5 comments about The Skeptic: A Life of H. L. Mencken.

1. Growing up journalistic commentary was best exemplified in listening to the wisdom of Eric Severeid, where the story of the day was placed in its historic context. Yet we live, it seems, in an age where the dominant voice of journalism is enveloped by flashing graphics with 24 hour TV news personalities, many of whom look like bombshell pinups from Hollywood's glory days. Mencken was the proverbial loose canon with a rattle snake bite, and who for nearly 50 years created a mountain of print which dissected the conventional wisdom and the grand Pooh-Bahs of his day; it says much for our times, I reckon, where well-heeled talking heads square off and provide their predictable blue or red dogma. Teachout reveals Mencken as the caustic, non-doctrinaire, take no prisoner newsman, someone who ruffled the feathers of powe--left and right--and for that that reason is remembered as one ot the major forces in the lexicon of American journalism history.



2. I seldom (actually, never) read a book that I like, yet choose not to recommend it to friends. This biography of HL Mencken has all the ingredients - entertaining writing, compelling characters, thorough research - and I readily admit that I enjoyed reading it. But biographies of any prolific author are risky business, simply because they are prolific. The subject has written a great deal of prose, autobiographical material and correspondence which reveals a lot about who he is. The biographer takes on a heavy load in seeking to re-interpret that body of work. Too many times while reading this book, I was tempted to "adjourn the proceedings" to re-examine the evidentiary body of Mencken's own writing. Res ipsa loquitur.
   
   Teachout combines extensive research of what must be Mencken's massive library, with the right narrative touch and selection of quotes from Mencken, his correspondents, and his critics. He inserts copious quotations without being excessive, appropriately for a literary character who has left such a long and wide trail. He reveals a bit about the people in Mencken's life and how they influenced him. It's not necessary to disagree with some of his conclusions, however, to question whether they needed to be articulated at all.
   
   For instance, he declares the essay "In Memoriam: W.J.B", which is Mencken's commentary on William Jennings Bryan's defense of creationism, "among the great masterpieces of invective in the English language." That it may be, but he then concludes that it reveals Mencken "to have been something of a poseur," disproving his previous claims to be more amused by democracy in action, rather than angered by it. No one can disagree with that charge, but for any social commentator or satirist, contradictory personas are part of the deal. It's more an observation of the obvious than a revelation.
   
   Likewise, on the oft-debated topic of Mencken's anti-semitism, Teachout presents considerable evidence of Mencken's personal biases (ironically, one of his best known works is entitled Prejudices), much of which is further testament to the contradictions inherent in the personality of an assertive iconoclast. But ultimately, he feels compelled to state the obvious: "that he was an anti-Semite cannot now reasonably be denied." Any good trial lawyer will rest his case on the defendant's own words, if they are self-incriminating. That he expressed prejudicial views about a number of people and institutions, could never be reasonably denied, and is self-evident from his own words. The biographer's judgment seems redundant; I find more in Mencken's own My Life As Author and Editor to indict him on that score, but to do so in richer context.
   
   These quibbles are more a matter of defining "biography" than debating whether this book is a good read. Teachout is both an accomplished biographer and journalist, which qualifies him more than most to write such a book. In the end, I would rather have spent the time reading more of Mencken's considerable body of work and his personal memoirs, than this admittedly entertaining and very skillfully rendered portrait.



3. Like blind men explaining the form of an elephant to the touch, Teachout has shown that one man can't possibly accomplish the task of disecting Mencken. I have read a few of Mencken's work and was hoping this book would shed more light on the man, the word, and the music that sprang to paper. All I got was a dark, tedious, and unsatisfying work that I had hoped would act as a catalyst allowing me to enjoy Mencken's craft/content/output even more. I'll stick with reading more Mencken. Hunter S. Thompson was probably a mean, cranky, reclusive loud mouth - and much like Mencken, I don't think a biography on HST would ever be as satisfying as enjoying the man and his craft on it's own merit.



4. Mencken said: "it has been my firm belief that all persons who devote themselves to forcing virtue on their fellow men deserve nothing better than kicks in the pants."
   
   "One read the Smart Set to learn from Mencken and Nathan what was fresh and new, and laugh with them at all that was tired and stale. Everything else was filler."
   
   In 1946, about his publisher Alfred Knopf: "He realizes himself that there are now too many Jews in his office."
   
   A prophetic observation about women: "Now that women have the political power to obtain their just rights, they will begin to lose their old power to obtain special privileges by sentimental appeals. Men, facing them squarely, will consider them anew ... as free competitors competitors in a harsh world."
   
