5 comments about Pull Me Up: A Memoir.

1. This is the best memoir I have ever read, beautifully written. While my Irish family is very different, I loved reading about his. I'm recommending the book to everyone.



2. When I finished reading Dan Barry's book, I was hungry for more, but not so much on the same topic. Instead I wanted to find another book with narrative so well-written it would inspire me to fill my leisure time with nothing but reading. Sadly, there aren't many books that do that.
   
   This one did. Perhaps it's my own connection to growing up in the same era, though I'm a bit younger. Maybe it's because we're both journalists, though books by journalists don't always merit reading sprints.
   
   For me I think what astounded me was Barry's ability to be honest, allowing us to see the weaknesses of the people in the book and see those people as human, rather than evil (with a couple exceptions). As a reporter Barry has seen some amazing things, but that's not the focus of his book. Those things are sidelights in a story about family and about growing up. That takes amazing skill. I'm glad Barry lived long enough to tell us about it. In another 40 years or so, I'll be excited to read the sequel.



3. As with all fine Irish writers, there's a poet's heart in Dan Barry.
   
   Pull Me Up, A Memoir is Barry's masterful landscape of his life and family, wondrously painted with words poignant with pain and breathtaking in beauty. Never mind that the setting is the same Long Island I grew up in, nor the fact that this Irish-American love song calls to my own heritage, nor even the fact that there are personal connections I can trace to many of the people and places he writes about. The soul of Barry's story is its firm grip on universal human fears and foibles, how he captures the heart-piercing trials of childhood, youth, illness, addiction, and family.
   
   Any reader who ever felt alone or insecure as a teenager, grew up with a sick parent, or whose family struggled with monthly bills will cherish the emotional depths to which Barry dives to harvest the treasures of his past. A truly rewarding read.
   
   Kathy Carroll
   http://www.oneclearcall.blogspot.com/



4. Anyone who reads Dan Barry's regular columns in the NYTimes will welcome his memoir first as if from a friend and buddy. Barry has given us, however, an extraordinary and, yes, radiant account of a man who would tell stories. He grew up in a haze of cigarette smoke, beer, and his father's howls of agony from migraine, but also with his mother's stories, his father's songs, and his siblings' affections. He traces his own journey to high school (casual boy torture on the school bus); St Bonaventure University (where he discovered you could make a job of tellling stories) to his early career in Rhode Island and then at the Times. He loves baseball, his mother dies, he and his beloved struggle first to conceive and then to adopt a child. He is diagnosed, and survives, a gaspingly terrible bout of cancer. Memoirs come by the handful, but Barry's is so vividly sketched, all the protagonists so fully present on the page, the prose so wickedly sure and sweet, that his sings close and real as a heartbeat. Wonderful.



5. This is a great book, especially if you are Irish-American. I couldn't put it down. After this, read All Souls, Easter Rising, Castle of the Fynns... Slices of life about growing up Irish in American in the 1960's and 1970's....

5 comments about Anyone Can Grow Up: How George Bush and I Made It to the White House.

1. Reading this book you feel embarrassed for Margaret Carlson. She brags about being a member of the Sally Queen Special Class in Washington. She shows contempt for ordinary people and their concerns. She hated Al Gore because he talked about issues on the campaign plane, issues that effect the lives of millions. She liked Bush because he served lobster ravioli on the campaign plane and made funny faces instead of boring her with discussion of issues. She recycles her columns from Time magazine. No original insights in her columns. Just conventional wisdom. No wonder Time magazine cancelled her column.



2. Take a bunch of old TIME magazine columns, string them together with anecdotes (meant to be heart-tugging) about Carlson's brain-damaged brother and working-class Irish-Catholic parents, and slather them with goo intended to soften her sharp elbows deployed during her singleminded ascent to the tippy-top of Georgetown s**thouse aristocracy.

   Whadda we got? The unfortunately buyer gets a book that in truth merits no stars at all.

   Carlson's brownnosing of the Washington Post's Katherine Graham is sickening enough without a half-dozen mentions of how Carlson's daughter was married at "Kay's" Georgetown mansion. Did you catch that? If you didn't, Carlson will remind you.

   Oh, and George W. Bush made silly faces and served fancy food on his campaign's press plane. Maybe that's how both he and Margaret, as the book's subtitle reads, "made it to the White House." By being dim and opportunistic? Must be.




3. All too often, it is all too easy for Washington insiders to fall prey to common opinion of their peers and colleagues. Carlson bucks this trend by inviting us into actual dialogues taking place as decisions are made and implemented. Her book allows us insight into the workings of Washington and the minds of the very people responsible for decisions and policies affecting the direction of our country and our lives. A must read for those who wonder what drives our leaders. Like it or not.



4. How this woman ever got to be a reporter is beyond my understanding. I take it that she is good at being able to spot things that interest the casual reader of Time magazine. Her analysis of the Bush Gore election is that Bush should win because he served better food than Gore. In the end, this book is dreadful yet interesting because it speaks volumes about what passes for thoughtful `political commentary' theses days.



