Journalists Books - Page 34

Love in Black and White: A Memoir of Race, Religion, and Romance

William S. Cohen, Janet Langhart Cohen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS ARE ONE 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 10 people found this review helpful.

This is a love story. The journey of two people arriving at the same place in time, finally. They share their respective experiences with sharp incisive candor. Readers are given a "no holds barred" look into their world.

Quite frankly, they are right. It is the time for a book of this quality to be written. Two little children born and raised in America, each having individual, separate horrendous struggles, - yet surviving, maturing, achieving success. Through their eyes, we experience life in the political, journalist, entertainment,social, personal, civil rights, and sports arena of action. Through them We meet a young Muhammad Ali, Quincey Jones, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Hilary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Sidney Poiter, Richard Nixon, Herbert Hoover, the FBI, Deepak Chopra, Bruce Gordon, Mahalia Jackson, John Johnson, Andrew Young, soldiers in Bosnia and many many more. Beautiful glossy photographs capture memorable moments. Thank you Bill and Janet. Your respective journeys were often jarring, but seldom boring. The book contains enlightening perspectives and is a wake-up call to the sometimes harsh yet mostly beautiful realities of life here on planet earth. And much like the lyrics of that sweet old poignant song, " We will show them as we walk together in the sun, that our two different worlds are one," -- you have indeed done just that.



I have never met William Cohen and Janet Langhart Cohen, but I have observed Janet's steady progress and achievements, over the years, from the cover of Jet Magazine to the Ebony Fashion Fair, and her television show. I have always been inspired by her courage, intelligence and professionalism. I am an African-American woman. This book is excellent and informative. Its final chapter features Janet's masterfully crafted play, a dialogue between murdered Emmitt Till and the Holocaust's Anne Frank.


My next read will be Janet's book, "From Rage to Reason."

Editorial Review:

Love in Black and White draws fascinating parallels between the histories of two people from different regions, races and religions, as both are witnesses to and targets of the social tensions of the day.

The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times

Susan E. Tifft, Alex S. Jones

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This mammoth history of the dynasty that created and controls The New York Times is as epic in its scope as is the role of the newspaper in America. Like any good epic, this story is filled with its fair share of personal ambition, disappointment, competing heirs to the throne, fierce loyalties, and powerful intrigue. The story of The Times starts in 1896, when Adolph Ochs, a young German Jew, buys the undistinguished and nearly bankrupt The New-York Times (the dash was later dropped). He worked hard to distinguish its style from the florid journalism that marked rival papers, and soon Ochs's paper, with its straightforward reporting, became the favorite of the Wall Street and Uptown sets. He toiled, too, to ensure that The Times never earned the moniker "too Jewish." Ochs assiduously declined to promote Jewish editors and was an outspoken opponent of the free state of Israel. And writers Susan Tifft and Alex Jones argue persuasively that in its drive to appear absolutely objective about Jewish issues, the paper (under the leadership at this point of Ochs's son-in-law Arthur Hays Sulzberger) underreported the Holocaust--keeping stories of Hitler's early maneuvers off the front page, failing to name concentration-camp victims as Jews. Though significant, World War II was just one moment in the hundred-year-long history of the paper thus far. The Trust vividly chronicles some of the The Times's most famous moments--the controversial publication of the Pentagon Papers and its transition to a publicly held company in the late '60s are just two--along with the personal histories of four generations of Ochses and Sulzbergers. With its strong foundation of well-researched facts, thoughtful analysis, and excellent narration, The Trust is itself a great work of journalism that does its storied subject proud. --Anna Baldwin

A Dash of Daring: Carmel Snow and Her Life In Fashion, Art, and Letters

Penelope Rowlands

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Editorial Review:

Carmel Snow, who changed the course of our culture by launching the careers of some of today's greatest figures in fashion and the arts, was one of the most extraordinary women of the twentieth century. As editor in chief of Harper's Bazaar from 1934 to 1958 she championed the concept of "a well-dressed magazine for the well-dressed mind," bringing cutting-edge art, fiction, photography, and reportage into the American home.

