Reviews (2)

Inside the Mind of the 20th Century
I'm not going to review all four volumes of this collection separately; what I say below applies to them all.

There are lots of reasons to read Orwell's letter, essays and journalism:

1. He's a great writer. It's a pleasure to read him, just for entertainment value. There's a little piece of doggerel from Orwell's school days that he quotes several times that is now stuck in my head:

The rain it raineth every day
Upon the just and the unjust fella
But more upon the just because
The unjust has the just's umbrella

I don't know why that sticks with me, but it's a great illustration of Orwell's use of solid, colloquial and even humorous English.

Moreover, in addition to providing wonderful model prose he occasionally writes essays about writing and language (the use of "Basic English", oratorical versus conversational English, what drives a writer, the totalitarian perversion of word meanings, etc.), which are insightful and interesting.

2. If you're interested in the Second World War (or for that matter, the Spanish Civil War), Orwell's writings amount to a sort of diary, a primary document. Even his book reviews almost inevitably contain some reference to the political and historical scene.

3. Orwell loved socialism (yes, the man who write _1984_ was a democratic socialist), but he loved freedom more. His simultaneous battle for socialism and against totalitarianism (i.e., the Soviet Union) is engaging, even -- or maybe particularly -- where he drops the ball.

...

I think Orwell's heart was in the right place -- he had seen close up (and written a good deal about) the suffering of the poor. Like many people who have their hearts in the right place, he jumped immediately to the idea that redistribution of private property and collective ownership of the means of production were the only way forward.

On the other hand, he was a writer and a man of ideas, a person who greatly prized personal freedom. His essays give an intriguing glimpse into the battle raging inside him between collectivism and individual liberty.

The First of a Terrific 4-Volume Set
I read this set many years ago, and it's great. There were better novelists, but Orwell was the best 20th Century essayist, at least in English, that I know of. Together with "Down and Out in Paris and London," "Homage to Catalonia," and "The Road to Wigan Pier," these four large volumes comprise the best of Orwell's nonfiction. As an essayist, Orwell was consistently clearminded, idealistic, honest and to the point. He is a pleasure to read, and he is one of my intellectual heroes.

I don't have a copy in front of me as I write this, but I'm pretty sure this first volume contains Orwell's unforgettable essays on the inner life of colonialism, "Shooting an Elephant" and "A Hanging". I highly recommend this set to anyone who is the least bit interested in Orwell. ... Read more

Book Description

Nuestra "casa", más que un lugar físico, es un conjunto de recuredos que nos permite comprender mejor quienes éramos, quienes somos, y puede ayudarnos a comprender quienes seremos. Ese sentido de pertenencia es el que nos define. Algunos dejan su "casa", su hogar, muy pronto en sus vidas; para ellos es muy difícil encontrar su centro emocional. Están, a veces, condenados a una vida sin equilibrio. Pero también es una existencia con mucha libertad. Sin frontera alguna, estos eternos viajeros no dejan de buscar aventuras y experiencias límite esperando encontrar algún día, como Ulises, un lugar que puedan llamar su "casa".

Así empieza el viaje de la extraordinaria autobiografía de Jorge Ramos, un periodista que encarna este espíritu aventurero a la perfección, y que espera, algún día, encontrar un lugar en el cuál se sienta como en casa.

Por primera vez, Jorge Ramos, el más prestigioso presentador de noticias en español comparte su vida personal con sus lectores, televidentes y radioescuchas. Hable de lost amores de su vida, de su pasión por el periodismo de sus viajes y entrevistas y de su propio concepto de realización espiritual. Es, al mismo tiempo, una invitación a aprovechar al máximo cada instante de nuestra vida.

En este libro conocemos al hombre de la televisión al que millones de latinos e hispanoparlantes le han dado toda su confianza durante años. Así descubrimos que Ramos es alguien que comprende que para vivir plenamente, hay que tomar riesgos, y que sin riesgos no hay recompensa.

Ramos cuenta de sus conflictos, de niño, con los sacerdotes benedictinos, de sus luchas como estudianted en Los Ángeles a principios de los ochentas, de su primera incursión en el periodismo norteamericano y de las advertencias de las grandes cadenas de televisión en inglés de que jamás llegaría a un puesto importante si no perdía su acento.

Se equivocaron. De esta manera Ramos nos abre las puertas al mundo de los medios de comunicación en español, un mundo que muchos críticos veían como innecesario e irrelevante y que ahora se ha convertido en uno de los sectores más poderosos de la cultura estadounidense.

Con las historias de las muchas guerras que has cubierto, los lugares que has visitado y los poderosos y temidos líderes mundiales que ha entrevistado, Ramos cautiva a sus lectores contándoles la trayectoria y los altibajos de un periodista que llegó a un país que quisiera llamar su casa, pero que no puede. Descubrimos también, a un hombre cuya atracción por las emociones fuertes lo han puesto en peligro de muerte y cuyo sentido del humor lo ha salvado de las situaciones más incómodas.

Padre, reportero, esposo e hijo, en su nuevo libro Atravesando Fronteras, Ramos nos muestra como cada uno de nosotros puede ser testigo de la historia, y que viajar sin cesar puede ser preferible a quedarse en un mismo lugar para siempre.

Reviews (3)

Es mucho mas que una biografia
Leer a Ramos es ameno, un libro lleno de anectodas y vivencias que solo un inmigrante lo puede entender a cabalidad, empezar desde cero como lo hizo el y como lo hacen a diario los miles de inmigrantes en el mundo es sin duda un paso muy importante de cualqier ciudadano que emigra. Algo muy interesante de este libro es la claridad de sentimiento descrito en sus paginas, es muy facil identificarse con el, precisamente por que dice lo que siente. Ya entrando en detalles sobre el libro, te ensena sin presion lo que un periodista es capaz de construir con su profesion y personalidad y mas que todo sus principios inquebrantables. Es un excelente libro que delinea el futuro de la minoria mas importante de los EEUU y de la creciente influencia de la misma en todos sus aspectos. Muy bueno por nosotros, muy bueno por Jorge.
Comprar este libro es una excelente eleccion

el nuevo americano
Parece que este libro no ha llamado la atencion de los estadounidenses, aparte de los latinos que vean las noticias en espanol. Eso representa una falta de interes total, francamente, porque el libro fue traducido en ingles. Han dicho ultimamente que pasamos los afroamericanos como la menoria mas grande de los EEUU. Creo que ya es la hora para establecer un dialogo entre la mayoria (o sea, los anglos) y nosotros, porque llegara el dia en que seremos la mayoria en muchos estados.

Jorge demuestra una sensabilidad enorme aqui. A traves de sus cuentos, podemos compartir la tristeza de un joven "exile" que no se comprometiera para nada, un esposo que lucha para balancear la matrimonia con su individualismo, un padre melancolico que duda del futuro de sus hijos, etc. Hay momentos en que podemos sentir la nostalgia que provoca en ciertos momentos, como cuando habla de las canciones que representan los momentos importantes de su vida. Siempre recordare "Africa" y los ochenta. Y creo que el momento en que escucho "Music" despues de 9/11 fue un momento poetico.

Hay mucho que admirar en este libro. La unica critica que tengo es que como periodista cuenta las cosas de una manera muy chronologica a veces.

Gracias, Jorge Ramos, por ser una persona tan honesta con si mismo. Eres una inspiracion.