5. God, what a hack! She really should give up writing and devote herself to sewing patches on Tucker's Toughskins.

1 comments about Caught in the Crossfire: 2.

1. this is quite simply the best book on the war in afghanistan- and i have read all of them. does anyone out there know the e-mail of the author--jan goodwin-- so that i may contact her?

   to anyone who has not read this book and is interested in afghanistan- please do so. it is excellent.

5 comments about Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company.

1. This book gives insight into one of the American literary greats. There are times that the book drags, but I think this is due as much to the author as to the fact that some moments in Bierce's life are so interesting that when you read about the "average" moments in his life, you are left, well , bored. This is a good book for a Bierce fan or someone that would like to learn about an American writer who, deservedly, lived in the shadow of Twain.



2. "Bitter Bierce" they called him because of his scathing sarcasm. After the Civil War, in which he fought valiantly for four years, he went to San Francisco and began writing for the Hearst newspapers. Satire was his game. He wrote a couple of decent short stories ("Chickamauga" and "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"), THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY, and that's about it (other books, mainly short story and poetry collections, have been forgotten, in some cases unfairly so). His wit, as revealed in the DICTIONARY is clever, but at times sophomoric. Influenced by Poe, many of his stories deal with the supernatural and are laced with horror. He disappeared in Mexico in 1913 and was never seen again. Speculation, from suicide to fighting for Pancho Villa, has been rampant ever since. Morris does a good job relating the events of Bierce's strange life, who must have been a very difficult man to know.



3. I am perfectly aware that to say that Ambrose Bierce was the most original, provocative and fascinating of all American writers (not to say the most brilliant of all) is like preaching in the desert. It is probably going to cost me a lot of negative feedback to say what I'm going to say, so I won't extend myself more than what it is absolutely necessary in order to speak my mind.
   
   The main reason for me to write this review is that this laughable biography by Roy Morris is so flagrantly detrimental on Bierce's accomplishments that I personally didn't want to lose the opportunity to advise you against reading such a lot of blather. The author even puts an awful novel like "The Red Badge of Courage" above Bierce's war stories (hilarious, isn't it?). After that, what else can be said about this biographer's ineptitude? Let's draw a veil over it and forget it.
   
   Anyone wishing to know something about the skilled artistry and posterior influence of the Ohio writer would be better looking for another book written by someone who had actually grasped Bierce's significance. But the best thing to do is reading Bierce's stories on your own and make up your mind about them instead of losing your time with the prejudices and lack of perspective of others.
   
   After reading some passages of this book, I reassure myself in my opinion that literary critics are, well, funny...
   
   In a world where mediocrity runs rampant and where authors like Mark Twain and the hideous Henry James have always been praised, it is difficult that really worthy authors like Bierce can find the recognition they deserve. But, perhaps, it is better that way, I don't know.
   
   What I know for sure (because I've seen it) is that, when a genius is born, all nefarious souls tend to ally themselves against it. Anyway, how could a writer like Bierce be enjoyed by a majority? It's impossible.
   
   Well, I don't think this review is gonna get anywhere, so I'd better stop here. Thank you for your reading.
   
   Note- sorry for any bad grammar on my part. I don't usually write in the language of the "Empire".



4. Conventional wisdom and history books have it that Ambrose Bierce died in Mexico during the Revolution. But Morris, in this in-depth biography, offers a fairly plausible alternative. (Sorry, not giving the store away as part of the review; you're going to have to get your hands on this book.)
   
   Much of the rest of the speculation in which Morris engages is psychological. He first analyses Bierce's childhood and parents, then takes note of his Civil War head wound, and wonders just how much the two of these things combined to contribute to the Ambrose Bierce we know today.
   
   That said, while not denying either childhood or adult causes of personality development -- or personality change -- I give more credence to genetic causes, i.e., the ideas of evolutionary psychology, properly applied.
   
   I find it likely that Bierce was pretty much born with tendencies toward the character he later exhibited. His upbringing and his war wound may have intensified it, but I think he came by much of his cynicism naturally. Life events probably added the dollop of churlishness to it.
   
   I teeter on a rating and end up at 4 stars. If I were to fine tune, it would probably be about 3 2/3 stars. The psycho-speculation is interesting, but in addition to being incomplete, if not somewhat wrong, too much of a focus on it means less focus on historical biography or on literary analysis.



5. Morris' biography of Bierce is thorough and has a lot of insight, but one thing that irritates is the implication that Bierce is not a "major" writer. There's even a a blurb on the book jacket from some critic at the Washington Post referring to him as a "lesser" writer.
   
   Are you kidding? Bierce wrote at least four or five of the greatest short stories in American literature. He pioneered the idea of showing readers that they weren't paying attention; he explored near-death experience masterfully in "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"--as well as delivering a scathing criticism of war; he wrote the most riveting Civil War story of all time, "Chickamauga," and he inspired dozens of modern and postmodern writers--Hemingway through Joseph Heller.
   
   Yes, Bierce's work was inconsistent. But so was Twain's, Crane's, and the work of dozens of other "major" writers.
   
   The best Bierce criticism is Richard O'Connor's _Ambrose Bierce: A Biography_, published in 1967. If you're interested in Bierce, read that one first.