   "A man -Mencken- who had grown too hard to pity anyone foolish enough to believe in anything" ... but then... "he also believed that 'the white man is actually superior to a [...] and on almost all accounts'".
   
   All in all a pretty disgusting man, pitiable, laughable in many senses, but a celebrity in his time who could write well, which is more than one can expect today.
   
   I picked up this book because I like the author's style of writing, and I was interested in what was going on in America around those years, the turn of the century and first quarter of the 20th century. But, though Mr. Teachout is always entertaining and easy to read, I found that in this case he stays too close to his protagonist all the time, so we can't anything of the bigger picture of the times he lived in. And the more I read, the less I cared about Mencken. He seemed so arrogant and incapable of loving anybody. And then he was a mama's boy! The irony.
   
   I was a little disappointed because nothing but Mencken's comings and goings, and the most trivial things about him are mentioned, but nothing practically about the world he dwlt in, or about why we should care about him in the first place.
   
   Still, if you are really interested in this man, you'll find plenty of detail here; and the book is saved only by the author's reader-friendly style.



5. I already knew a lot about Mencken when I bought this book. I learned a lot from reading it. I think it does a great job of compressing a large life into a workable package without missing much of the important events and people.
   
   On the otherhand the reading is a bit tedious. The introduction was marvelous, though. Mencken's diaries are tedious reading, too.
   
   The book is a nice addition to my Mencken collection.

5 comments about Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn.

1. As someone I would love to have known, Martha Gelhorn ranks right up there with Carly Simon...who, thankfully, is still alive. She is the only one of Hemingway's four wives who left him. This after an affair-turned-to-marriage that began when she walked into a Key West bar and introduced herself to him.
   
   Her extensive correspondence detailed in this book, and her life subsequent to Hemingway, reveal a woman, who though emotionally healthier than Ernest, had her own demons to contend with. She is nevertheless a fascinating personality, widely traveled, a prolific author, and by all accounts a very engaging raconteur. She deserves to be notable in her own right and spent much of her life in a fight to be accorded someone other than Heminway's third wife. Though with a personage as large as Hemingway, that was a difficult struggle, this treatment of a segment of her correspondence certainly helps her individuality along by revealing the brilliant and complex person she was



2. This book is beautifully edited by Caroline Moorehead, the one woman in all the world who knows more than any other about dear old, trying old, basilisk-fierce Martha Gellhorn. The odd thing is that the publishers sent out an advanced uncorrected proof claiming that this was Gellhorn's "COLLECTED LETTERS" and now, months later, the dust has settled and the book has changed its title to "SELECTED LETTERS," perhaps a subtle difference but one that makes you wonder what went south at the last minute. If only the beloved investigative snoop, Gellhorn herself, was still here to look into this minor mystery! Warning, there is indeed a lot in it about Hemingway, but that's why many will be drawn to Gellhorn in the first place, and the other half of the readers will be wanting to know how a dogged spirit stays independent, especially in the face of huge sadnesses, There's an inspirational feel about the collection, surprising as it may seem, and even though tragedy seemed to overshadow her fun no matter where she went.
   
   Her dedication to reporting is in itself remarkable. Wasn't there ever a point where she paused and wondered what on earth good it did to do this particular job, or did she merely shrug off the moral niceties. She doesn't seem to have cared whose feelings she hurt, even those she loved (one of her novels was withdrawn from the UK when a dear friend, whose love life Gellhorn had written up and lightly salted with fiction, complained, first to the author, then to the courts) and her ire hangs high against those who have crossed her (especially Lillian Hellman, who must have been scared silly every day of her life with that menace Gellhorn still out for her blood).
   
   She had a weakness for "sophisticated" (often bisexual) men and Moorehead prints some "NOTES ON A SCANDAL" style letters outlining her embarrassing obsession with Leonard Bernstein, his genius, his private life, and his body. Really everything about him. "He's got quite a nice voice, plummy and deep, as if his mouth was pure, as if he'd never had a filling. The complexion of a white peach. He's worth it, this one. He's the one I've waited for." (My paraphrase of Judi Dench.) Another set of letters between Martha Gellhorn and Betsy Drake, the former wife of screen star Cary Grant, elicits more rueful confessions, for Drake shared a great secret with Gellhorn, that it may be liberating to step away from an adored and celebrated spouse, but at the same time every day you look in your mirror and you know that your obituary is going to say, "Ex-Wife of Blank."
   