Un muy buen libro
Siempre he admirado mucho el trabajo de Jorge Ramos como periodista y comentarista, Despues de leer este libro comparto mucho mas algunas opiniones que el siempre ha expresado en sus columnas periodisticas.
Jorge Ramos nos explica algo que quizas muchos inmigrantes como nosotros, enfrentamos al atravesar esas "fronteras". Su busqueda interminable por sentirse parte de un lugar es en si la busqueda por un pasado que no solo es un lugar fisico en el espacio, sino una parte de nuestras vidas que ya no vuelve.
Ademas Jorge nos abre un poco mas su vida al contarnos detalles que lo forjaron como ser humano, de errores que lo hicieron aprender, nos muestra el Jorge Ramos humano, padre, hermano, hijo, esposo, amigo. Algo mas que una cara cotidiana a la que vemos a diario en el noticiero vespertino.
Muy buen libro para esos que de alguna manera buscamos nuestro lugar a donde pertenecemos. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Jennifer Lauck conveys the perceptions, thoughts, and emotions of afrightened child with utter conviction and vivid immediacy in her remarkablememoir of the six years during which both of her parents died. Lauck opens in 1969,when she is 5 and her 31-year-old mother is entering the final phase of a decadeof severe health problems. Momma is beautiful and loving; we feel the tenderintimacy between mother and daughter, even as we see that Jennifer has assumed alot of adult responsibilities that make her fearful and obsessed with rules.Eight-year-old brother Bryan responds to Momma's illnesses with anger, and isoften cruel to his sister. High-powered, workaholic Daddy does his best, butis not around a lot. (The adult author subtly depicts the kids' half-consciousunderstanding that Daddy is seeing other women.) As Momma's health worsens andthe family moves to Southern California to be near a better hospital, Lauckcaptures in painful detail the atmosphere of physical decay that surrounds amortally ill woman. Momma dies on Bryan's 10th birthday. In short order, Daddyhas moved them all in with Deb, who obviously has been his girlfriend for awhile, and events spiral down from there. Daddy dies of a heart attack beforeJennifer turns 10; Deb keeps the stepchildren (whom she dislikes) so that shecan get their social security allotment; Jennifer is sent out to work at aresidence that is run by Deb's creepy Freedom Community Church. She is 11 by thetime that her aunt and uncle rescue her--a moment that is nearly as exultant for readersas it is for the girl whose trials they have shared for nearly 400 pages. Herharrowing story might sound unrelievedly grim in the retelling, but Lauck's lackof self-pity and the delicacy of her prose transform it into an odyssey ofendurance and transcendence. --Wendy Smith ... Read more

Reviews (92)

A great memoir!
Jennifer Lauck superbly tells the tale of the first decade of her life. I'm amazed at how she can recount the early events of her life with such detail, but that also shows how much those events still live with her today. She told the story with the innocence of a child and yet at such a young age she was very aware of her surrounding and what was going on. She had to grow up too fast and didn't have much of a childhood. Losing both her mother and father, then her brother being distanced from her must have been hard. To top that off, she often read Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which ended up shadowing her own life. She had an "evil stepmother" and ended up being put in a shelter, which provided her with an escape from her horrible stepfamily. She made lots of friends and things were going good until her stepmother re-entered her life.
As a mother, I find Jennifer's bond with her real mother very heart warming. Even though her mother died when Jennifer was still young and her mother was sick most of her life, it's touching to read how Jennifer remembers her mother with such fondness and love. They didn't have much time together, but what time they did have shaped the rest of young Jennifer's life.
It is an absolutely fabolous story that I'm glad I had a chance to read. It's inspiring to know that the petty problems I face day-to-day are nothing like what Jennifer Lauck has faced. I would definitely encourage everyone to read this book!

Triumph over tragedy
I bought this book several years ago.I was hesitant to read it amid all the hype (as my expectations of such things are rarely met) and it has been sitting on my book shelf gathering dust for nearly four years.I have to say, I am disappointed that it took me so long to get around to reading this powerful memoir."Blackbird" not only met my expectations; it exceeded them.I was truly touched by Ms. Lauck's recount of her terribly short-lived childhood.Lauck has an undeniably expressive style.She writes emotion beautifully and the reader has a definite sense of being present in Jennifer (Jenny) Lauck's life.Jenny Lauck is a tormented and distraught five-year-old little girl; her young life is full of misfortune and catastrophe (starting with the death of her mother).The adults in Jenny's life, with the exception of her father, are cruel and unyielding, polar opposites of the nurturing role models that they should be; but the reader is invariably buoyed by Jenny's peaceful spirit and impenetrable strength, which she unfortunately fails to see in herself.Throughout the story, Jenny speaks of crying too much and being weak, but her courage and fortitude are the only things that provide any stability in her young life.Jenny is proof that children are incredibly resilient and resourceful beings.Jenny Lauck handles each upheaval in her young life with incredible grace and perfect style, and Jennifer Lauck (the author speaking for the child) tells her tale with titanic clarity and unequivocal conviction.Why four stars then?Lauck is exceedingly redundant at times.At first, the redundancy seemed artistic and well-placed in the dialogue of a child's thoughts; but, by the end of Part Two I was frustrated with the excessive descriptions of the pictures in Jenny's copy of Snow White (among other irritating narrative repetitions).Character perspective is absolutely imperative to a good narrative, but so is being aware of who your audience is and what they will find compelling versus what they will merely tolerate.It wasn't so obnoxious that it discouraged me from finishing the memoir, but it interfered enough to merit a warning. Aside from that, I found "Blackbird" to be a gripping, dramatic tale of loss and redemption and I would highly recommend it.

A Compelling Memoir
As a writing mentor, I work with a number of people who want to write memoirs.Many of them have experienced traumatic childhoods.I routinely recommend that they read Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found, in order to learn how a master of memoir handles writing about abandonment, abuse, and mental illness without blame, self-pity, or sentimentality.Lauck uses her skills as a journalist to shape a compelling memoir of her childhood.Her courage and well-honed craft are outstanding.She not only has connected with readers, but has helped many of them along the path of healing.

my story?
I felt like Ms. Lauck was writing my story. Her experiences and feelings were so similar to mine it was unreal. I cried from the moment I picked it up to the second I put it down. I cried because it was a sad story, I cried because I related, I cried because someone had finally put my feelings on paper.
Thank you Jennifer Lauck.

real page turner
BLACKBIRD is a fabulous piece of work, a real memoir. Yet almost seems fiction in its accounts of life. This book has some wonderful qualities like that of NIGHTMARES ECHO,LOST BOY and COURAGE TO HEAL.
This is a real page turner,excellent style. ... Read more

Book Description

In the haunting tradition of Joe McGinniss's Fatal Vision and Mikal Gilmore's Shot in the Heart, True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa weaves a spellbinding tale of murder, love, and deceit with a deeply personal inquiry into the slippery nature of truth.

The story begins in February of 2002, when a reporter in Oregon contacts New York Times Magazine writer Michael Finkel with a startling piece of news. A young, highly intelligent man named Christian Longo, on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list for killing his entire family, has recently been captured in Mexico, where he'd taken on a new identity -- Michael Finkel of the New York Times.

The next day, on page A-3 of the Times, comes another bit of troubling news: a note, written by the paper's editors, explaining that Finkel has falsified parts of an investigative article and has been fired. This unlikely confluence sets the stage for a bizarre and intense relationship. After Longo's arrest, the only journalist the accused murderer will speak with is the real Michael Finkel. And as the months until Longo's trial tick away, the two men talk for dozens of hours on the telephone, meet in the jailhouse visiting room, and exchange nearly a thousand pages of handwritten letters.