5 comments about Hemingway: The Final Years.

1. The story of Hemingway's last years lets you enter a world of desillusion, faked grandeur and, ultimately, madness.

   It seems as if the reader was present at the scenes which are brilliantly depicted by Reynolds.

   Getting to know the life of Hemingway lets you add a supplementary dimension to the reading of his works.




2. Michael S. Reynolds' "Hemingway: The Final Years" is excellent and a worthy addition to any library, as are the previous volumes. I have read every Hemingway biography (I even have such paperback quickies as HEMINGWAY: LIFE AND DEATH OF A GIANT and THE PRIVATE HELL OF HEMINGWAY that were published shortly after Papa's death) since my father, twenty-two years ago, gave me a copy of Carlos Baker's 1967 authorized biography (which I also recommend; it gives you the a great overview of Hemingway's life and work and is very readable), and I have found Reynolds biographies to be wonderful and informative.



3. In all respects -- in terms of research, sensitivity, perception, analysis, and style -- Mr. Reynolds has written the finest biography of one of the most fascinating and complex personalities the world has ever known.

   Three citicisms, if I may: First, though very well written, there are occasional lapses in editing. Second, Mr. Reynolds owes it to his appreciative readers, as well as to himself, to provide somewhat more in-depth and revealing final thoughts than he has. My final "gripe" is admittedly extremely trivial. It irritated me, though -- in such a superbly researched endeavor, such a silly mistake should have been easily avoided. Hold on to your hats, ladies, because here it is: At one point, Mr. Reynolds mentions that Hemingway met Barbara Stanwyck and her husband, Robert Montgomery. Well, Robert Taylor, not Mr. Montgomery, was Miss Stanwyck's husband. A trivial mistake, to be sure, but why make it?

   Despite the mix-up with the Roberts (which can be easily made right in future editions), this is an outstanding biography, which I heartily recommend.




4. Reviewed by TOMA 1999

   Here's one to add to your Hemingway collection. Michael Reynolds tells us the story of Ernest Hemingway's last score years from the era of World War II to his suicide in Ketchum, Idaho on July 2, 1961. We have here the Hemingway hero we love and wish we personally knew: the articulate man full of high sentence, the man among men, the behemoth drinker, the virtuoso hunter, the dedicated idealist to his craft, the continent jumper, the fun-loving and cherished father especially to his three boys, the husband now going on his third wife in Martha Gellhorn and the literary lion in his last years where the Victor finally reaps the spoils of a lifetime pitted against the dragon called writing. Icon would be too small a word for such a colossal figure. Hemingway through all his own growling, fist-fighting, taunting of literary figures, strutting in and out of wars, promenading through world events, and arguing with his own publisher in Charles Scribner remains like the figure of the Greek Odysseus, the figure as Tennyson put it who set his life "to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." This is why many admire this American son while others see him as full of sh--, a braggart, and fraud for having never truly experienced the larger than life adventures he immortalized in his war books: For Whom The Bell Tolls, To Have and Have Not, and A Farewell To Arms not to mention his slew of other relevant stories set in exotic locations. At the date marking the century of his birth and with the latest Hemingway piece-meal work to be drawn together by his son Patrick in True at First Light, and the dozen or so other "timely" biographies, fancy-covered reprints, and photobooks presented during the summer of 1999, Reynolds does his duty to his subject with skill, organization, and insight. Although sentiment is not always unbiased, for it is obvious this research has been a labor of love, this book marks Reynolds' fifth and apparent last volume in a series of the chronologically-based Hemingway biography. In this final version, Hemingway is never idolized but shown in the somewhat balanced color of black and white where Hemingway can not but create his own shadow like some vibrant oak towering above Finca Vigia in Cuba or with his skeleton crew of "agents" monitoring the inland waterways for German submarines or as the bespectacled ancient literary lion much like his own tiger at Kilimanjaro, worn and heavy, resting within the expanse of Idaho country far below the mountains at his Sun Valley Lodge. Other exotic landscapes nicely slip into view along the journey: Hong Kong, Venice, Paris, Key West, New York, and Mombasa like a set of snapshots upon a reel. We find the sensitive Hemingway trying to keep together a marraige that seems over just as it has begun. We have a vivid image of Martha Gellhorn, the reluctant housewife and bonafide journalist torn between the woman Hemingway wishes and the one she desires to be. We feel him sparring with Scribner's over language in his novels and courtroom battles. We get a feel for the atmosphere of Finca Vigia with its bug-ridden sunburnt rooms, and for the silent, pine-washed Ketchum ranch where the echo of a rifle blast stills remains today. Characters saunter in and out of the story like locals into their corner bar. The quoted material from various personages of the times has been expertly chosen to move the Hemingway legend along its way. These haunting voices create such atmosphere and setting that the imagination has little to do but continue to create a story that unfolds in cinemagraphic slow motion. Moreover, we seem to capture a panoramic view of our literary past so important to reflect upon as we step over the century divide. This is a joyous read especially for summer reading not only for the enthusiast but for the academic who wishes to gain a fuller insight into the one of our greatest literary figures this nation has ever produced.




