Journalists Books - Page 4

The Prince of Frogtown

Rick Bragg

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this final volume of the beloved American saga that began with All Over but the Shoutin’ and continued with Ava’s Man, Rick Bragg closes his circle of family stories with an unforgettable tale about fathers and sons inspired by his own relationship with his ten-year-old stepson.

He learns, right from the start, that a man who chases a woman with a child is like a dog who chases a car and wins. He discovers that he is unsuited to fatherhood, unsuited to fathering this boy in particular, a boy who does not know how to throw a punch and doesn’t need to; a boy accustomed to love and affection rather than violence and neglect; in short, a boy wholly unlike the child Rick once was, and who longs for a relationship with Rick that Rick hasn’t the first inkling of how to embark on. With the weight of this new boy tugging at his clothes, Rick sets out to understand his father, his son, and himself.

The Prince of Frogtown documents a mesmerizing journey back in time to the lush Alabama landscape of Rick’s youth, to Jacksonville’s one-hundred-year-old mill, the town’s blight and salvation; and to a troubled, charismatic hustler coming of age in its shadow, Rick’s father, a man bound to bring harm even to those he truly loves. And the book documents the unexpected corollary to it, the marvelous journey of Rick’s later life: a journey into fatherhood, and toward a child for whom he comes to feel a devotion that staggers him. With candor, insight, tremendous humor, and the remarkable gift for descriptive storytelling on which he made his name, Rick Bragg delivers a brilliant and moving rumination on the lives of boys and men, a poignant reflection on what it means to be a father and a son.

The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food

Judith Jones

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

From the legendary editor who helped shape modern cookbook publishing—one of the food world’s most admired figures—an evocative and inspiring memoir.

Living in Paris after World War II, Judith Jones broke free of the bland American food she had been raised on and reveled in everyday French culinary delights. On returning to the States—hoping to bring some joie de cuisine to America—she published Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The rest is publishing and gastronomic history.

A new world now opened up to Jones: discovering, with her husband, Evan, the delights of American food; working with the tireless Julia; absorbing the wisdom of James Beard; understanding food as memory through the writings of Claudia Roden and Madhur Jaffrey; demystifying the techniques of Chinese cookery with Irene Kuo; absorbing the Italian way through the warmth of Lidia Bastianich; and working with Edna Lewis, Marion Cunningham, Joan Nathan, and other groundbreaking cooks.

Jones considers matters of taste (can it be acquired?). She discusses the vagaries of vegetable gardening in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and the joys of foraging in the woods and meadows. And she writes about M.F.K. Fisher: as mentor, friend, and the source of luminous insight into the arts of eating, living, and aging.

Embellished with fifty recipes—each with its own story and special tips—this is an absolutely charming memoir by a woman who was present at the creation of the American food revolution and played a seminal role in shaping it.

Homage to Catalonia (Classic, 20th-Century, Audio)

George Orwell

List Price: $16.95 By: Penguin Audio Amazon Marketplace: 1 new & used starting at $15.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 93 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Homage, Take 2: what about Aragon? 4 out of 5 stars.
32 of 33 people found this review helpful.

After re-reading Catalonia, some 20 years after my first encounter, I am disappointed. I do not think that this is Orwell's best work. It has many of his strengths, mainly the elegant, efficient and straightforward prose that he developed so impressively, but there are some flaws. Main flaw in my view is the fact that the main political theme has become dead and irrelevant. Stalin died some decades ago, the Soviet Empire collapsed, we don't need to dig in the little details of their abominable strategies any longer. Of course we can't blame Orwell for the fact that his concerns are not ours any more. But it shows that the book was not timeless in the sense of surviving its immediate subject, as his other non-fiction did.
Second main weakness of the book: the narration of the Barcelona street fighting and the attempts at understanding them are rather boring.
On the strong side: the tales from the Aragon front are much more interesting. Orwell saw less fighting than he was keen to experience, but he describes the trench routine with the same livelyness that he brought to Wigan coalmines and Paris restaurants previously.
He did see enough fighting to get dangerously injured. People said to him that few men survive a shot through the neck, so he was lucky. He thinks he would have been luckier if he had not been shot at all.
Orwell published the book a few months after his adventure, and before the Spanish Civil War was over. Surprisingly the book was a commercial failure then, and equally surprisingly it has later been named as one of the best non-fiction books of the century.
Why was it ignored in the early time? Possibly because he told the world things that the world didn't want to know. He busted the myth that there was a confrontation of the good and the bad in Spain, that democracy fought fashism. Orwell shows us that there were at least 3 camps, not 2. The most vicious fighting that he experienced was among the 'good guys'. The government side was influenced strongly by the communist party who had secured the support from Russia. Since no other country provided weapons to the government side, that secured a lot of mileage.
Orwell was a hopeless romantic, who loved the feeling of working class rule that he got when he first arrived in Barcelona. That must be the reason for the otherwise incomprehensible book title. That basically socialist attitude must also have put quite a few potential readers off at the time of publication.
Orwell later saw the few months in Spain as his political training period. It put him off communism and Stalin for good, but confirmed his socialist attitude, which however never found a political home in a party, though he did support Labor in his remaining years, from the outside.