With Longo insisting he can prove his innocence, Finkel strives to uncover what really happened to Longo's family, and his quest becomes less a reporting job than a psychological cat-and-mouse game -- sometimes redemptively honest, other times slyly manipulative. Finkel's pursuit pays off only at the end, when Longo, after a lifetime of deception, finally says what he wouldn't even admit in court -- the whole, true story. Or so it seems.

Book Description

When Bob Greene went home to central Ohio to be with his dying father, it set off a chain of events that led him to knowing his dad in a way he never had before--thanks to a quiet man who lived just a few miles away, a man who had changed the history of the world.

Greene's father -- a soldier with an infantry division in World War II--often spoke of seeing the man around town. All but anonymous even in his own city, carefully maintaining his privacy, this man, Greene's father would point out to him, had "won the war." He was Paul Tibbets. At the age of twenty-nine, at the request of his country, Tibbets assembled a secret team of 1,800 American soldiers to carry out the single most violent act in the history of mankind. In 1945 Tibbets piloted a plane--which he called Enola Gay, after his mother -- to the Japanese city of Hiroshima, where he dropped the atomic bomb.

On the morning after the last meal he ever ate with his father, Greene went to meet Tibbets. What developed was an unlikely friendship that allowed Greene to discover things about his father, and his father's generation of soldiers, that he never fully understood before.

is the story of three lives connected by history, proximity, and blood; indeed, it is many stories, intimate and achingly personal as well as deeply historic. In one soldier's memory of a mission that transformed the world -- and in a son's last attempt to grasp his father's ingrained sense of honor and duty -- lies a powerful tribute to the ordinary heroes of an extraordinary time in American life.

What Greene came away with is found history and found poetry -- a profoundly moving work that offers a vividly new perspective on responsibility, empathy, and love. It is an exploration of and response to the concept of duty as it once was and always should be: quiet and from the heart. On every page you can hear the whisper of a generation and its children bidding each other farewell.

Reviews (54)

A Tribute From a Son to His Father
Bob Greene has written a touching and emotion-filled book about two men who influenced the outcome of World War II; his own father and Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay. Greene's father served as an infantry soldier in Italy, while Tibbets was training his men in Wendover, Utah for a mission which would hopefully end the war.

Tibbets and Robert Greene, Sr. lived in the same town in Ohio, but had never met. Bob jr. writes about how his father would speak of Tibbets and call him "the man who won the war". While Bob jr. was back in Ohio to be with his dying father, he drew on his memories of Tibbets. Finally, Bob went to meet Tibbets. What occured was the beginning of an unlikely friendship that spanned a generation and allowed Bob to discover things about his father and his father's generation that he never understood before.

Bob found Tibbets to be a very honest and straight-forward man. There was no nonsense from him; everything was in plain terms. Tibbets talked frequently about his mission to Hiroshima on that fateful day in August, 1945. He said several times that he had no regrets for what he did and he always slept easy at night. Tibbets' stories enabled Bob to see that his father and many other men just like him also played large parts in winning the war. Tibbets never liked the phrase "the man who won the war". He was always quick to give credit to the soldiers as the real heroes, just like Robert sr.

Perhaps my favorite part of the book is the several chapters which deal with the trip to Branson, Missouri. Bob, Tibbets, Tom Ferebee (bombardier), and "Dutch" Van Kirk (navigator) took a trip to Branson over Memorial Day weekend and they were treated like conquering heroes by the public. But what impressed me was the candor and openness that these men spoke with. I learned a lot about the Hiroshima mission that I never knew before.

I found this book a little slow at the beginning, but it definitely picks up over the second half. Read this book and learn about the generation of men who won the war.

A Generation and Its Children Saying Goodbye
Greene is a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune and Life and is the SON;FATHER is Bob's father, once a Major in the 91st Infantry Division of WW II -famed for Its role in the Italian campaign; THE MAN WHO WON THE WAR is retired Brig. General Paul Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay, the B29 that took the A-bomb to Hiroshima. The father lived in Columbus, Ohio and Bob had grown up there. Father would announce now and then: "That man going(standing)there is Paul Tibbets". Bob contacted Tibbets and they became friends just days before the father died . Not stated, but clear to the reader: Bob is going to be writing articles in the Tribune and, finally, this book. His quest was to understand his father's generation and to find out Paul's feelings about dropping the bomb. Bob learns about the disgust and disappointment his father's generation has for those whose freedom they preserved with such devotion to purpose. The current and older generation have quite different rules for societal conduct and that accounts for a lot of the differences. But in my view the most salient point Paul makes in their many discussions is the one about discipline. To do great things, he said, you must have discipline. We had it. Much of today's society doesn't have it and it shows in so many ways. No, Paul didn't lose any sleep over dropping the bomb. It was an 1,800 man project which he was under orders to organize and lead. Countless men and their relatives wrote him to express their thanks for saving them from a bloody invasion of Japan's home islands. The toughest people for him to make understand were those who would say, "why didn't you just tell them you didn't want to do it." But he did want to do it.

A book about a hero and a father and how much are alike
A great book about a true hero and other's worthy of the same label. A very easy and engaging read. I highly recommend this book.

A disappointment .
I have seen Bob Greene on some of the news stories on TV. I like his wit and sentiment. I was prepared for a great book on the great generation that produced his and my father. I was disappointed.
First, the book is disjointed. It goes from sentiment to sentiment, and then reverts back again. In his talks with General Paul Tidbitts, I thought he kept dwelling on the same emotions of a hard military decision. That decision was made long ago, and why keep hammering away at it. Bob, just get over it. The U.S. had to bomb Japan to spare the lives of American soldiers and sailors.
Another problem I have with this book is its lack of history. It tells a little of the history of his father, some of Tidbitts, and then a little on the Doolittle Raiders. Other than that, it is pure sentiment, repeated again and again. For a 300 page book, this could have been cut to 80 pages. I read this book, and it was a disappointment. If one wants to remember the Greatest Generation, read something from Ambrose.

decent memoir, bad history book.
I started to read this book and at first, found it interesting. THen gradually, I became aggravated because this is really NOT a history book, but a memoir. If you are looking for information about the war and the man who dropped it, a sample of it is in the book, nothing more. I couldn't finish it. ... Read more

Book Description

Definitive biography of Hunter S. Thompson, American journalist and personality.

Sold out in hard and trade paperback by Disney / Hyperion.Eight pages of illustrations.New Prologue, ISBN, and copy of Stipulation preventing me from delivering flowers to Hunter's Mother. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Great Book
I read Thompson's collected letter's, but they are no substitute for this very well-done biography.The author is not doing literary criticism, it is true- he is doing biography.Unlike most interviews/biographies about this wonderfully unique character, he doesn't drool all over the subject.Thompson did some great work, and the persona he crafted was spectacular.This book, along with the collections of letters, makes clear what a tragedy is the result of attempting to stay on the edge for all of these years.His recent work is all recycling and incoherent parodies of himself.