5. There is little I can add to the above reviews. Long before this final volume of Michael Reynolds' masterpiece came out, he had already taken his place as our finest Hemingway scholar and one of the five or six greatest literary biographers of our time. This last volume merely confirms his position. Tragically, he succumbed to cancer shortly after this book appeared, but he left us a daunting legacy as a scholar. I doubt anyone ever understood the infinitely complex Hemingway as well as Professor Reynolds did. It is a cause for celebration when a major writer and a great biographer come together; these volumes will never grow old.

1 comments about Light Years.

1. I loved this book. Sitting outside under a tree reading this book was like heaven. Schreiber talks about fly-fishing, nature, her precious cat, everything she writes about, she makes special. It is a thoughtful, touching book about memories, the important things in life, loss and love. I have now picked up this book to read for the second time. I want to be taken away again to where Le Anne Schreiber is. Her words are so soothing and thought provoking. There was nothing about this book that I didn't love. When I would read it at work, I found myself longing to get back to it, sneaking peeks at it whenever I could. wonderful essays on life.

5 comments about Writing About Your Life: A Journey into the Past.

1. No doubt Zinsser knows how to teach writing, but I'm amazed over the gap between his writing principles and the style with which he writes about his own life. Such a small portion of the book teaches how to write well while the greater amount is devoted to example. When Zinsser writes about his own life, I can hardly stand reading it anymore because it is so boring. At first I thought his life was going to be fascinating to read about since he has done so much. However, he seems to have mastered the art of taking something with so much potential and turning it into material too dry and stale to enjoy. What this book has taught me is that I'd rather read an entertaining story written with bad grammar and spelling any day over something an English teach would give an A+ on which will put you to sleep. Sorry Zinsser for such harsh critism, but I know English teachers...they aren't too sparing on critism either.



2. William Zinsser is the premiere writing coach of our day!



3. This book is a bunch of introspection. While he may be telling some interesting stories, the book will not teach you how to write a memoir or anything else for that matter. I have three master's degrees and a BA in English. Getting none of those degrees taught me to write. You learn to write from imitating good writing. If you want to be a writer, then read good writing of the type you'd like to write. I've found a few of technique books to be useful: The First Five Pages, Technique in Fiction, and Self-Editing for Fiction writers. Reading while writing helps a great deal. And reading as a writer helps. Also, developing control over sentence structure is a must, along with your imagination and mature insights.



4. If one is interested in learning how to write about ones' life (memories) this book is fantastic. Its both interesting and informitive. I really enjoy it and I'm hard to please.



5. Zinsser weaves "how to" tips and discussion into his own memoirs. His section on cutting a broad project (write about baseball) down to manageable size (Pirates in spring training) is excellent for its step-by-step thinking process. He offers equally good thinking on many other things that can cause perplexion.

5 comments about City Room.

1. It's great to see someone of Arthur Gelb's age and experience who has remained true to the very core of what reporting and journalism is all about -- keeping people informed. He outlines his rise from copy boy to managing editor of the Great Gray Lady, the New York Times, through some of the most turbulent years of the nation. He doesn't pull punches when describing some of his associates in those years, and I raised my eyebrows more than once at his descriptions of some of the giants of the Times. At times, his exhaustive attention to detail does bog the reader down, but he is peerless in his recollection and objectivity. He never hesitates to give credit where it is due, whether he liked the person or not. My one real criticism of this book is its complete absence of pictures. I would have liked to have seen a few of the people he so lovingly described, particularly those of his early years on the Times. But, like the paper he has devoted his life to, photos play a secondary role to the text. Definitely worth reading for anyone who wants to understand how the Times, and with it, the substantial portion of today's press, has grown and changed in the past 50 years.



2. Gelb's book isn't an attempt to describe the broad sweep of power at the top of The New York Times. For that you need Gay Talese's book, "The Kingdom and the Power".

   Rather it's the story of the rise of a reporter to a key day-to-day editor from 1944 to the end of the century. Many will find the stories and descriptions of maneuvering at the Time dry. But his look at events of the world and how they shaped the newspaper is fascinating.

   An example is when the newspaper initiates a luncheon with key newsmakers by hosting New York Police Commissioner Michael Murphy:
   "He spoke about the difficulties of protecting President Kennedy on his visits to New York. The president, he said, liked to stop his motorcade to shake hands with admirers, who lined his route from the airport to Manhattan. It was a tremendous headache for the Police Department, and Murphy said he had personally warned Kennedy to change his habits, for he made an easy target for the unhinged.
   
   "At that moment, the phone in the anteroom range and a waitress summoned Clifton Daniel. He returned to the dining room looking stunned and ashen. 'President Kennedy has just ben shot in Dallas.'"

   There are momentous events. And there are the trivial (and gossipy ones). For example, early in the book he describes in detail the speakeasy run by the father of TV host Barbara Walters.

   But overall, this is well worth the effort and will introduce some interesting historical details even for those very familiar with American history from the end of World War II to the end of the century.