Editorial Review:

In 1936, Geroge Orwell went to Spain to report on the Civil War and instead joined the P.O.U.M. militia to fight against the Fascists. In this now famous account, he describes both the bleak and the comic aspects of trench warfare.

Fargo Rock City : A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota

Chuck Klosterman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 70 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

From a grown-up, then anti-metal, punker 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

While I think that this book is deservedly the black sheep of the Klosterman books, its still enjoyable. What this book lacks is any sense of flow... I never caught a real story or any purpose. It just seemed like a series of rants on liking metal (pop/ hair metal in particular) that were taped and then transcribed. Klosterman still has that really approachable style that's fun and thoguhtful.

While I'd like to laugh at him for liking crappy bands, Klosterman's experiences are similar to most any youth who feels a strong connection to music. I know that they're not unlike my feelings as a young teen becoming obsessed with hardcore records back then... though I had one up on Chuck 'cos I was living in Philly, and not rural North Dakota, back in the day.

Typical Klosterman; funny, absurd, and thoughtful... I suppose a lot of other readers are turned away by what they see as a lack of direction or movement in the book.

Editorial Review:

Empirically proving that -- no matter where you are -- kids wanna rock, this is Chuck Klosterman's hilrious memoir of growing up as a shameless metalhead in Wyndmere, North Dakotoa (population: 498). With a voice like Ace Frehley's guitar, Klosterman hacks his way through hair-band history, beginning with that fateful day in 1983 when his older brother brought home Mötley Crüe's Shout at the Devil. The fifth-grade Chuck wasn't quite ready to rock -- his hair was too short and his farm was too quiet -- but he still found a way to bang his nappy little head. Before the journey was over, he would slow-dance to Poison, sleep innocently beneath satanic pentagrams, lust for Lita Ford, and get ridiculously intellectual about Guns N' Roses. C'mon and feel his noize.

Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription: Notes and Asides from National ReviewPM

William F. Buckley Jr.

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The very human side of an intimidatingly erudite polymath 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is a delicious trove of correspondence that shows WFB's sense of humor and wall-to-wall good nature. He spars with critics and detractors, tweaks friends like Art Buchwald and spreads his trademark wit, logophilia and his positively infectious joie de vivre over the decades. My favorite line is from a 12 or 13-year old asking for advice on life. WFB's response: never grow up. He was a man who very obviously cherished and loved God, family and country and his loss is acutely felt. This book is a delightful snapshot of the many facets of his personality.

Editorial Review:

Who knew that William F. Buckley Jr., the quintessential conservative, invented the blog decades before the World Wide Web came into existence? National Review, like nearly all magazines, has always published letters from readers. In 1967 the magazine decided that certain letters merited different treatment, and Buckley, the editor, began a column called “Notes & Asides,” in which he personally answered the most notable and outrageous letters. The selections in this book, culled from four decades of these columns, include exchanges with such figures as Ronald Reagan, Eric Sevareid, Richard Nixon, A. M. Rosenthal, Auberon Waugh, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. There are also hilarious exchanges with ordinary readers, as well as letters from Buckley to various organizations and government agencies.

Outlaw Journalist: The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson

William McKeen

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

Editorial Review:

The famous inventor of Gonzo journalism portrayed as never before, both his charisma and his adventurous work.

Hunter S. Thompson detonated a two-ton bomb under the staid field of journalism with his early magazine pieces and revelatory "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Fear and Loathing" campaign coverage in Rolling Stone. When Thompson was on, there was no one better at capturing who Americans were and what America was, be it in politics, at the Kentucky Derby, or in the Hells Angels' lair. William McKeen became friends with Thompson after writing a monograph on his journalism. McKeen now has interviewed many of Thompson's associates who wouldn't speak before, from childhood friends to colleagues, to assistants who sat around the Woody Creek, Colorado, kitchen control room late at night when Thompson did most of his work. McKeen gets behind the drinking and drugs to show the man and the writer—one who was happy to be considered an outlaw but took the calling of journalism as his life. 16 pages of photographs.

The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family

Dan Savage

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Funny, intelligent personal memoir and comment on Gay Marriage 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

One of the things I liked best about this book was that Dan Savage didn't just destroy the arguments against gay marriage, but he also correctly criticized many of the popular arguments in favor of gay marriage for succumbing to the same double-standards as the opposition. What was left was arguments that are rational, clearly stated, and funny.

Savage's personal story is well told, reflective, and entertaining.

Editorial Review:

In a time when much of the country sees red whenever the subject of gay marriage comes up, Dan Savage—outspoken author of the column "Savage Love"— makes it personal.

Dan Savage’s mother wants him to get married. His boyfriend, Terry, says "no thanks" because he doesn’t want to act like a straight person. Their six-year-old son DJ says his two dads aren’t "allowed" to get married, but that he’d like to come to the reception and eat cake. Throw into the mix Dan’s straight siblings, whose varied choices form a microcosm of how Americans are approaching marriage these days, and you get a rollicking family memoir that will have everyone—gay or straight, right or left, single or married—howling with laughter and rethinking their notions of marriage and all it entails.