HST is a wasted hull of a man and a mind.His alter ego became himself and the result was a tremendous waste of talent and creativity.The quality of HTS's correspondence in The Proud Highway makes this all the more clear.I am grateful for what he gave- it's just a shame he couldn't keep a handle on it.

pass on this and read "proud Highway"
I don't know.. I have some ambivalent feelings about Mr. Whitmer's book on Hunter S. Thompson. On one hand I really like reading about Hunter Thompson and suppose that I myself am a kind of weird groupie when it comes to reading about him and a few other writers (I bought this one at a garage sale for 50 cents). On the other hand I really dislike reading gossipy books where the author has only a little understanding of his subject or his work and is mainly just trying to cash in on the artist's celebrity, telling second hand stories that might or might not be true. I myself am guilty of reading these little tabloid-like pieces and almost always feel dirty afterward. Especially if the subject is worthy of some respect in his artistic life and HST certainly is. Artists should be given the space they need to work through their inner struggles while sorting it all out. This requires huge amounts of slack for an artist like Thompson. But then after they die all the lies and sentimental twisted memories can come flooding out and it's all so much less embarrassing for them and for us. I do understand why Mr. Whitmer would want to do a book on HST. And his might be better than the other bios as the above reviewers say. But make no mistake, Peter Whitmer did this one to make some easy money and Hunter Thompson's name sells better a lot better than his own.

3 stars
Extensive and enlightening information on Thompson's early past and influences, but overall lacks insight on the main body of his work and life.Nonetheless a compeling book and very hard to put down.Whitmer'sultimate conclusion is that Thompson is a tragic figure, unworthy ofadoration.After reading this book, you may agree.

A Good Read
It's great background for anyone just becoming interested in Thompson's life and work.

The only good Thompson bio so far
It's a shame this book is out of print. As one of three Hunter Thompson biographies published in the spring of 1993, Whitmer's was the only one that wasn't an utter embarrassment to its author or publisher. He actually did some concerted, smart research, thought about his subject, did more reporting and obviously wrote more than a single draft of the book. The fact that Whitmer has a brain and knows how to use it didn't hurt. And unlike Perry & Carroll, Whitmer can write. In addition to having done more and better research than his rivals, his prose is clean, fluid and graceful. Both stylistically and factually, this is the only Thompson biography worth reading. ... Read more

Book Description

This first book by Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Steinbach is an intimate, personal collection of essays, rememberances, and columns that follows in the creative non-fiction tradition of Anna Quindelen and Mary Sarton. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A book to be shared
I purchased this book because I had enjoyed 'Without Reservations' so much. I often share books with my closest friend. By the time I had read the introduction and the first few pages, I knew it would not be enough to simply have her read it when I was done. I knew we had to read it together, taking turns reading it aloud (a new experience for us). Steinbach's musings on everyday life are insightful, laugh-out-loud funny, poignant, a true delight. I plan to buy several copies for Christmas gifts. ... Read more

Book Description

In Bob Schieffer's own words, from the JFK assassination to the World Trade Center attacks, "I got to see most of it and came to know many of the major figures of those four decades because I am a reporter. I became a reporter because I always wanted to see things for myself and make my own judgments about them. Those events I covered have become part of our history and you already know most of them. But I want to tell you about the parts that didn't get on television or in the paper, the serious parts and the not-so-serious parts, the good times I had, and the presidents, senators, correspondents, big-time crooks, and small-time swindlers I came to know. Here are the stories I tell my friends, and they are the stories I want to share with you."

Schieffer is not only broadcast journalism's most experienced Washington reporter, but one of its best natural writers. This Just In is filled with great behind-the-scenes tales and surprising scoops based on dozens of brand-new-and sometimes startling-interviews. Smart, witty, and insightful, these are the stories you'll want to share with your friends. ... Read more

Reviews (39)

A Delightful Personal Historical Memoir
I would not have thought to pick up this book, except that, by serendipity, I heard parts of it on Radio Reader as I was driving to work for several mornings, and by further serendipity, I heard the author talking about my late aunt, whom I never knew very well, and who, as it turns out, was a noted eccentric among the White House press corps.

So, I bought the book. And I'm very glad I did. The story begins with Bob Schieffer's baby steps in journalism, his experiences during the the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the civil rights struggles of the 60s, his changing perceptions of the war in Viet Nam, his personal experience of growth and change in the news business and in American governance, then Watergate, and finally, the events of September 11.

Although I learned nothing dramatically new (except the story of my eccentric aunt), I did enjoy seeing familiar events through the eyes of one very astute and well-informed observer. Author Bob Schieffer writes in an easy, flowing style, as though he is talking to the reader personally. He conveys a great sense of warmth and compassion as he talks about figures who are, to most of us, the great and near great. He does not hesitate to poke fun at himself or to share his foibles and failures. He comes across as a really nice person who just happens to have first-hand experience of the great events of the last forty years. The book moves along quickly, reads easily, and leaves you wanting more.

I feel very fortunate that I was able to read this book, and I highly recommend it to others. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

Nice guy- great journalist- Imus friend
It is -25 degrees here in New Hampshire-so this is a good time to read...Bob Schieffer is a nice guy, great journalist- knows his stuff-friend of Imus, and he tells his story with the best of them. He starts out with his life in Texas, and a few stories of LBJ and then moves on to the rest of the story. He talks about his life, his profession and the people he has met. He has been in the right place at the right time. His book tour revealed all of the stories he has to tell that reflect upon his long career and his climb up the journalism ladder. He interjects personal stories, and comes across as the person he appears to be. A life well led. prisrob

This Just in is a Just a Good Account of a Reporter's Life
Bob Schieffer is a native of Fort Worth Texas, the host of Face the Nation and a season veteran reporter. In over 40 years the Texan has covered racial conflict in the South, the Vietnam War, several presidential campaigns and the horror of 9-11.
Schieffer begins his fine book with the story of how he picked up Lee Harvey Oswald's mother on the way to the police station on that horrific November day in Dallas. Schieffer recounts his slow rise from a local Ft. Worth Station to a newspaper and local TV to the major leagues at CBS.
Bob's book is filled with humorous anecdotes of his many jaunts in the presidential plane, intimate glimpses behind the scenes at CBS and his views of the men who have occupied the Oval Office.
I have always been a fan of CBS News the "Tiffany Network"
and Bob Schieffer in his warm writing style is like listening to an old pro give us the inside scoops on the biggest stories of our lifetimes.
The life of a national reporter like Schieffer is no bed of roses. Constant commuting from Washington DC to New York; always on call with family needs placed on the sidelines and the in fighting of who gets the anchor and other good assignments in the studio all make for a good read.
I found this book along with Tim Russert's excellent new book two delightful tomes to while away a summer day.
This is a good book by a well respected, beloved and great
newsman. We appreciate Bob Schieffer and thank him for his book!

His story, not history, is what he couldn't tell you....
The title alludes to all kinds of 'secrets' to be told, and at a time when the debate over journalism itself is as much the topic of controversy, you would expect views and opinions relating to this as well as events throughout history. He covers historical events, but only as they effect him and his career. I would say there is a fair balance of insights on the news, and insights on himself. I kept waiting for something new on events of the past, but for the most part it was the same old stuff rehashed. This is due mainly because a lot of the story is about how he had been somewhere else as big news was taking place. You can't be everywhere at once, but he was rarely 'in the thick of things', and most of the 'inside' stuff was about the history makers he knew on a 'personal' level, though you get the impression it wasn't as personal as he makes it out to be.

I stopped looking for deep secrets when he referred to Al Gore's irrelevant statement about the Internet as 'a tall tale'. Anyone that doesn't take the media for granted and actually investigates this statement in context can see he doesn't think he 'invented' the Internet. The fact that Bob would make such a statement illustrates why his career took the course it did, and puts all the excuses throughout the book in their true light.

