Opinion
98 results
Page 1
Looking for that next great book to read? Here are the editor's 2024 favorites.
Build your reading list with help from BSR.
Alaina Johns is not going to rate her favorite 2024 reads, but she will offer you some micro-reviews, so you can figure out if you’d like to read them, too! Everyone is different, and books are individuals, too.
Editorials
13 minute read
The 2024 BSR Year-end Recommend: books, films, TV, music, and more
Build your 2025 lists with personal tips from the BSR team
The BSR Year-End Recommend is back for 2024! Our team shares their favorite movies, books, TV shows, podcasts, newsletters, music, and more.
Features
8 minute read
At BSR, our values do not change based on elections.
Justice is not a self-improvement project.
We offer a huge range of opinions here at BSR from journalists who know what they’re talking about. But this diversity of opinion is built on the value of respect for our shared humanity. We will keep that respect no matter what. Will you join us?
Editorials
5 minute read
I met James Earl Jones when I was six, on TV together thanks to our shared language
In the lap of James Earl Jones
By the time she started grade school, Anndee Hochman was known as the girl who learned
to read when she was three—and whose talent landed her (literally) in the lap of iconic actor James Earl Jones.
to read when she was three—and whose talent landed her (literally) in the lap of iconic actor James Earl Jones.
Essays
5 minute read
I won’t turn my back on Chinatown: Black and Asian people must stand together in Philly
A Black elder protests the proposed Sixers arena
As a woman in her 70s, West Philly native Constance Garcia-Barrio finds protest marches challenging, but she knew she had to turn out for Chinatown at the No Arena in the Heart of Our City rally on September 7, 2024.
Essays
4 minute read
Remembering BSR writer Margaret Darby
Musician, linguist, writer, librarian, and beloved friend
Cameron Kelsall remembers BSR writer Margaret Darby, who died in April. She was a musician, linguist, and librarian; an astute yet generous journalist and critic; and a beloved colleague and friend.
Essays
3 minute read
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Alamo Drafthouse theaters have a new owner. It’s time for them to come to Philly.
The need for screens
The popular Austin-based movie-theater chain Alamo Drafthouse (recently acquired by Sony Pictures Entertainment) has spread to cities across the country, but never to Philly. Stephen Silver asks if it’s time to change that.
Essays
3 minute read
The hardest thing about stuttering isn’t stuttering at all: it’s how people react to it.
If I want your help, I’ll ask.
Samuel Dunsiger has a speech disability, but the hardest part about talking to others isn't his stuttering; it's the assumptions people make.
Essays
4 minute read
A UArts student speaks: “It’s clear that I’ll have to settle, no matter where I go.”
A young writer promises that his school’s demise won’t silence his craft.
Jay Clark was a rising junior at UArts and this year’s winner of the school’s Creative Writing Poetry Prize. On May 31, he got a tuition bill. The same day, news broke of the school’s closure. What’s next for him and hundreds of others?
These basement singalongs queer the Broadway canon and help me reclaim my voice
The soundtrack of our way out
When Anndee Hochman was 13, a teacher told her she couldn't sing. Decades later, a basement Broadway singalong in Manhattan's West Village taught her something new.
Essays
5 minute read