   Gellhorn's passion for action, in Africa, Spain, wherever, covering the war in Vietnam for the Manchester Guardian, is rather better covered in Moorehead's great bio of the journalist, than in this book of collected, I mean selected, letters. In fact if you didn't have Moorehead's notes coming in every now and then to re-ground the story and put it into real perspective, you might as well be on a cloud.



3. To turn the pages of a collection of letters in our time, is to return to a time when people wrote, at leisure, at length and in great detail, to one another about trifles, confidences, and assorted themes. In our age of e-mails it is almost inconceivable. Inconceivable too is that Martha Gellhorn's letters, by Caroline Moorehead, brings this world before us with such force, that we are held captive from page to page, from the start to the last. Yet while her correspondents are many of them famous, it is true, it is the letters themselves that shimmer, that gives us images rare, reflections profound, letters for all of time.



4. Intelligent, dauntless, and restlessly peripatetic, Martha Gellhorn refused to be encumbered by what she called "the kitchen of life." Travel, men, seclusion and adversity all were stimulants to Martha's agile mind. "Normal people depend on other people, I roam in space", she once remarked.
   
   Like most complex personalities, Martha is difficult to peg, and even an intrepid reader who makes the effort to negotiate these 500-plus pages of letters may come away feeling dissatisfied. Martha was a prolific writer--these letters represent a minute fraction of her output, most of which she managed to destroy. Her surviving correspondences reveal a fluid writer, fueled by a "passionate desire to find SOMEONE to communicate with."
   
   She is unfailingly candid and insightful. Only in a few instances is she less than cordial, and only in a few instances does she seem free to totally enjoy the act of writing. These instances are instructive, involving her adopted son--whom she wrote to in tones of fearfully harsh admonishment, and her stepson, to whom she allowed herself to write freely and playfully. Oddly enough, both of these young charges shared the same name: Sandy.
   
   It is tempting at times to compare Martha's character to that of Katherine Hepburn (who attended Bryn Mawr at the same time), or to Isak Dinesen. Both of these women seemed to share Martha's brand of independence. However, Martha crossed paths with both, and in her recorded opinions, does not express admiration for either of them. To Martha, Hepburn and the Baroness Karen Von Blixen were both too patrician. Martha was not at one with the monied class, which she found wasteful and vainglorious. Martha liked to have things both ways in her life--she loved to mix it up, defending the underdog, and she also loved the freedom of getting away from the hurly-burly, keeping life at a distance.
   
   What was most impressed upon me by these letters was how much Martha was devoted to, and suffered for, her fiction writing. Martha gained her reputation as a war correspondent, but these letters leave no doubt that Martha truly wanted to be remembered for her books of fiction. She often agonizes over writer's block, her failing memory, and the self-doubts that plagued her.
   
   The final portrait that emerges here is of Martha as an unflaggingly energetic, unvanquished personality who periodically engaged with the world, and then fled to solitude in order to write about it. Her unflinching honesty and her humorous dismissal of all that was "bulls---t" are the qualities that drew people to her, and she is worthy of far greater renown than she currently holds.
   
   Carolyn Moorehead has provided two great touchstones in the biography, "Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life", and this large volume of letters. Now, I will move on to the volumes about war, and the available fictional works that Gellhorn left behind.



5. Martha Gellhorn did not cooperate with her biographers when she was alive and she did not make it easy for them after she died. She made her opinions on this matter quite clear: "...writers are diminished by having their lives known: they should only be known by what they write." She left many of her manuscripts and some letters and other papers to Boston University before she died, but she deliberately destroyed most of her letters. She probably hoped her correspondents would destroy the letters she sent them as well, and even specifically requested them to in some cases, but she knew a clean sweep would not be possible.
   
   Well, then. Should we respect her wishes and read only her many stories and articles? Or should we pry into her private life, in the hopes of learning something valuable that will add to her published writings? Or should we be completely honest and read her biographies and letters, knowing full well that although we will find out nothing that adds to her journalism or literature, we'll get an adventure story that rivals anything she ever wrote.
   
   Having tossed aside my misgivings when I picked up the first biography of Gellhorn, Nothing Ever Happens to the Brave by Carl Rollyson, I didn't hesitate when Caroline Moorehead's Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life came out. It was a foregone conclusion that I would read The Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn. Sorry, Martha.
   
   In The Selected Letters, as in the Moorehead biography, we find out that Gellhorn was a difficult person. She could be rude and something of a bigot, although it may not be fair to judge her based on letters she wrote to friends. Still, suffice it to say that if I were to quote her on African Americans, or the Chinese, or the Italians, my review would not be published on this website. And while she loved to discuss and argue with friends and colleagues about politics, apparently she would not listen to anyone who disagreed with her regarding the Palestinians.
   