Now comes A Dash of Daring, a first and definitive biography of this larger-than-life figure in publishing, art, and letters. Veteran magazine journalist Penelope Rowlands describes the remarkable places Snow frequented and the people whose lives she transformed, among them Richard Avedon, Diana Vreeland, Geoffrey Beene, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Cristobal Balenciaga, Lauren Bacall, and Truman Capote.

She chronicles Snow's life on both sides of the Atlantic, beginning in nineteenth-century Ireland and continuing to Paris, Milan, and New York City, the fashion capitals of the world.

Snow was the daughter of an Irish immigrant, who was herself a forward-thinking businesswoman, and she worked in her mother's custom dressmaking shop before being discovered by the magazine publisher Conde Nast and training under Edna Woolman Chase, the famous longtime editor of Vogue. From there it was on to Harper's Bazaar which, with the help of such key employees as Avedon, Vreeland, and art director Alexei Brodovitch, Snow turned into the most admired magazine of the century. Among the disparate talents who worked at Bazaar in the Snow era were Andy Warhol, the heiress Doris Duke, Maeve Brennan, and members of the storied Algonquin Round Table.

Overflowing with previously untold stories of the colorful and glamorous, A Dash of Daring is a compelling portrait of the fashion world during a golden era.

Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege

Amira Hass

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In 1993, amira hass, a young Israeli reporter, drove to Gaza to cover a story-and stayed, the first journalist to live in the grim Palestinian enclave so feared and despised by most Israelis that, in the local idiom, "Go to Gaza" is another way to say "Go to hell." Now, in a work of calm power and painful clarity, Hass reflects on what she has seen in Gaza's gutted streets and destitute refugee camps.

Drinking the Sea at Gaza maps the zones of ordinary Palestinian life. From her friends, Hass learns the secrets of slipping across sealed borders and stealing through night streets emptied by curfews. She shares Gaza's early euphoria over the peace process and its subsequent despair as hope gives way to unrelenting hardship. But even as Hass charts the griefs and humiliations of the Palestinians, she offers a remarkable portrait of a people not brutalized but eloquent, spiritually resilient, bleakly funny, and morally courageous.

Full of testimonies and stories, facts and impressions, Drinking the Sea at Gaza makes an urgent claim on our humanity. Beautiful, haunting, and profound, it will stand with the great works of wartime reportage, from Michael Herr's Dispatches to Rian Malan's My Traitor's Heart.

Between You and Me

Mike Wallace, Gary Paul Gates

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Memories of an Astonishing Career 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Who else can boast such a remarkable career - 60 years of interviewing the most fascinating, influential and interesting people on the planet! Although the behind-the-scenes "revelations" aren't particularly revealing, the book offers an entertaining and interesting look back at the cultural, political and historical changes the world has experienced during the decades of Wallace's reign as the king of interviewers.

The contents are arranged in chapters grouped by the type of person Wallace interviewed: Presidents, First Couples, Race in America, The Middle East, Con Men, and other celebrities. Just about every president, and many other icons and celebrities of public life have sat across from Mike Wallace - some came across looking commendable, some a little worse for the encounter.

The book is supplemented by a CD with brief clips from some of the more fascinating interviews, including Nancy Reagan, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Martin Luther King. Watching Wallace age throughout his career interviewing the powerful and influential is another reminder of the impact he has had and the stories he has brought to us for so many decades. He, and some of his colleagues on 60 Minutes, in many ways has defined the progress of broadcast journalism for decades. The book is as much a history lesson as a tribute to Wallace's career - well worth reading.

Editorial Review:

Mike Wallace. His very name conjures up a certain kind of journalism -- smart, informed, intense, and groundbreaking. Who else has wrangled sit-downs with his roster of world leaders and criminals, celebrities, and underdogs, heroes and scoundrels? Organized by interview subject -- including Presidents, Icons and Artists, Con Men and Other Crooks, The General and the Whistle-Blower -- Between You and Me, now in paperback, is his wry, candid, and revealing look back at sixty years in an unparalleled career.