3. Full disclosure: I am one of that nationwide brotherhood of folks who cannot get along without the New York Times. Though 450 miles and two states removed from New York City, I still devour the Times as a starving man would devour a hearty meal.
   
   It is good news for us Times junkies that Arthur Gelb's recounting of his career at the paper, published to considerable acclaim last year, is now out in a paperback reprint. The book is not without flaws, but Gelb tells his personal story with gusto and weaves it deftly into the lore, traditions, triumphs and crises of the paper itself.
   
   Gelb joined the paper at age 20 in 1944 as a copyboy. He worked his way up through the reporting ranks, covering police, hospitals and various other beats, then spending many years in the cultural department, dealing with the paper's critics of art, theater, architecture and music and covering the nightclub scene himself. Then they made him metropolitan editor (Times-speak for city editor) and by the time he retired in 1989 he was managing editor. He leaves the impression that life in the rarefied air of the paper's higher echelons was not to his taste --- he longed to be back in the city room, covering news and writing about it on a daily basis.
   
   Gelb's book is discursive and anecdotal. He goes into too much detail about many things and has a tendency to get sidetracked from the main thrust of whatever crisis he helped to report or cover by some alluring but peripheral topic that pops up out of nowhere. He has a hundred stories to tell, and he tells them all, come hell or high water.
   
   His rise through the paper's ranks was propelled by his own obvious talent, plus a flair for self-promotion, a take-charge attitude under stress that fit the needs of a major newspaper, and a shrewd ability to ingratiate himself with people who could do his career good. The pattern was set at the very start, when Gelb was looking for a way to set himself apart from the other copyboys who shared his desire to become a reporter. A sympathetic older staffer suggested he start an internal staff newsletter. He got right on the case and did the job well enough to eventually earn promotion to the reporting staff. In the process he even met his future wife. Not a bad parlay!
   
   One point that Gelb emphasizes will surely seem odd to present-day journalists on other newspapers: He constantly emphasizes how, in his reporting days, police, press agents and government officials seemed actually eager to give the Times inside information and helpful spoonfuls of hot news. How times have changed! Today these functionaries generally work hard to make a reporter's job more difficult, or to feed him only self-serving puffery. Perhaps the solution to this mystery lies in the fact that the New York Times, is, after all, The New York Times. Those who work for lesser papers are treated accordingly (I speak from experience).
   
   A great virtue of Gelb's book is his humanizing of his fellow reporters, critics and editors. Bylines that we have read for years suddenly become well-rounded people with interesting histories and weird habits. And Gelb is not shy about venting his disapproval of some very big names who he feels made his life more difficult than it needed to be (Lester Markel and James Reston, to name just two). He is generous in his praise of others, notably his longtime friend A. H. Rosenthal and publisher Arthur Ochs ("Punch") Sulzberger.
   
   There are some fascinating vignettes along the way. Do you know, for instance, that the Times briefly but seriously considered publishing an afternoon paper as a kind of counterweight to its lordly morning self? And the spectacle of seven high-ranking Times editors trooping down to a porno theater to personally inspect the notorious sex film Deep Throat makes for truly diverting reading.
   
   Gelb was unhappy at the Times' slowness to report on Nazi atrocities during World War II, and he was highly critical about the paper's lackluster performance during the Watergate scandal. Tension between the New York office and the Washington bureau is a recurring theme, with much of the blame being laid upon Reston.
   
   The book ends on a note of regret and nostalgia, the standard lament of the old hand who feels put out to pasture, that things are not what they were in "the good old days."
   
   Gelb is a good storyteller, though like many storytellers he tends to go into too much detail and ramble (I lost count of how many times he and his associates had lunch at Sardi's). There is also a large dose of standard "How We Got The Big Story" reminiscing, but in all honesty, much of it is darned interesting.
   
   CITY ROOM is essential reading for us Times junkies, and for anyone else who thinks newspapers are still at the top of the media profession despite the rise of television. One cannot imagine a similar book about a television station, that's for sure.
   
   --- Reviewed by Robert Finn (Robertfinn@aol.com)



4. Arthur Gelb, writes an intimate precise account of his long tenures with the NY Times. He started from the very bottom and worked his way to the very top. At times, some of the style of writing comes off a little corny and i felt that the author was either afraid to write more critically or he was simply just accustomed to stating the facts as he did with the paper. I would have given this book a 5 star, if not for that reason and possibly that this book could have benefitted from an archive of photos showing the transition of a city paper desk from the 40's to the current state today.



5. A fascinating memoir, history of the second half of the 20th century and history of the New York Times, the premier paper of the country. After a brief introduction of his early years as a child and teenager in NYC, Gelb takes his reader into the city room of the Times. Gelb truly makes one feel as if you are a part of the smoky, beer drinking group of reporters who populated the Times in 1944. From there he gives you a incredible memoir of 45 years (plus a few) in which the Times touched on virtually every aspect of the second half of the 20th century. He either personally knew, wrote about or edited stories of every major event of the last 50 years. From the end of WWII (imagine the mayor of NYC excoriating the citizens for abandoning their jobs to celebrate VE day), to the executions of the Rosenbergs, to the Red baiting of the early 50's. In the 60's he reviews in detail the explosion of the counter culture. In 1970 he details the Times primary role in exposing the corruption in the NYC police department (Serpico). Throughout he details lovingly his personal interactions with the entertainers who participated into the culture of NYC (including a brief, touching encounter with Marily Monroe). Gelb's story includes details of how and why the New York Times is the most important paper in America, how and why it manages to maintain that status. There is also a fascinating account of period in which the Times almost went bankrupt, and his important role in helping to rescue the paper. As a long time reader of biographies and autobiographies, Gelb's City Room is at the top of my recommended list.