Still, if you want to know about the man, the book is very informative.

Like spending an evening listening and learning
From start to finish, Bob Schieffer, in his gentle way, sits us down and tells us what it was like over the last 40 plus years. From his early days as a Texas newspaperman finding himself in the company of Mrs. Oswald the day Kennedy was shot, to being sent to cover the war in Vietnam, then finally joining CBS TV and covering all aspects of Washingon from Watergate through the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon, he was there and his reportage then and his insight now gives us a greater understanding of what has been going on in the world over these four decades. His plum assignments at CBS kept him at the center of action: covering the presidential campaigns, the White House, the Pentagon, Capitol Hill, even the war in the Falkland Islands, and now continuing his moderating chores on Face The Nation which he began in 1991. The subtitle of this book is "What I Couldn't Tell You On TV," and he keeps that promise with many anecdotes that haven't been widely reported before this book. He also describes the movers and shakers of the U.S. during this period. He got to meet and know them all and he shares his thoughts on such as Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Ford, Laird, Cronkite, Rather, the list goes on and on, even includes Agnew. His take on the changes that have infuenced political races, the Congress, and network TV, and what happened when CBS TV and everybody else blew it on election night 2000 makes for fascinating reading and gourmet food for thought. Throughout the book he gives us stories of his personal life and glimpses of his day-to-day working routines to give us a feel of what it is like to be a reporter at the center of activity. This is a fine book. On a few occasions he breaks from his chronological telling of the story, and I found that momentarily confusing. And a few more dates sprinkled in would have been helpful. But, I'm ready to sit down again and hear more of the adventures in journalism from this gentleman and scholar. ... Read more

Book Description

Ever since Nelson Mandela dramatically walked out of prison in 1990 after twenty-seven years behind bars, South Africa has been undergoing a radical transformation. In one of the most miraculous events of the century, the oppressive system of apartheid was dismantled. Repressive laws mandating separation of the races were thrown out. The country, which had been carved into a crazy quilt that reserved the most prosperous areas for whites and the most desolate and backward for blacks, was reunited. The dreaded and dangerous security force, which for years had systematically tortured, spied upon, and harassed people of color and their white supporters, was dismantled. But how could this country--one of spectacular beauty and promise--come to terms with its ugly past? How could its people, whom the oppressive white government had pitted against one another, live side by side as friends and neighbors?

To begin the healing process, Nelson Mandela created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by the renowned cleric Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Established in 1995, the commission faced the awesome task of hearing the testimony of the victims of apartheid as well as the oppressors. Amnesty was granted to those who offered a full confession of any crimes associated with apartheid. Since the commission began its work, it has been the central player in a drama that has riveted the country. In this book, Antjie Krog, a South African journalist and poet who has covered the work of the commission, recounts the drama, the horrors, the wrenching personal stories of the victims and their families. Through the testimonies of victims of abuse and violence, from the appearance of Winnie Mandela to former South African president P. W. Botha's extraordinary courthouse press conference, this award-winning poet leads us on an amazing journey.

Country of My Skull captures the complexity of the Truth Commission's work. The narrative is often traumatic, vivid, and provocative. Krog's powerful prose lures the reader actively and inventively through a mosaic of insights, impressions, and secret themes. This compelling tale is Antjie Krog's profound literary account of the mending of a country that was in colossal need of change. ... Read more

Reviews (10)

CIVIC CATHARSIS
Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa by Antjie Krog

One of the greatest social laboratories of change in modern times was the collapse of apartheid and the birth of the modern democratic Republic of South Africa. Out of the civic catharsis embodied in this collapse and the subsequent racial and political somersault of South African society, a unique and classic venue for human rights, The South Africa Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), was created.
In this deeply moving book, Antjie Krog, South African poet and child of the Free State, has compiled a compelling record of the TRC. The reader will receive an immediate and powerful exposure to Bishop Edmund Tutu's Ubuntu theology (the harmony between individual and community) as an embodiment of the ancient African Weltganschauung (a person is human precisely in the community of other human beings).
Again, it is the poet who elucidates for the rest of us the heart of man-as-community. Utilizing a first-person dialogue within a keen observational and lovely prosaic style, Antjie Krog enables us to enter both the foreheads of perpetrators of violence and the hearts of its victims. It also includes rare insights into the indifference and guilt of both white and black citizens during the apartheid regime. In this chronicle of the TRC, we witness an abiding desire to expose the dark past in constructing the crucial accountability to future generations. This, as Antjie Krog so lovingly describes, is the miracle rebirth her "wide and woeful land."
This fascinating journaling of the petitions before the TRC - the angst in seeking a common unity - reveals a redeeming Phoenix of truth in the ashes of apartheid. Antjie Krog's unique documentation of the proceedings of the TRC is a valued record of modern South African history. This is a beautifully written and classic case-study of essential "transparency" in global constitutional democracy.

Jess Maghan, Chester, Ct.
05 February 2002

A powerful account of the TRC by an Afrikaner poet/writer.
I purchased this book in South Africa in March, 1998. I lived in Cape Town in 1984 and 1985 and was surrounded by the emerging events that ultimately led to the demise of Apartheid. This book is powerful since it is written by an Afrikaner author who not only relates the horrors presented before the Truth & Reconciliation Commission but also shares her own struggle to reconcile herself with the legacy of her country. This will be a challenge for the reader without first hand knowledge of Aparthied South Africa. Anyone who wants to struggle to understand such a place must read this book.

Insightful
Here is a complex book that scratches the surface of a very complex ordeal; Apartheid. Krog gives a very personal report on the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission, a Committee charged with hearing the crimes of perpetrators in Apartheid and deciding on their amnesty respectively. Her language is very emotional at times, even suspiciously involved. You can sense in her writing her own struggle to explore the apathy of her own ethnicity, the white Afrikaaner, in the face of such atrocities.

Overall, a very complex book. I couldn't put this one down and finished it in about 3 days. If you have an interest in Apartheid you may gain new insight on the matter after having read this.

cry my bereaved country
Thankyou Antjie. You clarify a brave, extraordinary venture into reconciliation as a serious option to persistent conflict. It must have been a harrowing journey for you. I hope I meet and thank you someday. Ive worked throughout Southern Africa off and on for many years. For several of those years I carried two passports, one for when I flew via Johannesburg, and the other with a visa for entry into any African country, who might refuse me passage if they saw my TYD.VERBLYPERMIT stamp. For me personally, apartheid was a stain on my heritage and on the distorted world into which I had grown up. Despite an Oxford degree in english literature, I continued reading thousands of books for more than thirty years. This is the only book I have ever read which completely tore my heart to tears.