In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing

Lee Woodruff

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 112 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In January 2006, Lee and Bob Woodruff seemed to have it all–a happy marriage, four beautiful children, and marvelous careers. Bob had just been named co-anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight, but then, while he was embedded with the military in Iraq, an improvised explosive device went off near the tank he was riding in. He and his cameraman, Doug Vogt, were hit, and Bob suffered a traumatic brain injury that nearly killed him.

In an Instant is the frank and compelling account of how Bob and Lee Woodruff’s lives came together, were blown apart, and then were miraculously put together again–and how they persevered, with grit but also with humor, through intense trauma and fear. More than a dual memoir of love and courage, In an Instant is an important, wise, and inspiring guide to coping with tragedy–and an extraordinary drama of marriage, family, war, and nation.

#1 New York Times Bestseller

“Gripping . . . The Woodruffs’ devotion to each other is palpable. . . . [In an Instant is] a remarkably lucid, even engrossing story of . . . Bob Woodruff’s recovery, interwoven with tales from his marriage and family life.”
–San Jose Mercury News

“Both Woodruffs [shoot] from the hip, writing with candor about their ordeal and describing it with an intimacy that couldn’t be captured on camera. . . . Their frankness heightens the book’s impact.”
–The New York Times

“Extraordinary . . . All sorts of themes thread their way through this frank, inspiring book: courage in the face of adversity; the pursuit of career at the expense of family; the bravery of foreign correspondents; the fortitude of female friendship. . . . Woodruff’s survival story comforts.”
–The Seattle Times

“A testimony to the power of the human spirit, to the catharsis of love and to infinite hope.”
–The Oklahoman

www.bobwoodrufffamilyfund.org

The Ride of Our Lives

Mike Leonard

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Total reviews: 40 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Ride of Our Lives is the humorous yet deeply moving account of NBC journalist Mike Leonard’s cross-country odyssey with his eccentric parents, three grown children, and a daughter-in-law. Full of ups and downs, laughs and tears, the month-long journey becomes a much larger tale of hope, persistence, and valuable lessons learned along the way. A celebration of the ties between parents and children, as well as the unforgettable community of people one can meet across America, The Ride of Our Lives is an inspiring narrative of self-discovery and self-fulfillment–and how one unique family found blessings and simple pleasures on the road called life.

“Touching, hilarious . . . should be required reading in every family.”
–Tom Brokaw

“Poignant moments of questions and discovery, of truth-telling and memories.”
–The Charlotte Observer

“Often laugh-out-loud funny and sometimes heartbreakingly sad.”
–St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Delightful.”
–Chicago Tribune

“Heartfelt and whimsical . . . a cross-country trek through life’s lessons . . . Mike Leonard is a storyteller at heart, and each anecdote . . . punctuates the family’s love, struggles, and triumphs. In short, this is one ride worth taking.”
–Rocky Mountain News

Paris to the Moon

Adam Gopnik

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Total reviews: 144 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Paris. The name alone conjures images of chestnut-lined boulevards, sidewalk cafés, breathtaking façades around every corner--in short, an exquisite romanticism that has captured the American imagination for as long as there have been Americans.

In 1995, Adam Gopnik, his wife, and their infant son left the familiar comforts and hassles of New York City for the urbane glamour of the City of Light. Gopnik is a longtime New Yorker writer, and the magazine has sent its writers to Paris for decades--but his was above all a personal pilgrimage to the place that had for so long been the undisputed capital of everything cultural and beautiful. It was also the opportunity to raise a child who would know what it was to romp in the Luxembourg Gardens, to enjoy a croque monsieur in a Left Bank café--a child (and perhaps a father, too) who would have a grasp of that Parisian sense of style we Americans find so elusive.

So, in the grand tradition of the American abroad, Gopnik walked the paths of the Tuileries, enjoyed philosophical discussions at his local bistro, wrote as violet twilight fell on the arrondissements. Of course, as readers of Gopnik's beloved and award-winning "Paris Journals" in The New Yorker know, there was also the matter of raising a child and carrying on with day-to-day, not-so-fabled life. Evenings with French intellectuals preceded middle-of-the-night baby feedings; afternoons were filled with trips to the Musée d'Orsay and pinball games; weekday leftovers were eaten while three-star chefs debated a "culinary crisis."

As Gopnik describes in this funny and tender book, the dual processes of navigating a foreign city and becoming a parent are not completely dissimilar journeys--both hold new routines, new languages, a new set of rules by which everyday life is lived. With singular wit and insight, Gopnik weaves the magical with the mundane in a wholly delightful, often hilarious look at what it was to be an American family man in Paris at the end of the twentieth century. "We went to Paris for a sentimental reeducation-I did anyway-even though the sentiments we were instructed in were not the ones we were expecting to learn, which I believe is why they call it an education."