5 comments about Murrow: His Life and Times (Communications and Media Studies, No. 1).

1. By the time most of us baby boomers were old enough to watch more substantive television fare than Felix the Cat, Edward R. Murrow was an aging icon without portfolio. He did not have the regular exposure of a Douglas Edwards, Chet Huntley, or David Brinkley. He would on occasion do spectacular work-as elementary school students we would discuss his "Harvest of Shame" documentary on the sufferings of migrant farm workers. But it was from our parents and older relatives that we inherited something of a sense of his importance in an earlier time, in the same fashion that they might speak of a Bob Taft or an Adlai Stevenson.

   What we could not know in 1959, what biographer A.M. Sperber makes abundantly clear, is that we were watching the shell of a driven man who had exhausted his incredible stores of emotional energy to international cooperation, then to radio coverage of the horrors of World War II, and on to shape the formation of the CBS new department during the explosion of the television era and the age of McCarthy. Sperber traces the rise and decline of this charismatic, almost manic, entrepreneur from the most unlikely of origins, that of a lumberjack named Egbert who quickly realized the liabilities of his given name in the male work camps of Washington State.

   Egbert, now Edward, chopped wood only long enough to scratch and claw his way into Washington State College. A student with fingers in many campus pies, he joined an organization called the International Institute of Education in 1931. The IIE in the early 1930's was a form of college student exchange program, one of its sponsors being the not-quite-ready-for-prime-time Columbia Broadcast System. When Murrow spoke at a West Coast gathering of IIE representatives, he earned himself election to the national office of the IIE in New York, a paid position there, and free air time on CBS radio. Murrow produced Sunday afternoon radio lectures and round table discussions, demonstrating a flair for attracting international speakers. As Murrow learned more about the plight of Jews in Germany from reporter [and later close friend] William Shirer, he used the machinery of the IIE in the United States to rescue as many Jewish intellectuals as possible and place them in American colleges. It was a tactic not universally appreciated, nor would his close cooperation with the Russians be forgotten by J. Edgar Hoover.

   By the beginning of the Battle of Britain, Murrow was assigned full time by CBS to provide radio coverage of Hitler's assaults and to coordinate the company's European reporting network. It is impossible to capsulize here the horrors of those eighteen months for Murrow and for England generally, when every night brought a terror at least as awful as the World Trade Center bombing. Murrow created a network of European radio correspondents-many of whom would become household names in their own rights. He overcame industry biases against putting reporters on the air and using taped reports from the fields. But most of all, he revolutionized the very style of radio news into "factual storytelling" by his nightly accounts of German bombings that by happenstance occurred during the East Coast's prime time 7 P.M. radio news hour. Later, as the theater of war shifted east, Murrow was among the first western reporters to see first hand an operating extermination camp. He could not bring himself to talk about it over the air for several days.

   Murrow returned to CBS in New York a conquering hero of sorts, the network's hottest property. Sperber does a good job in explaining why the postwar Murrow-CBS marriage was a stormy one. For one thing, the war years had reshaped Murrow into a cross between an Old Testament prophet and a posttraumatic stress sufferer. He would never be quite at home in an industry moving toward television, increased advertising dependence, and escapism. Secondly, Murrow was too much the prophet to claim objectivity. He would never be confused with, say, Bob Trout. Long before Woodward and Bernstein, Murrow crafted the art of investigative reporting for a presumably concerned nation, particularly through the medium of his weekly "See It Now" series, a rough and tumble forerunner of "60 Minutes." His most controversial television piece, his hour-long exposure of Joe McCarthy, was out and out editorializing, albeit accurate. In Murrow's mind, he was serving the common good. Others were not so sure. Thirdly, Murrow himself had a past that made him a potential network liability. When he produced his "Harvest of Shame" documentary, for example, hardly a paean for capitalism, those with long memories would recall his enthusiastic embrace of Russian intellectuals in the late 1930's with the IIE.

   The great irony in the breakup of Murrow and CBS is that the deciding infidelity may possibly have been unintentional. In 1960, with quiz show scandals threatening the credibility of the television industry, CBS President Frank Stanton announced a policy to eliminate the appearance of deceit in any of his network's programming, not just quiz shows. When pressed as to the extent of this policy, the network cited other programming, including rather surprisingly Murrow's own "Person to Person" prime time home visits to celebrities. In one reading of this event, Stanton may have simply been protesting the pre-scripting of interview questions and the staged walk-through of the homes. Or, there may have been a subtler message. A young Harry Reasoner inquired of Murrow on air, in so many words, "why are you, the Jeremiah of the industry, wasting precious prime time with the innocuous drivel of fighters and starlets?"