   Her relationship with her adopted son was painful to read about. Much has already been said about whether she was a good, or even a fit, mother, so I won't add my amateur opinion. However, it is interesting to note that, like so many parents in the Sixties, she considered her son's recreational drug use altogether different from her own frequent and liberal use of alcohol and amphetamines.
   
   An odd discrepancy occurs in a letter she wrote in 1991 to an old friend from the Spanish Civil War. In it, she mentions having taken four marriage vows. Even counting her early relationship with Bertrand de Jouvenal as a marriage, which it probably wasn't, she was married three times. Curious.
   
   The Selected Letters is a fascinating companion to Moorehead's biography of Gellhorn, although I can't honestly say it is a valuable addition. Gellhorn's best stories have already been told by Gellhorn herself. The letters show an unpolished side of Gellhorn's writing, for what that's worth. She wrote so many letters and such long letters that one is tempted to speculate that writing them was a way of putting off real writing, or perhaps a way of writing through all the clutter in her mind that had to be cleared out before the real writing started.
   
   Regrettably, Gellhorn was right about a writer being diminished by having her life known. But she would surely understand that the curious reader can't resist getting to the bottom of a great story.

No comments about Conversations with William F. Buckley Jr..

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

1. El libro la vida loca es un libro bien bueno. El libro se trata de Luis Rodriguez desde que era un pequeño hasta un hombre joven. El libro menciona como Luis se mete en problemas, hace drogas, y se mete en gangas.
   Este Libro me gustò mucho por las palabras descriptivas. Las palabras descriptivas me pintan imagines in mi mente.
   Yo recomiendo este libro a personas a que les gustan libros de gangas, drogas, y accìon. En este libro hay mucho de eso.
   
   -- Michael



2. This book was excellent! I read it in just a couple of days. Since I first started I couldn't take my eyes of what I was reading. The story is shocking and rude, yet interesting and mind-opening. It explicitly tells the struggles of growing up in a foreign country with everything against you and yet find the way to a new world full of possibilities. Excellent for tenagers, parents, and students.



3. THIS WAS ONE THAT COULD NOT BE PUT DOWN FOR LONG.I DO NOT READ ALOT BUT I TOOK A GLANCE AT THIS AND CONTINUED READING TILL THE END. IT WAS REALLY SOMETHING GREAT TO READ.MY EYES COULDNT GET ENOUGH.

5 comments about Miles Gone By: A Literary Autobiography (with CD).

1. No one is ambivalent about Mr. Buckley's writing. Either one thinks him one of the greatest composers of English proses since G. K. Chesterton or that he is a befuddled affectatious blowhard. I am most solidly in the first camp as seem most of the other reviewers. But then why should anyone not already smitten by Mr. Buckley's writing ever deign to read this book? They should not. That would be like someone who gets grievous indigestion from romaine lettuce ordering a Caesar salad, because this is quintessential Buckley, intimate Buckley, Buckley comfortable in his own skin.
   
   First, what it is not, and that is a classical memoire, and Mr. Buckley says so at the beginning. He explains that he has written of his life throughout its course (how enviable), so those events recounted close their occurrence are best left described as they already have been. The book is roughly chronological so it starts with some most insightful reminiscences of Mr. Buckley's childhood, brief portraits of his parents, music lessons and the English boarding school on his way to which he saw Neville Chamberlain announce "peace in our time." Did you know Mr. Buckley was an airplane pilot, that he was in an Army honor guard that escorted the body of FDR, that he was in the CIA? Then follows the tale of "God and Man at Yale", the conservative clarion call of a 25 year old counter revolutionary. If you have not read GAMAY you will after you read this book. Mr. Buckley's introduction to the 25th anniversary edition of GAMAY is reproduced here. That essay could serve as the material for the final three weeks of an advanced course on literary critique, pen cum sword sharpest and most accurate.
   Then there is the sailing, quite a bit of it really. This is where detractors will sneer and complain about the detachment of the privileged class with all the indignation and snobbery the "my own boot-straps" crowd can muster. I find this section variously charming, relaxing, exciting, humorous and most of all revealing. We all have a place we go to be most ourselves. Mine is underwater; Mr. Buckley's was gliding along on top of it. It is in that place you learn the most about yourself. Someone who has never faced fear and plunged forward anyway will not understand.
   
