No comments about Someday: The Story of A Mother and Her Son.

No comments about Diplomat without Portfolio: Valentine Chirol, His Life and 'The Times'.

1 comments about 888 Days in Biafra.

1. My uncle was one of those arrested along with the author. Although expecting to get more than the passing detail I got from "Why We Struck" by Ademoyega on my uncle's incarceration, unfortunately I found out that he (my uncle) was in a different prison from the author (Sam Umweni). That said; phrases from the text such as "He's gone to post a letter to Gowon": term for someone who has just died of starvation in prison, will remain with me for ever.

2 comments about A Cab at the Door & Midnight Oil (Modern Library).

1. VS Pritchett has written a splendid two-volume autobiography, which covers his childhood through his initiation as a writer. It is beautifully written and hilariously funny in places.

   His early life was rather chaotic, both as a Christian Scientist and because of the ups and downs of his father's business, which meant they were frequently poor and the the children farmed out to grandparents. What is remarkable is his rise, from voracious reader to first-rate literary talent. Blocked from admission to university because he was put on a "craft" track in the leather trade, he gave it up and went abroad, the next best thing to a degree. In Paris as a semi-bohemian, he started writing, which led to jobs and a career.

   His descriptions are so marvelous that I have remembered some of them for over 20 years. While a child writing for public-library event, he said he wrote the words so that they would "burn into the table" (if memory serves!); the essay was so good that the teacher thought he was really a professional writer. Nothing spectacular, but a first-rate story of coming of age.

   I recommend it for any aspiring writer who wants to feel that some order might emerge from his/her chaos of early hopes. ALso for the literarati, it is the emergence of an unusual mind.




2. A wonderful single volume Modern Library edition of Pritchett's two volumes of memiors, Cab at the Door and Midnight Oil. Cab at the Door covers Pritchett's life from before birth to age 18. It is by turns: engaging, enlightening and laugh out loud funny. A good picture of post Victorian/Edwardian England. Pritchett's easy, self-depricating style keeps this poverty coming of age story from becoming another Mein Kampf (my struggle).
   
   Midnight Oil is even better and was rightly called "A little Rolls Royce of a book." by Wilfred Sheed when it came out in 1972. The best and probably most realistic portrait of Paris in the 20's I've read. Very readable and important to anyone that wants to understand how a writer came to be. The pages fly by. I highly reccomend this Modern Library edition.
   
   Complete Collected Stories

2 comments about Frank Springer And New Mexico: From the Colfax County War to the Emergence of Modern Santa Fe.

1. Though there have been many books written about the way the region (Northeastern New Mexico) was developed, this book is unique in that it makes the history enjoyable and easy to read. By making the book about a person -- Frank Springer -- the land itself is brought to life.
   
   There are stories of murders, feuds, and gentlemen. There are details of politics, romance, and business. This book has something for everyone.
   
   Exhaustive notes are found in the back of the book, which allows the reading of the book to be smooth and flowing: There are 15 pages of footnotes, plus 5 pages referencing writings by Frank Springer, and also 11 pages of bibliography. After all of that, a 9 page index is also provided.
   
   Balancing the contents of this book with the other information I have read about the area, it appears to be historically accurate and complete. I recommend this book to anyone with a curiousity of not just "what" happened back then in the old west, but "why and how." It's a book about history, but a history made easy to read.



2. Great book on a little-known figure in New Mexico. Or, should I say, a forgotten figure. AT the time he was very well known, but we tend to forget our history.

No comments about Bob Broeg: Memories of a Hall of Fame Sportswriter.

1 comments about Out of Thin Air: Insider's History of Network News-the Beginning and the End.

1. Though people usually mention CBS, Edward R. Murrow, and Uncle Walter when talking about the golden age of television network news from the 1950s to the 1970s, NBC News dominated during much of that time. Much of the credit belongs to Reuven Frank, twice NBC's president of network news.
   
   In this 1991 memoir, Frank talks frankly about his time at NBC, trying to create programs of substance and on occasion, succeeding. He paired Chet Huntley with David Brinkley, who in turn anchored the dominant nightly news program of the 1960s and early 1970s. After a time away from the boardroom, Frank became president again in time to revamp "Today" and repudiate the duo concept he developed at NBC Nightly News by making Tom Brokaw the sole talking head.
   
   Stilted, cranky, sometimes acidic, Frank's memoir is also fascinating, funny, and perhaps the best means a layman has of understanding the evolution of television news. "Insiders credit adding Huntley to Brinkley with ending the fatuous practices of newsreels as well as stilling the affected resonances of wartime radio, providing news adults could watch without squirming," he writes.
   
   Frank's focus is more on that evolution than himself; he starts with an evocative and detailed account of how NBC covered the 1948 party conventions in Philadelphia, selling co-branding rights to Life magazine, which also made many of the coverage decisions. Radio reporters adapted to the new medium with difficulty; one sat on a barber chair and explained to viewers what was going on while having his hair cut. This, two years before Frank himself was hired, was the imperfect dawning of the new news.
   
   CBS was the first network to figure out what it was doing, with Murrow leading the charge and chairman William S. Paley providing the support NBC parent RCA balked at. Frank's antipathy for CBS is pronounced and often amusing, as when he notes Walter Cronkite's plan to have an "average man" sit beside him at a convention anchor desk so Cronkite could explain to him what was going on, enlightening the audience by proxy. "Whoever vetoed the idea did Cronkite the greatest favor of his career," Frank writes.
   
   Frank doesn't have time for the conventional pieties about Cronkite or other legends; he even sees hollowness in his own achievements. Huntley and Brinkley were best known for an on-air relationship that really wasn't there (their signature "Good night, David. Good night, Chet" was hated by both because, as they complained to Frank, it made them sound like "a couple of sissies.")
   
   Frank spends most of his book discussing the 1950s and 1960s, odd given the fact he had a longer career than that. He hung around long enough to "execproduce" (a verb he inveighs against) the 1984 party conventions before calling it a day, and may have done more in his later years then he realized, as his brainchild "NBC News Overnight," a failure in its 1982-84 run, is widely credited for bringing a polish and sophistication to broadcast news today's cablecasts strive to emulate.
   
   Frank holds back very little, dishing on the likes of Connie Chung, Jessica Savitch, Roger Mudd, Tom Snyder, and others. Even sweet Jane Pauley comes in for scorn, her '80s bob so pronounced Frank says she looked "like a doll peeping out of a haystack." Yet his overall tone is buttoned-down and informative. Even when he is settling scores or rubbing old sores, you never sense he is being abusive, just unguarded.
   
   Frank died earlier this year. By many accounts, he outlived the domination of the mainstream media he helped create by a considerable period. Yet his work lives on, and will as long as people look to television to get an instant understanding of the world as it happens. "Out Of Thin Air" is a great way to get an understanding about how television happened to be there in the first place.

No comments about Whicker's War.

No comments about Edward R. Murrow: His Courage and Ideals Set the Standard for Broadcast Journalism (People Who Have Helped the World).

No comments about Curses and Blessings: Life and Evolution in the 20th Century South.