   Unlike Reasoner and Howard K. Smith, who felt no compunction about switching networks, Murrow lived and died CBS. Illness and ultimately death interrupted his stint as window dressing for the Kennedy administration in 1965. Perhaps his prodigious cigarette smoking had finally claimed him. More likely, it was the pressure of living so many lives in one frail human shell.




2. Since its publication in 1986, no other biography on Edward R. Murrow has been written that can depose A.M. Sperber's magnificent work. "Murrow: His Life and Times" is, by far, the best biography written to date on America's first, and possibly last, great broadcasting journalist.
   
   Sperber's book captures the essence of Murrow's life from a young intellectual to his rise from college campuses to directorship of the "Institute of International Education" and to Murrow's début at CBS where he broadcasted the bombing of London during World War II. It was during this period that Murrow demonstrated, so clearly, his finesse with the American audience as they listened to his broadcast of the traumatic events as they unfolded in World War II Europe.
   
   Sperber's methodical research, numerous interviews, attention to detail, and her writing give the reader a close and personal look at the extraordinary triumphs and tragedies that made up Murrow's life. Readers are able to follow Murrow's footsteps and virtually see into his world, as he became the voice of World War II and the voice for America. Murrow's denunciation of Senator Joseph McCarthy's treatment of Americans during the HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) hearings set into motion the senator's decline and closed a dark chapter in American politics -- all with his rational, yet forceful manner of speaking.
   
   Sperber writes of Murrow's journalistic integrity and his struggles for openness and frankness in the media -- ideals that brought Murrow into constant conflict with CBS. The author also illustrates Murrow's battle with tobacco addiction - an addiction that would have devastating affects on Murrow's health. An entire life flawlessly researched and written in 705 captivating pages that will embrace readers today as it did when the book was first published 1986. After reading Sperber's book the reader will understand why CBS headquarters in New York City still displays a plaque in their lobby which contains the image of Murrow and the inscription: "He set standards of excellence that remain unsurpassed."
   
   "Murrow: His Life and Times" should be required reading for students of communications and those working in media. There is no better chronicle of America's greatest broadcasting journalist. Readers will find this book hard to put down once they begin reading it. It is superb in every respect and the very best biography on Edward R. Murrow.



3. Thank Heaven that this book - long out of print, I had my copy nailed down - has now been re-issued, and thank Heaven for the current renaissance in interest in this magnificent journalist and iconic human being. Murrow's speech to camera at the end of the McCarthy expose ought, if there is any justice, to be committed to memory by every American in the same way that the Gettysburg address is now.
   
   As for the book itself - well, I bought my first copy in the early 1980s, Murrow having been a childhood hero. It's bit, it's beautifully written, and is it enough to say that my original copy is falling apart? And that all my Christmas present problems are now solved?
   
   There are other good biographies (I'm a Murrow fanatic, if this isn't clear already)and I wouldn't fault any of them; and the newly-reissued DVD set of the Murrow Years is also essential and full of the most wonderful surprises. I guess that Sperber wrote the ur-text, and so this is probably the place to start. But thank you to everyone who remembered that he should not be forgotten. Meet a true American hero.



4. Edward R. Murrow was elusive. He was a pioneer radio and television broadcaster. His career arc did not include print journalism. His success was modern. Murrow, b. 1908, had a golden natured man for a father and a shrewd and enterprising woman for a mother. He ws the youngest of three sons. Black moods dogged his whole life. In the 1930's Murrow worked for a committee placing European scholars in American academic posts. He had contacts at CBS. At college, Washington State, he had been a speech major. At CBS, 1935, he became the Director of Talks. Murrow was also responsible for education and religion.
   
   Radio was changing the world of politics. Overseas radio was primarily a novelty act. NBC had Alistair Cooke and so its coverage of the abdication crisis was better. Murrow was asked to take a job in London as the European director for CBS. William Shirer was offered the job of continental representative of CBS. When Germans invaded Austria, Murrow traveled to Vienna. His immensely successful career as a radio reporter, commentator, had begun. Murrow and Shirer used stamina and imagination to cover the developing crisis in Prague and elsewhere on the continent. Listeners were taken to Nuremburg to hear Hitler. At the end of September NBC and CBS radio braodcasts reported on Munich. Murrow sat with Jan Masaryk.
   
   War finally came over Poland. CBS staff positions in the European capitals were filled. Murrow put in time everywhere. In the spring, blitzkrieg tactics caused the occupation of Belgium, the Netherlands. Norway fell. The Dunkirk evacuation took place. Churchill assumed office as Prime Minister. Commentators crowded into London. As neutrals CBS staff faced endless delays and red tape. A stringer, Vincent Sheean, became Murrow's boon companion. The reader is immersed with Murrow and company in rather delightful fashion in the events leading up to America's entry into World War II. A reader is able to sense in the author's careful descriptions the immediacy of war as brought to the radio listeners. Broadcasting brought facts and analysis to the audience in real time.
   