   The collection of biographies of ten close friends is most fascinating simply for whom it includes, David Niven, Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger, Princess Grace. Forrest Gump innocently happened upon great historical scenes; Zelig inserted himself nebbishly into them. Buckley was an active participant in one great scene after another. He did not orbit great people so much as they orbited him.
   
   The rest of the book is a mishmash; an explanation of the origins of Blackford Oakes, a poignant homage to Whittaker Chambers, the Firing Line debate with Ronaldus Magnus over the Panama canal, using big words, a trip across Mongolia and Siberia on the Peking to Moscow train, a decent to the deck of the Titanic, running for mayor of New York and much more. The last of the 50 essays is the one Mr. Buckley considered his most enduring "Why Don't We Complain?" This essay is on the web but if you read it you will say "Oh" and go buy "Miles Gone By".
   
   Amazon offers "Miles Gone By" as an Audiobook. I have the hardback because it is marvelously printed, contains explanatory pictures and is enduring - I will probably reread this book every year for the rest of my life. But get the Audiobook too - Mr. Buckley himself reads it. To hear the author's own emotion and emphasis enriches the experience immensely.
   
   But why four stars you ask? Well simply because you can get much of the material in Mr. Buckley's other books. So perhaps that is what you should do; buy every one of Mr. Buckley's other books, read them and skip "Miles Gone By." You will be even better for that exercise.



2. I could never figure out if I loved Buckley or hated him. The man himself was everything I despise...a filthy rich trust fund baby, snob, ultra-conservative zealot and massive sucker-upper to the mighty and titled, a consumate courtier, with a wife who proudly announced that she once kowtowed so deeply to some minor Eurotrash contessa, she caught her pearls on her heel(!) and nearly choked herself. Anyway, having said all this, it is impossible not to be enthralled by Buckley's writing. The man's words glide across the page. He was a master who used words the way Bach and Mozart used musical notes. As the 'dumbing down' of America intensifies and we continue to elect politicians who can barely speak in complete sentences,and idolize celebutards with the intellectual spark of the average mealworm, Buckley was truly the last of a dying breed. If you love words, if you admire a brilliantly crafted sentence, if you revel in a paragraphs as lucid as gin over ice, read this collection -- and anything else written by Buckley...except those awful novels about his cartoon CIA agent. And be sure to look over his yachting books...Atlantic High, Racing Toward Paradise and Airborne, where his politics don't lessen the pleasure of his words...I mean, let's face it, he was just the type of rich guy who would have endorsed Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal." Hate his politics, absolutely. But love his writing...and read it. You may never again see its equal.



3. MILES GONE BY is a compilation of William F. Buckley essays, columns and anecdotes which tell the story of his life. His writings are so prolific that the better parts of his life had already been chronicled, by himself no less, prior to his death.
   
   I began reading National Review in 1978 as a young liberal college student. Buckley was my cure for liberalism along with the practical demise of liberal theology under Carter. He was also a mentor and hero, of sorts, as the Reagan Era was ushered in and the world changed. I dug deep into Buckley's lore reading the Blackford Oakes novels, his journal at the United Nations, and his sailboat chronicles (AirBorne and Racing Through Paradise).
   
   WFB was a classic conservative voice at a time when conservatism had few national voices. Goldwater, Reagan, Milton Friedman, Gingrich and others would emerge as leaders but Buckley was always the apologist for the right. His bully pulpits were the National Review and Firing Line television program. At times I wondered if he befriended people like John Kenneth Galbraith to keep them busy while conservatives were busily furthering their agenda.
   
   Besides being the voice and conscience of the conservative movement in America, Buckley will be remembered for his civility. He was a gifted host and debater who confronted and entreated opponents with grace, tact, and utmost civility. He raised the national debate to a higher level of discourse.
   
   America is poorer for his passing.



4. When I was a kid, William F Buckley was a hero of my weekend TV, always the wordsmith, always clear, learned, and completely vicious in his rhetoric. This book compiles (mostly short) writings on a variety of topics, many quite personal, that show a loving son/husband/father, a wine aficionado, and a very warm human being. The writing is great: it is a joy to see those un-split infinitives, those real latin-rooted words, those well-crafted sentences. What comes across is a genuine man, one of towering intellectual power, who also worried about what his dad would do when he found out that he had bought a plane at college. If for no other reason, buy this book to enjoy (and inspire) great writing.
   By the way, I do not agree with him on any topic, perhaps excepting wine (buy cheaply, drink with friends).