From Soupy to Nuts! A History of Detroit Television

Tim Kiska

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

From Soupy to Nuts 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

This is a MUST READ for anyone who lived in Detroit in the 50's and 60's. Nostalgia reigns as the authors comprehensively share information on television favorites such as Bill Kennedy, Captain Jolly and Poopdeck Paul, Milky the Clown and more. Loved it.

Editorial Review:

Back in the 1940s – before coaxial cable from the East Coast reached Detroit – television was as local as Vernors, Sanders Hot Fudge and Hudson’s. There was room for clowns, bowlers, philosophers, journalists, adventurers, movie mavens, wrestlers and magicians.

The people who put these shows on were drunks, geniuses, thugs, heroes, artists, craftsmen, hustlers and poets. Some were all of these things at times. A few were all these things before lunch.

As the medium grew, thousands of Detroiters visited Channel 4 to see Milky the Clown, danced on Channel 62’s The Scene or tuned in to watch bombastic anchorman Bill Bonds. With the evaporation of distinct local television, a piece of Detroit’s character disappeared.

From Soupy to Nuts! is a snapshot of Detroit TV history – from Sonny Eliot, Bozo the Clown, Bill Kennedy, Lou Gordon and Gil Maddox to Al Ackerman, Sir Graves Ghastly, Dick the Bruiser and Mr. Belvedere.

Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford

Jessica Mitford

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In a profile of J.K. Rowling, The Daily Telegraph (UK), said, “Her favorite drink is gin and tonic, her least favorite food, trip. Her heroine is Jessica Mitford.”

“Decca” Mitford lived a larger-than-life life: born into the British aristocracy—one of the famous (and sometimes infamous) Mitford sisters—she ran away to Spain during the Spanish Civil War with her cousin Esmond Romilly, Winston Churchill’s nephew, then came to America, became a tireless political activist and a member of the Communist Party, and embarked on a brilliant career as a memoirist and muckraking journalist (her funeral-industry exposé, The American Way of Death, became an instant classic). She was a celebrated wit, a charmer, and throughout her life a prolific and passionate writer of letters—now gathered here.

Decca’s correspondence crackles with irreverent humor and mischief, and with acute insight into human behavior (and misbehavior) that attests to her generous experience of the worlds of politics, the arts, journalism, publishing, and high and low society. Here is correspondence with everyone from Katharine Graham and George Jackson, Betty Friedan, Miss Manners, Julie Andrews, Maya Angelou, Harry Truman, and Hillary Rodham Clinton to Decca’s sisters the Duchess of Devonshire and the novelist Nancy Mitford, her parents, her husbands, her children, and her grandchildren.

Hemingway: The Final Years

Michael Reynolds

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

An excellent biography, although by no means definitive 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

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.

Editorial Review:

Hemingway's triumphs as a writer during the 1940s and 1950s accompanied a life of risk and danger. Michael Reynolds discovered the truth about Hemingway's activities during the war years, which included running a counterintelligence operation in Havana. The postwar period was the most productive of Hemingway's writing life, when he authored the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Old Man and the Sea and received the Nobel Prize. Even as Hemingway graced the cover of Life magazine, his physical and mental health deteriorated while his public image as hunter and sportsman continued to demand the strenuous life. In 1961 he committed suicide, leaving behind the stuff of which American myths are made.

Wordstruck

Robert MacNeil

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Wonderfully original tribute to the English language 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Any person who is passionate about the English language -- and not only as it is found in literature, but in conversation, in theater, in any kind of storytelling, everywhere--;who is fascinated by its many dialects and its complexity; and who fondly remembers milestones in the history of their own relationship to the English language, will realize what a treasure this book is.