The Author's Story Interwoven with that of South Africa
This book is about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa. Krog does not just tell the story of the Commission, but she tells her story of her reaction to the Commission. In this way, the book becomes her story just as it is many other people's stories. I found the Introduction written by Charlayne Hunter-Gault to be informative and interesting. I read this book because I wanted to see different perspectives on South Africa. I did not always agree with Krog's worldviews, but in spite of this, I found the book informative. ... Read more

Book Description

Jan Wong, a Canadian of Chinese descent, went to China as a starry-eyed Maoist in 1972 at the height of the Cultural Revolution. A true believer--and one of only two Westerners permitted to enroll at Beijing University--her education included wielding a pneumatic drill at the Number One Machine Tool Factory. In the name of the Revolution, she renounced rock and roll, hauled pig manure in the paddy fields, and turned in a fellow student who sought her help in getting to the United States. She also met and married the only American draft dodger from the Vietnam War to seek asylum in China.Red China Blues begins as Wong's startling--and ironic--memoir of her rocky six-year romance with Maoism that began to sour as she became aware of the harsh realities of Chinese communism and led to her eventual repatriation to the West. Returning to China in the late eighties as a journalist, she covered both the brutal Tiananmen Square crackdown and the tumultuous era of capitalist reforms under Deng Xiaoping. In a wry, absorbing, and often surreal narrative, she relates the horrors that led to her disillusionment with the "worker's paradise." And through the stories of the people--an un-happy young woman who was sold into marriage, China's most famous dissident, a doctor who lengthens penises--Wong creates an extraordinary portrait of the world's most populous nation.In setting out to show readers in the Western world what life is like in China, and why we should care, Wong reacquaints herself with the old friends--and enemies--of her radical past, and comes to terms with the legacies of her ancestral homeland. ... Read more

Reviews (56)

Red China Blues
Red China Blues is the historical yet entertaining autobiography of Jan Wong, a Chinese-Canadian who grew up in the chaos of the Canadian government and traveled to China in search of a Maoist utopia. Her naiveté forced her to believe that life in China was perfect during the Cultural Revolution, that everyone was happy, however, after some work in journalism and then Mao's death, the evils of the Cultural Revolution finally revealed themselves.
Jan Wong uses many different writing techniques in her autobiography, making it consistently entertaining and exciting. She makes it clear from the start that her actions and ideas were undeveloped and would change drastically. There is a sense of dramatic irony; the reader knows her final opinion but she does not. This idea also gives more emphasis to an event that is extremely important in Chinese history- the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Since the reader is wondering when and why she will change her opinion, Tiananmen Square not only becomes the turning point of communism in China but also the turning point of the book.
Jan Wong is an extremely talented author and was able to put all of her emotions and ideas into this book and therefore bring her experiences to life. Red China Blues is also an extraordinary piece of literature that combines the joy of reading with the even greater joy of learning history through entertaining means. Though there is one major flaw, a conclusion that fails to satisfy the readers' expectations, Red China Blues is still undoubtedly worth reading.

Thanks to Jan Wong, I can't get China our of my head.
Red China Blues is an intensely personalized historical account that covers nearly a quarter-century in China's recent and temultuous past. In this often humorous, often harrowing memoir, Jan Wong recounts her own rocky relationship with the nation of her ancestors. Having been raised in a middle-class family in Canada, the daughter of a successful Chinese restaraunteur, Wong travels to the People's Republic of China in 1972--the height of the Cultural Revolution--as one of only two Westerners permitted entrance to Bejing University. Naively devoted to the "Great Helmsman" Mao Zedong and determined to purge herself of bourgeois privilege and capitalist guilt, Wong fervently adopts the teachings of the Communist party and eagerly joins the tide of students who spend the better part of their University years laboring in the paddy fields. Her Communist fervor is such that she even turns in a fellow student who asks for Wong's help in going to the United States, and joins in chanting criticisms at an accused counter-revolutionary. A series of lies and propagandist maneuvers--including the University's attempt to expel her on false claims that her parents have asked her to return home--begin to unravel Wong's faith in the Party. Following the first silent uprising at Tiananmen Square after Premier Zhou Enlai's death in 1976, Wong comes to a startling realization: "Nobody believed in the revolution anymore. They hadn't for a long time, and I had been too stupid to see it." In the aftermath of Mao's death and the declaration of the end of the Cultural Revolution the same year, she also begins to understand the nature of China's system of rule: "One announcement, and we were consigned to the dust heap of history. That, I suddenly realized, was how dictatorships worked. Overnight, every single person I knew made an abrupt ideological swtich." Years later, the author's metamorphosis is complete when she returns to China as a reporter for the Toronto Globe & Mail, and watches ! the massacre of Tiananmen Square from her balcony at Bejing Hotel. She paints a vivid, horrifying picture of the days of violence and chaos, when soldiers opened fire on their own people and tanks mowed down protestors in cold blood. Over and over again, the mass of protestors--comprised of students, police, and ordinary citizens--stampedes away from the army's gun volleys, only to regroup and come back for more. Red China Blues is a fascinating read for anyone interested in recent Chinese history, but the scope of the book is broader than that. It is about human psychology-- our incredible willingness to be led, our instinctual inclination for rebellion when the leaders we have vehemently followed overstep some invisible boundary. It is a criticism of absolutism delievered by a former absolutist, the story of how an idealist young girl came to realize that no single nation, party, or political regime possesses a monopoly on truth.

Great historical book, but rather poor personal story
This book is great for anyone interested in recent Chinese history and what life was like for ordinary Chinese under Mao and beyond. Wong was one of only a handful of Westerners allowed to study in China during the 1970's, and as such her perspective is nearly unparallelled. Most people really don't much about day-to-day life in China and this makes for a very interesting read.
Her story, however, is so fraught with self-deprecation that it's hard to take her seriously and one must question what really goes on inside her head. She tells stories of slaving on state farms and in communist machine factories and witnessing horrible societal abuses. She consistently relates stories of her questioning of her own Maoist faith and how easily she allowed herself to be manipulated by half-wit propaganda agents. The problem is she never establishes why she was such an ardent socialist and why she so passionately wanted to reject the West. Rather, she comes across during her time in China as an immature hippie / marxist wannabe brat incapable of any form of advanced thought. Now that she is 'reformed' and sees those Chinese regimes for what they were, she can write this book. But the reader is frequently overcome with an urge to shake the author and pull her head out of the sand; since there is no reasonable justification for her actions and why she in fact stuck her head three feet down in the sand, one cannot have much sympathy for Wong and she loses credibility.

Informative and Entertaining
My husband and I are in the process of reading this book together, and are thoroughly enjoying it. Wong tells her story with candor and humor, never neglecting to describe the horrors and failings of the revolution while also making sure to relate the positive, uplifting, and sometimes humorous aspects of the system. An enlightening read with unique perspective.

must read for westerner going to china
It's amazing how Jan Wong's frustrations as a Canadian who looked but did not speak Chinese in China are so easy to relate to even though 30 years have passed since the beginning of her account. As a Chinese-American who traveled to China recently, I highly recommend this book. Old, many-times-read copies of this book are passed from older travelers to newer travelers in youth hostels in China (because it's very honest and good, but it's banned from sale!). ... Read more

Book Description

The New York Times best-selling author of The Bookseller of Kabul paints a stunning and intimate portrait of Baghdad under siege

From January until April 2003-for one hundred and one days-Asne Seierstad worked as a reporter in Bagdad for Scandinavian, German, and Dutch media. Through her articles and live television coverage she reported on the events in Iraq before, during, and after the attacks by the American and British forces.

But Seierstad was after a story far less obvious than the military invasion. From the moment she arrived in Baghdad Seierstad was determined to understand the modern secrets of an ancient place and to find out how the Iraqi people really live.

In A Hundred and One Days, she introduces us to daily life under the constant threat of attack-first from the Iraqi government and later from American bombs. Moving from the deafening silence of life under Hussein to the explosions that destroyed the power supply, the water supply, and security, Seierstad sets out to discover: What happens to people when the dam bursts? What do they choose to say when they can suddenly say what they like? What do they miss most when their world changes overnight?