5. William F. Buckley Jr. is now in his 80's and visibly winding up his affairs of this world. National Review, the magazine of conservative opinion that he founded and led for half a century, has been turned over to newer hands. Blackford Oakes, hero of a series of spy novels, has been heroically killed off. His production of public commentary is down to a few columns per month. 2004's "Miles Gone By", subtitled "a literary autobriography", is of a piece with this process. It is a collection of essays from his writing lifetime, with items about his childhood, his education at Yale, his time in the Army, his adventures as a sailor, portraits of colleagues and friends, and a sampling of other topics.
   
   Buckley has lived a fairly public life as an advocate for the Conservative point of view. "Miles Gone By" may therefore have no surprises for any future biographer. What the reader does find is William F. Buckley Jr at his finest, an educated and often witty observer of his world, pondering the moment and its meaning, finding delight in the skillful use of the English language. Also on display is Buckley's irreverance for the stuffy and the unsound. Highlights include a thoughtful essay on the 50th reunion of his Yale Class, a rueful account of an extended rail trip through Siberia, and brief sketches of his friendships with David Niven and Whittaker Chambers. An extended piece on "God and Man at Yale" recalls the book that started it all.
   
   This book is highly recommended to fans of Mr. Buckley, who will enjoy this fine sampling of his work, perhaps the last to be put out by his own hand.

2 comments about Doomed by Cartoon: How Cartoonist Thomas Nast and the New York Times Brought Down Boss Tweed and His Ring of Thieves.

1. John Adler has done America and history buffs a TREMENDOUS service with this remarkable book about the cartoons by Thomas Nast that brought Boss Tweed to justice and made New York City a better place to live. The cartoons themselves are gorgeously rendered and varied, and Mr. Adler manages to bring them back to life with well written and enlightening vignettes about how things were under the thumb of Tammany Hall. This book is absolutely A+. Hat's off to Mr. Adler!



2. Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R24W9W34KJVKRU Before there was Fox News, YouTube and "Saturday Night Live," there was Thomas Nast, whose devastating caricatures in Harper's Weekly helped produce Boss Tweed's downfall. And in "Doomed by Cartoon: How Cartoonist Thomas Nast and The New-York Times Brought Down Boss Tweed and His Ring of Thieves" (Morgan James, $19.95), John Adler, a self-described amateur historian, along with Draper Hill (himself a political cartoonist), present Nast's work in serialized comic book form.
   
   The New York Times reports that "Nast's drawings are fleshed out by an informative and engaging narrative that credits his impact without overlooking his political incorrectness. The caricatures are a vivid reminder that both campaigns and political commentary have, for the most part, gotten tamer."

No comments about Condé Nast: Put Fashion in Vogue.

5 comments about American Radical: The Life and Times of I. F. Stone.

1. "agitate!,agitate!,agitate!".frederick douglas is quoted as saying these words.nobody did this better than i.f. stone,this large biography is well written and very much appreciated by this reader and shows just how a muckraker goes about his business.exhaustive research,question everything ,then question it again.no detail in massive government paperwork was too small to go unread,no quip,lead,speech or casual utterance was beyond perusal.as a fearless advocate for the people's right to know ,stone was fearless in the making the powerfull yelp in pain and utter frustration at his tenacity and superb writing.as said before,i enjoyed this book and have admired mr. stone's work fo years.but one thing still gives me pause-why does the left continually whitewash the warts and wrongdoings of it's best and brightest?aren't they human beings and therefore fallible?and won't their lifeworks stand the test of the left being completely honest about such wrongdoings?recent documents have shed new light on mr. stone's work for soviet intelligence.sad,yes but to me he still was a champion for revealing the truth to our fellow americans.i wonder how he would have dissected and shredded the monstrous health care bill.oh! the imagination delights!
   
   
   
   
   1



2. I.F. Stone has already received at least three other extensive studies, but this is the most comprehensive and detailed social history and biography of Stone.It is I. F. Stone as a radical voice of dissent that is the real subject of this fine biography. Stone emerges as a man of all seasons. Guttenplan refers to Stone's "transit from pariah to a national institution" and frequently sees him as an outsider, but when he traces Stone's life and lists his vast array of important friends and supporters in high places , he appears not as a marginal figure but at the very center of this nation's 20th century history.
   
   These comments are taken for a review I have written for New Politics:A Journal of Socialisst Thought. It is scheduled to appear in its forthcoming issue.



3. From an early age, I. F. Stone had an instinctive empathy for "the little guy," and was similarly clear that when he came to have a vocation, he would be a journalist. During his long career, he was a critic of institutional racism, an advocate for support of Republican Spain's antifascist struggle, a prowar voice at a time when America still held itself aloof from the global war then raging, and later an enthusiastic Zionist...who never failed to urge Jews to recognize and heal the wound of Palestinian expulsion from their own, historic homelands.
   