   London was under air attack. Janet Murrow busied herself with the evacuation of children to America. The BBC moved broadcasting underground. Murrow inhabited freely both the upper class and the London ghetto. Eventually daytime operations ceased. It was not known at the time, but it was an RAF victory. Night bombings continued. With the approval of the censors American audiences were permitted to hear the sounds of a raid. Murrow conveyed the impersonal nature of the new technology of killing. Home news editor at the BBC, R.T. Clark, became a mentor to Murrow. He was versed in the classics and military history. In the fall of 1940 Shirer left for home from Portugal. He and Murrow had built up radio news from nothing. Home leave, 1941, proved to be a case of culture shock for the Murrows. In America there were no shortages. Murrow was effective because he did more than his job. Through happenstance he met with FDR Pearl Harbor night. He sat on the scoop that the President was determined to go to war. In the spring of 1942 the Murrows returned to London.
   
   Murrow, disappointingly, had to coordinate CBS staff reports at headquarters during the operation of Overlord, the Normandy Invasion. In the end he was cut up with rage seeing the camps, Buchenwald and others. The Nazis had done a more thorough job of brutalizing the people than he had deemed possible. After an eighteen months' stint as an executive, Murrow returned to broadcasting. He was bitter over the death of George Polk in Greece in 1948. Polk had modeled himself on Murrow. In 1950 he took an unequivocal stand against Joe McCarthy and lost his sponsor. Regional sponsorship was arranged. Owen Lattimore commended Murrow for keeping the record straight on his case.
   
   Fred Friendly and Murrow were ready, in 1951, to convert I CAN HEAR IT NOW to television. ALCOA sponsored SEE IT NOW. It needed to brighten its image. At the beginning of 1953, after doing an historic piece, 'Christmas in Korea,' he was exhausted. His view of the US was changing. Murrow's attack on McCarthy on SEE IT NOW was considered an act of courage by most people. It resulted in FBI scrutiny, he became a watched man. After McCarthy's demise, employers and news broadcasters were still treading gently. By 1957 Murrow was a celebrity, but SEE IT NOW was cut and he and Friendly were given SMALL WORLD. After speaking in Chicago to an association of journalists about the need for independence in television news, Murrow lost clout at CBS. Informally he was demoted. Fred Friendly became the sole executive producer of CBS Reports. One of the programs in which Murrow participated notably was 'The Harvest of Shame.' Murrow was appointed to head USIA under Kennedy. He resigned in 1964 and died in 1965.



5. "Murrow: His Life and Times" is a superb biography about Edward R. Murrow. No one had a greater impact in defining and shaping broadcast journalism than Murrow, and in highlighting the responsibility of journalists, broadcasters, government and citizens in a democracy. Television, he observed in 1954, "can teach, it can illuminate...but it can only do so to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends...otherwise it is merely lights and wires in a box." Whether his brilliant and breathtaking radio coverage from London of World War II, or his confrontation with red-baiting Senator Joe McCarthy, he was always principled, strong and courageous. Speaking of the anti-communist hysteria sweeping this country in the early fifties he would turn to Shakespeare, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves." As mass media races onto the Internet and enters a new digital era, the experiences and issues raised during Murrow's life become even more relevant. In the mid-fifties he warned, "the frontiers of knowledge have been pushed back, and the more that comes to be known, the less is understood...looking ahead to a time when human destinies are to be determined by the uses or abuses of new sources of almost unlimited physical power, one may ask if democracy will be able to develop the competence to deal with these complexities." He concluded, "If so, it must be through a broadening of education and the use of communications not yet realized, or perhaps even conceived." Murrow is a man for all times.

5 comments about Hunter: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson.

1. I purchased this book keep my HST collection as complete as possible. I've owned it for 3 years and have never finished reading it. I gave it 2 stars out of generosity. Get Paul Perry's book if you can, it's a 6 star book with 5 being the best.



2. My goodness what is this world coming too. This book simply is the greatest. After watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I simply had to devour all information I could find on this amazing man, Hunter S. Thompson.

   I am so pleased to have found this informative work of art on such a legendary American figure.

   Thank you E. Jean! Please never stop authoring books, you are wonderful.

   I just hope this book is re-released so others can enjoy it as much as I have.




3. If you have the misfortune of reading this book do yourself a favor and skip the fictional chapters, they are total rubbish. If E Jean Carroll is "the female answer to Hunter Thompson" than I'm the Queen of England. Her awful attempt at copying Thompsons style comes across as sophmoric and trite. I too recomend Paul Perrys book over this one.



4. I have to take issue with the other reviewer who called Carroll's attempt at a bio on the un-dooable 'trite'... bollocks.
   Yes she tries to emulate her mentor, no it's not as good as Hunter himself. But, the blow by blow accounts arent what one would call lies, as that's what Hunter does best, politics aside. This is a fantastic little book of insights, many of the stories already exist in one form or another, and it's nice to have them in one little compendium. The real stories of his adventures far outweigh the stories told about him, anyway.



5. If you really feel the need to buy this, do so. But send it to me with a pair of scissors before you read it. I will send back an abridged edition, far superior to the original. This way you can avoid the disappointment I felt....... I will even return the scissors.