Displaying the novelist's eye and lyrical storytelling that have won her awards around the world, Seierstad here brings to life an unforgettable cast of characters to tell the stories we never see on the evening news. The only woman in the world to cover both the fall of Kabul in 2001 and the bombings of Baghdad in 2003, Asne Seierstad has redefined war reporting with her mesmerizing book. ... Read more

Book Description

"Not only for readers who share [Santiago's] experiences but for North Americans who seek to understand what it means to be the other."--The Boston Globe

In her new memoir, the acclaimed author of When I Was Puerto Rican continues the riveting chronicle of her emergence from the barrios of Brooklyn to the theaters of Manhattan.

"Negi," as Santiago's family affectionately calls her, leaves rural Macún in 1961 to live in a three-room tenement apartment with seven young siblings, an inquisitive grandmother, and a strict mother who won't allow her to date. At thirteen, Negi yearns for her own bed, privacy, and a life with her father, who remains in Puerto Rico. Translating for Mami at the welfare office in the morning, starring as Cleopatra at New York's prestigious Performing Arts High School in the afternoons, and dancing salsa all night, she yearns to find balance between being American and being Puerto Rican. When Negi defies her mother by going on a series of hilarious dates, she finds that independence brings its own set of challenges.

At once a universally poignant coming-of-age tale and a brave and heartfelt immigrant's story, Almost a Woman is Santiago's triumphant journey into womanhood.

"A universal tale familiar to thousands of immigrants to this country, but made special by Santiago's simplicity and honesty."
--The Miami Herald

"A courageous memoir. . . . One witnesses. . .the blessings, contradictions and restraints of Puerto Rican culture."
--The Washington Post Book World ... Read more

Reviews (28)

Soul-Searching in a Light-Hearted Memoir
After reading "When I was Puerto Rican", I was eager to read the next installment of Esmeralda Santiago's life-story. Because this book is set in New York, it lacks the scenic imagery that is used in the first book to describe her home country. However, we are instead introduced to the introspective musings of a girl attempting to define and journey into womanhood while acclimating to New York - both of which are unfamiliar territory. The book explores some very real and/or mature concerns - e.g., love, an absent father, familial obligations, unwed motherhood, sex, responsibility, culture, etc. - although they are interwoven into a fun and lighthearted tale of Negi's teen years. I would recommend this book (although I would suggest picking up "When I Was Puerto Rican" first).

A memoir about an immigrant coming of age in New York City
I loved Santiago's first book (When I Was Puerto Rican) and I love this one too. Almost a Woman is a memoir about coming of age in New York City. It is also about the struggle to find her own identity among a large family and a domineering but loving mother. Even though I am not an immigrant or Puerto Rican I found this book very compelling and hard to put down. I only hope Santiago will write a third memoir so I can find out how she gets to Harvard, what happens to her mother, brothers and sisters, if she sees her father again and what happens to her lover. Santiago has become one of my favorite authors!

NOT AS GOOD AS THE FIRST BIOGRAPHY!!: IN FACT, HORRIBLE!!
This is the biography from Esmeralda Santiago that starts off where WHEN I WAS PUERTO RICAN ends off. That is where the comparison/connection ends, because this book is horrible compared to Santiago's first biography. To sum up one part of the book that really sums up the whole: There is one "big" event that happens in this book (won't give it away) and it's 272 pages leading up to it, and when it finally happens, ONE PAGE (and barely that, it's more like half a page) is devoted to describing it. Does that make any sense? Other events are given twenty pages to describe it, and the "big" moment for Santiago gets one page? The talented way Santiago describes her whereabouts and experiences are happily evident on her first biography; in ALMOST A WOMAN, they are almost non-existent. This biography is flat, empty, boring, and just plain stupid. Hard to believe the person who wrote it also wrote the first biography.

Boring; tedious; read only if you have nothing else to read
"Almost A Woman," the "sequel" to the well-written "When I Was Puerto Rican," is boring, tedious, and only recommended to hardcore fans of the first memoir from Esmeralda Santiago (and even then, your patience might wear thin on this one). While the first book, written with descriptive details and passionate voice, shows us the insights into young Esmeralda growing up poor in Puerto Rico, "Almost A Woman" is filled with uneventful happenings that won't draw the reader in as much as the first book. "My Boring Recollection of When I Became a Young Lady" would have been a better title for this book, and one wonders what the point was behind writing it in the first place. You won't come away feeling satisfied with what happens to the "characters," nor will you care halfway in. The first book captured you: you wanted to know about Esmeralda and her family; why her father did what he did; her childhood in Puerto Rico and its effect and lasting impression on her. The first book is "must reading" if you were/are an immigrant from any backround. In "Almost...", you read about Esmeralda in the US as a young lady: going on audtions; contemplating who she will give her virginity to; her future and what pain it will bring to her overprotective mother. This isn't, unfortunately, a "must read" for young ladies, or anyone who wants a good read, for that matter. This book is a huge disappointment, considering how good Santiago's first memoir was. It's useless, senseless reading and only if you have nothing else to read will you even bother wanting to read towards the end (which I might add, is predictably as boring and senseless as the rest of the book).

Esmerelda's Captivating Life
This book takes place in the run down streets of Brooklyn. The story focuses on a proud Spanish family who has immigrated to the alien United States. They find the large Puerto Rican family consisting of eleven children is irregular compared to the small white families of the United States. This book gave great insight into the Puerto Rican culture and also does an excellent job of attaching the reader to the main character. I felt as though i had grown up with Negi and was expeiencing the same emotions she was. This book is great for anyone who finds Spanish culture interesting and enjoys tapping into the cognitive process of the characters in the story. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

re: Ms. Knapps death
just an fyi.Ms. Knapp died in 2002,not 2001

How she died
In answer to readers' questions about how Caroline Knapp died, she was diagnosed with advanced-stage lung cancer in the spring of 2001 and died shortly thereafter. During the final weeks of her life, she married her longtime companion whom she talks about in her writings, and left Lucille in his loving care.

Heartbreakingly educational
(...)Knapp's willingness to thoroughly examine herself and her demons-- drinking, anorexia-- has provided many of us with a precious resource and lifeline in dealing with our own troubles. Her insights on her relationship with her parents, and her close bond to her dog, provide the reader with thoughtful reflections on the nature of human connections.

Why can't I find...
anything about HOW she died? I love this book and wish I had known her. Have found many references to her date of death but no mention of how. Anyone know? Thanks. Feel a bond as my middle name is Lucile...but I'm a cat person.

Wonderful Book!
I love Caroline Knapp. I have read all of her books, including Drinking: A Love Story, despite not having any problems with alcohol.
These essays are insightful, poignant, and they wonderfully express emotions that everyone can connect with. Caroline Knapp wrote with humor and seemed to invest her whole soul into all of her writing.
I disagree with the reviewer who said that some of the lighter essays were out of place, each essay provided a broader look of the author and allowed me the connection of humor as well as other connecting on more serious levels.
I especially liked Lucille vs Stumpy, Letter to Zoe and Speaking out for shyness.
I believe that anyone who enjoys good writing, reflective thinking and has a sense of humor will enjoy these essays. ... Read more

Book Description

In the early 1960s Jackie Kennedy wrote to Diana Vreeland: "you are and always will be my fashion mentor." Vreeland helped the young First Lady create her famous "Jackie look" which was imitated all over America. She had inspired readers of Harper Bazaar's with her brilliant tips from the mid 1930s to the early '60s and ran Vogue as editor-in-chief in its most innovative years (1963-1972). Then for thirteen years she organized the hugely successful annual costume history shows at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Known for her flamboyant personality, her striking looks, and impeccable taste, Diana Vreeland changed fashion forever. Now, we can begin to assess her immense contribution in Diana Vreeland.