   He was "an American original," one with an eye for the overlooked story and details banished to back pages. His views were critical, left, but never tied to any political party's "line." He was briefly a member of the Socialist Party, largely due to his admiration for Norman Thomas, and later, he supported the Wallace campaign on the Progressive Party ticket. He was first an outsider during the Popular Front time of Depression-era America, and later, a New Deal insider. When Truman introduced the initial, draconian steps to punish Americans for their views and associations, he became one of the "unpersons" who struggled to find livelihood in the witch-hunt atmosphere costing people jobs, family ties, and sometimes, their lives.
   
   It was during this latter period that he founded his newsletter-format publication, I. F. Stone's Weekly. It is through this publication that he came to have his greatest journalistic reputation for exposing lies, especially those of government, and most notably those that covered or attempted to cover up military aggression and subversion of foreign governments. His farseeing view of early events as the US became involved in Vietnam, ultimately proved him almost clairvoyant in his prediction of both massive involvement and ultimate catastrophe in Southeast Asia.
   
   Perhaps it was this ability to see the facts and to not fall prey to the siren call of official lies, that marked "Izzy" Stone's career, as much as any other single characteristic. As well as being known for his muckraking style, he also authored seven books, the final one a review of the famous trial of Socrates--from which he took the title of his volume. In addition to journalism and his authorial accomplishments, he gave many speeches across an expanse of eras, being especially called upon during the period of the teach-ins and mass demonstrations against the US war in Vietnam and across that part of the world.
   
   He lived long enough to go from being an outcast to becoming a "character." While it is satisfying to see that he was--unlike too many of those he knew and tried to defend during the McCarthy era--able to escape the fate of immiseration, imprisonment, or worse, it is regrettable that he has been sugar-coated as just another colorful writer. He was always a committed activist, albeit one who carried a pen rather than a sign. He allied himself with those who longed for justice, and never failed to lend his voice to that end.



4. This biography requires a lot of patience. It is a big book, and asks you to go through an incredibly long lineage of people, places, and events that wrapped around the life of the most iconic reporter of the twentieth century. Guttenplan is very neutral about most aspects of Stone's life, especially during the HUAC/Joseph McCarthy period where although ostracized for being thought a Soviet agent of some kind, Stone was given a relative pass by the FBI. They followed him around but did not destroy him as they did so many others at the time.
   
   In this book, Izzy Stone is depicted as a true one-of-a-kind; a bespectacled warrior who fought for truth and justice the old fashioned way.
   
   You really have to admire someone who doesn't resemble any current celebrity journalist, devoid of the now ubiquitous mass polarizing narcissism and self love that we can't escape.



5. Well-written biographies are wonderful ways to learn and have a good read. You read without feeling as though you're slogging through a book you have to read for edification, as opposed to entertainment. American Radical is a great read -- on many levels. It works as a story (which we all love), as social history (important for all Americans) and political discourse (crucial, especially in these times). It's a real story, but since it's a true story, it is frankly far more interesting and worthwhile than many novels. Thankfully, the writing is as engaging as a good novel.
   
   Today we are living in strange times -- our(my) tax dollars, as a decidedly middle class person, are being given out in billion dollar bailouts to wealthy firms and used for billion dollar bonuses for already wealthy people. Huh? Those who created the problems in the economy causing true hardship by many are getting rewarded? What happened to the market discipline and supposed utmost fairness of capitalism, that is you do well, you get rewarded, you fail in the marketplace, you lose? These days the rich who got amply rewarded for what is now clear were unethical if not illegal business practices are being amply rewarded again... This book reminds us of how important it is to draw attention to these issues.
   
   IF Stone's biography by D.D. Guttenplan shines the light on not only the journalist's life, but his times, which are like our times.
   
   The other aspect that makes this a must read is the near death experience we're seeing for journalism. Without my local paper, the Boston Globe, the Catholic Church sex abuse story/tragedy/scandal likely would never have come to light. Likewise the abuses in our state government pension system. Yet today many local papers are almost bankrupt. I shudder to think what would happen if journalism, as practiced by people like I F Stone, died. The fourth estate is essential for democracy. Reading this book is not only enjoyable, it is important for anyone who wants to think about and understand how critical journalism is to our way of life.
   
   Buy it, read it, act on the lessons.