What is particularly wonderful about it is how MacNeil combines an intelligent tribute to and reflection on the English language with personal memoir. Not every bit of the book is about reading, storytelling, or even language in general, although that is the major theme. A great deal of it strays from this into childhood in general...and it is so interesting and moving, especially for a person who grew up in and still lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. (I have to apoligize for this obvious bias...but I can't write from my heart about this book without revealing it)I have never seen my own city written about so articulately, and never really learned about its history. I always thought I lived in a pretty boring city with very little history...relatively speaking, of course. I certainly didn't think anyone existed who actually possessed nostalgia about this place. But he does! And he is a wonderful writer, so thankfully, he expresses his nostalgia well. Every Canadian should read this book, and others should as well-- perhaps an American or two out there might be interested in the experience of a Canadian, as dull as they might think it will be. It's not. What's impressive and unique is that there is nothing EXTREME in MacNeil's childhood. Most succesful memoirs, of course, have much more drama, and seem to all document extreme abuse and misery--eg Angela's Ashes, The Liar's Club... MacNeil's childhood is so simple, perhaps even (gasp) common, and yet all the more touching because of this. The drama and magic of childhood without the distraction the extreme situations is wonderful and refreshing in a literary world overwhelmed by stories of extremism and the 'abnormal'. One gets tired of eccentric and quirky characters and extreme situations-- it seems to be the easy way to be original, for a writer.

Anyway, I know I'm becoming a little long winded and have revealed an obvious bias which might make that New Yorker or Californian reading this cross this book off their mental list and look for another exotic account of an African adventure or heartbreaking memoir of life in India to read, but I had to simply speak from my heart. I feel so strongly about it...I read this book when I was in Japan teaching (sigh, leading to even more bias), when I was surrounded by a strange world and a strange language, and it made me feel more strongly than I ever have about my homeland and my language. Tears came to my eyes...yada yada yada O.K. I'll stop there...I don't want to obliterate all credibility... As much bias as exists behind my review, I must, say, even if you have no interest in a boy's childhood and coming of age in Halifax, Nova Scotia during World War 2, you should still read it. It isn't just about that (That actually makes up a fairly small part of it). This book is really about the story of a man's relationship with his language-- in childhood and as he came of age. As an aspiring journalist and writer, for this reason alone I find it to be a jewel. It is a very personal memoir about a lifelong love affair, which any of us who read reviews on Amazon.com likely share...a love affair with language.

Editorial Review:

MacNeil's autobiography re-creates the world of his youth and the experiences that were opened up to him through his love of words. His delight and passion for the music and magic of language, have enabled MacNeil to transmute it into a work of art. Photos.

La Vida Loca (Always Running): El Testimonio de un Pandillero en Los Angeles (Spanish Edition)

Luis J. Rodriguez

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"A los doce años, Luis Rodríguez ya era un veterano de la guerra entre las pandillas de East Los Angeles. Atraído por una cultura pandillera aparentemente insuperable, fue testigo de un sinfín de balaceras, golpizas y arrestos y, más tarde, con un miedo cada vez mayor, presenció cómo las drogas, los asesinatos, los suicidios y una delincuencia callejera carente de sentido cobraban la vida de amigos y familiares.

Poco tiempo después, Rodríguez encontro la manera de dejar atrás la vida del barrio a través de la educación y el poder de las palabras. Así pudo liberarse de años de violencia y desesperación. Una vez alcanzado el éxito como poeta chicano varias veces galardonado, Luis llegé a pensar que las calles ya no lo perseguirían, pero entonces su hijo ingresó en una pandilla. Rodríguez luchó por su hijo mediante el relato de su historia personal. La Vida Loca es una vívida croónica que se adentra en las motivaciones de la vida de las pandillas y nos advierte de la muerte y la destrucción que, tarde o temprano, se lleva la vida de sus participantes.

A ratos desgarradoramente triste y cruel, La Vida Loca es a la larga una historia verdadera, llena de inspiración, esperanza y sabiduría, y una lección duramente aprendida para las nuevas generaciones.