This lavishly illustrated biography includes more than 300 full-color and black and white photographs many from Vreeland's own family scrapbooks and collection which have never been seen before, of family and friends and the talented people in the fashion world whom she inspired -- designers, models, and celebrities.

Diana Vreeland herself was not beautiful. Her appearance was so striking, however, that it revealed nothing of her beginnings as an awkward and difficult child who was born in 1903 into a socially prominent New York family. How she succeeded in transforming herself and developing a brilliant career is chronicled in this fascinating biography by Eleanor Dwight, the author of the highly praised Edith Wharton -- an Extraordinary Life.

We see the ambitious ingénue marrying the strikingly handsome Reed Vreeland in 1924, and embarking on a six-year sojourn in England where during frequent trips to Paris she learned how to change herself into a soignée and sophisticated young matron.

Vreeland began her fashion career at Harper's Bazaar in 1936, writing a playful column entitled "Why Don't You." At the magazine Vreeland thrived, asking questions like "Why don't you rinse your blond child's hair in dead champagne to keep its gold as they do in France? Or pat her face gently with cream before she goes to bed as they do in England?"

Vreeland exerted great power over the magazine's content working with editor-in-chief Carmel Snow and legendary art director Alexey Brodovitch. When Snow left Bazaar, Vreeland did not get her job. The fashion world waited in anticipation; surely, Vreeland would move on to something important. In 1963 she became the editor-in-chief of Vogue, a phenomenally powerful position.

She transformed Vogue from a ladylike, conventional publication to one incredibly daring and electric. Her sensitivity to the rebellious energy of the sixties and her understanding that fashion was theatre and that she should give readers large doses of fantasy -- "what they never knew they wanted" -- enlivened Vogue. She sparked reader's imagination by sending leggy, vibrant models to the far corners of the earth to be photographed on the edges of cliffs or in picturesque settings on tropical islands.

In Diana Vreeland, we see her in the midst of varied and elite social circles -- from the British aristocracy and literati of her London days, to her glamorous New York and Southampton set, to the talented fashion world of designers, editors and photographers, to her friends in France who lived in villas and chateaus and included the Windsors and Rothschilds, to Andy Warhol's set of young rebels in the seventies. She fostered the careers of many youthful figures whose talents she immediately spotted including Lauren Bacall, Mary McFadden, Issey Miyake, and Richard Avedon.

We see her attending Truman Capote's famous Black and White Ball to celebrate his book In Cold Blood, where she discovered a beautiful teenager named Penelope Tree whom she made into a famous model. We see her partying with Jack Nicolson, lunching at Warhol's Factory, and entertaining Garbo for tea. Her social calendar read like a Who's Who of the New York intelligentsia, and included lunch dates with powerful women like Katherine Graham and Suni Agnelli.

We see her enthroned in her famous red apartment, the "Garden in Hell" and strutting through Vogue's offices terrifying adoring protégés. We see her frustrating the staff of the Metropolitan Museum as she piped music and perfume through the ventilation system to create the exotic atmosphere for her costume shows. Along the way we meet and see the work of photographers like Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Cecil Beaton, and David Bailey, spot her encouraging designers like Oscar de la Renta, Christian Dior, and Elsa Schiaparelli and mothering models like Carmen, Lauren Hutton and Marisa Berenson.

Vreeland's profound influence left its imprint on culture and society. Ultimately, the flamboyance that made Vreeland a success would bring about her sudden downfall at Vogue. But, always able to reinvent herself, she took a position at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute. While there, she masterminded costume extravaganzas -- drawing on all her knowledge, enthusiasms and using her fabulous eye.

Elegant, insightful, strikingly beautiful, and filled with amusing anecdotes, Diana Vreeland reveals the complex, intelligent, and caring woman behind the famous persona. When Diana Vreeland became blind before her death in 1989, she said it was because she had seen so many beautiful things in her life. And when she died she became a legend.

Reviews (5)

Mad about her boldness!!!
I too, waited on pins and needles as Ms. Dwight's book was delayed and delayed. I had preordered it and it was a considerable wait. It was worth the wait. I bought it and read it in a couple of sittings, loved it so much I bought copies and sent to dear friends. One sent me a thank you card which read "WHY DON'T YOU hire a jet plane and fly to see me so I can thank you for this wonderful (struck out) NO, DELICIOUS book. Id' say that pretty much sums it up.

It was great to read about her lower profile, but still dramatic homelife. Her husband was equally style conscious and quite the fashion plate himself. Their children grew up remarkably well adjusted. I wish we had more Diana Vreelands in this world. She spurned a half loaf. She did it her way!

You will love this book!

What becomes a legend most? This book.
i anxiously awaited this book for more than a year, when it was finally released, i could not wait to see it, then read it.

having been a great admirer of diana vreeland, and having read her autobiography, i could not seem to find much else about her life and her work. but then eleanor dwight came along with the most information you could ever want to read about the legend, diana vreeland.

the book covers diana's entire life, and her work, right up until the end, nothing is missed. the book is full of hundreds of never before seen pictures, of diana with her family, and at work.

if you are interested in reading about others colorful lives, then this book will not disappoint. reading the book sure makes you wish you could have known diana vreeland, if only for a moment, thats all it would take to pull you in. the book does a wonderful job of just that, but nothing beats meeting the real thing, unfortunately ms vreeland is no longer with us, but her legend lives on, and this book helps a new generation to become familiar with her.

this is one of the best biographies i have ever read. i strongly recommend this to anyone interested in fashion.

She Was the REAL Deal
So it's come to this: The New York Times wrote some months back of a hot designer who got a summons from Vogue--yes, Vogue, of all magazines!--at a time when a shot of publicity would have done him a lot of good. The deal fell through. The designer was willing to co-operate, but only up to a point. He just couldn't bring himself to give the magazine his "signature" outfit. No; that was too much--he would not give his signature creation to what he called "that comic."

It was not ever thus, as amply and inspiringly proved by Eleanor Dwight's biography of Diana Vreeland, that grandest of grande dames.

Diana Vreeland was a homely girl born into a beautiful family; in fact, her mother once told her, "It's too bad . . . that you are so extremely ugly." Her response was a program of self-improvement. Dwight says "she emulated her classmates in how to dress; she worked on becoming tidy, enlarging her vocabulary, improving her manners." Eventually, having not found the ideal girl to model herself upon, she decided, "I shall be that girl."

If her mother exaggerated, it is nevertheless true that Vreeland was definitely not beautiful or even pretty. She was plain at best. But that was merely the surface nature gave her to re-make, and re-make it she did. She made herself original, arresting, witty, slightly madcap and rather amazing. She didn't have mere fashion--she had style, her own sensibility. By the time she took over the top spot at Conde Nast's Vogue, in 1963, she had been many years at Harper's Bazaar, where she had re-invented the job of fashion editor. At Vogue, she re-invented fashion magazines, hiring and nurturing (and occasionally driving crazy) the very best photographers and sending them and models to shoot in Africa, the Middle East and A