Language” in addition to his conservative political column, was accused by some of choosing the wrong word. Congenital is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “Existing or dating from one’s birth,” as in a “congenital disease or defect.” It was harsh.

As the author and journalist Garry Wills wrote in The Washington Post , “It seems a gratuitous, if not cruel, description of a woman who is not accused, or suspected, of such innate deceptiveness during the first 45 years of her life.”

My pal Safire took all the criticism with his usual equanimity. But one day during this donnybrook, I wandered into his office down the hall from mine in the Washington bureau. I wanted to see what he thought. He wasn’t there but in plain view, he had left a list of synonyms for “congenital,” starting with “chronic.” So he may have had his doubts about the word he chose, as well.

But in the latest instance, President Biden probably chose the right word. Donald Trump not only gives the impression that he has been lying since the cradle, but seems proud of it. So “congenital” works pretty well.

Frank Bruni

Contributing Opinion Writer

President Biden and the Lord Almighty

On Friday President Biden named the one scenario by which he’d decide to abandon his re-election campaign:

If “the Lord Almighty came down” and told him to.

Not if Democratic leaders in Congress insisted it was best for the party and country. Not if other prominent Democrats begged. Not if polls showed him losing to Donald Trump in November. (They already do.) Biden essentially said that those leaders would never lose faith and those polls can’t be trusted. Everything will be fine. Everything is fine.

Either Biden genuinely believes that or has decided that a pantomime of unsullied confidence is the best damage control. Neither possibility reassures me, and I suspect that neither will end Democratic worries about his fitness and about voters’ impressions of it.

Biden made his remarks in an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News that was all of 22 minutes long and was broadcast, unedited, in prime time. The interview continued his effort to explain, improve on and erase his shockingly unsteady performance in a debate against Trump over a week ago.

And Biden indeed improved on it. He ably extolled his first-term record, even if some sentences were rickety, with some details incorrect. He wisely emphasized crucial differences between him and Trump and rightly recognized the stakes of defeating Trump.

But Stephanopoulos wasn’t asking Biden about Trump. He was asking Biden about his own health, and Biden deflected many of those questions or answered them tersely. He conceded no physical decline since 2020. He cast this current passage as 2020 all over again — needless panic and predictable underestimations of his strength. He pretty much rolled his eyes at a reference to his supposedly low approval rating. And he scoffed at the suggestion that he have a thorough neurological work-up.

Stephanopoulos kept asking about the future. Biden kept talking about the past.

But this isn’t 2020. The polls, the country, Biden — they’re all different. Does he fully get that?

“I’m the guy,” he said, over and over, and while that phrase typically teed up mention of one of his many legitimate accomplishments, it was also an assertion of his status, in his view, as the best and only Democrat to take on Trump, no matter the evidence to the contrary.

I hope with every fiber of my being that he’s right, because I doubt the Lord is descending anytime soon. And if he’s wrong? Heaven help us.