David Bouchier


David Bouchier is a British-American essayist and journalist known for his radio essays on NPR, his humor column in the New York Times, and his literary social commentaries.

Biography

Before enrolling in college, Bouchier spent 12 years working as a journalist for London newspapers and doing freelance interviews for a BBC program. He then specialized in American studies at the University of Essex. He went on to complete his doctorate in sociology at the London School of Economics, studying America's radical politics of the 1960's. He moved to the United States in 1986 and taught at State University of New York at Stony Brook and other institutions. He contributed regularly to NPR's "Morning Edition" and "Radio Pages".
Bouchier wrote a humor column for the Long Island section of The New York Times for 10 years. His radio essays and columns have received Press Club awards. He taught at the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival. He hosted a classical music program on NPR stations, called "Sunday Matinee", which was described as "quirky". He now works for WSHU Public Radio.

Critical reception

Bouchier's book Idealism and Revolution was largely panned except for its final chapter, which focused on alienation, the end of scarcity, and the impact of consciousness on social change. The Feminist Challenge was commended for delineating how British feminism focused more on class-based issues than American feminism, and for its analysis of the organizational styles of both movements. Bouchier's commentaries on suburban life, politics, foreign travel, and technology have been described as lightening an otherwise curmudgeonly tone with whimsy and genuine openness to change. His memoir An Unexpected Life was commended for Bouchier's ability to guide the reader from an apparently pedestrian remark to a significant social commentary. While Kirkus Reviews praised Dark Matters for Bouchier's writing about the failure of modernity as showing "great passion and elegance", the reviewer took issue with Bouchier's views on religion. Bouchier often quotes David Hume, Mark Twain, George Orwell, Alexis de Tocqueville, Greek and Roman philosophers.