5 comments about The Gonzo Way: A Celebration of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

1. If I had to find fault with The Gonzo Way it would be that Anita Thompson occasionally repeats hereslf in the text. I found myself reading one description of a person or place and seeing it again paragraphs later.
   That being said the book, at about 110 pages, is not long. A good primer for people wanting to learn the distinction between Hunter S. Thompson and the myriad personas he created over the decades.
   
   I hope there is more to come.



2. Look, The book is ok. But the problem is Anita is a light-weight who has taken much too heavy a load for her subject. I have corresponded with her on several occasions and while at first she seemed able to hang in, during the final e-mails she so badly misinterpreted by motives and actual statements that she claimed to have called the "authorities" on me! She went on to call me a "Republican" when my statements were clearly as left-leaning and anarchic as her late husband (which was kinda my point-- a point she missed. lol)
   
   Anyway, the point of this little rechauffe of our personal issues is to meant as prologue to this: she is just too shallow and obtuse a person to handle HST as a subject for a book. Thus, the work is a bit banal and leaves one sighing a bit after each Hallmarkism. But her sweetness (when her stupidity isn't tangling her feet) is genuine and overall I'm glad I read the book.
   
   Although, I bet she would have called the FBI on HST himself if he had written her a letter... ha ha. Hunter deserves a better chronicler-- but if you can get a copy of this one for under 5 bucks go for it.



3. The book was very short, but at the sametime very good. Im looking forward to Anita's next book, Ancient Gonzo Wisdom.



4. A refreshing & touching look at the good Doctor from the person who was closest to him, his widow. A VERY quick read, it offers the reader an insight into what made Dr. Thompson OUR Dr. Thompson. It describes what drove the man that drove a generation. Written as a list of code of ethics{yes,I here you laughing},it shows the humane side of H.S.T.
   I was skeptical at first after reading some of the reviews. Most of the negatives are not deserved. If your looking for same old Hunter madness,this is not for you.
   If your open to see another side of the good Doctor, as he said best, "buy the ticket, take the ride"....



5. I bought this as a gift for my son and he was very pleased with it. He loves anything to do with Hunter S. Thompson. He did not even know this book was out there so he was very pleased with it and it was written by his wife so it gave a totally different look at his life. It is also a shorter story and that really appealed to my son. For those of you out there that don't like to read a lot this is the perfect book for you. It gives a lot of detail but is not over written,

5 comments about How to Lose Friends and Alienate People [movie tie-in]: A Memoir.

1. Reading Toby Young is not a smooth ride, you come up against some overdone phrasing that is tiresome to wade through. But those moments do pass quickly and if you persevere through those blips, you will be rewarded with wonderful anecdotes and amusing characterization of the fashion and society print media, at times hilarious in their criticism and snobbishness toward the rest of humanity especially as they are some of the most unattractive and socially inept people in New York City (which many of their readers never realize until they encounter them at some party or children's function or other at which time the reader wonders, how they ever got to where they did). I've been enjoying this book as I do a box of chocolates - in small doses - each moment very satisfying.



2. I see Jeff Bridges is in the movie version. As the title of my review indicates, I was reminded of "The Big Lebowski" by this book.
   
   I thought the book was hilarious from start to finish.
   
   Those reviewers who bashed him for being politically incorrect are missing the point, I feel. Yes, he's often shallow and crude, etc.; but these qualities, together with his endless good-natured, back-firing hi-jinks, make for a wonderfully funny read.
   
   I picked up the book quite by accident; and the New York scene, Vanity Faire and the New Yorker, etc. are totally strange worlds to me; but his description of them is facinating and funny.
   
   So many laugh-out loud scenes, quotes, etc. His suck-up friend Alex, for instance, succeeds not only in making people feel he is interested in them, but that they are "Oscar Wilde on cocaine."



3. "Laugh and you're safe," wrote Henry Adams. "Laugh and you win," proves Young. His five-star honesty, humor and insight got a two-star demotion for careless writing.



4. The writing is very good. It's articulate, well-paced, precise, and flows smoothly. So I found the book very engaging for a while... until I got tired of the author-and-narrator. There's an amusing and ghoulish fascination to Young's first few dozen anecdotes about his obnoxious behavior; but the amusement wears thin after a while. By the end of the book, the obnoxiousness is what mostly makes an impression, and the book feels too long--too much time spent with a narrator making the exact same sort of missteps over and over and over. I found the tales of life inside Vanity Fair interesting (though the author seems so clueless and so full of personal agenda that I'm not convinced his profiles of various individuals are reliable), but I was irritated by Young's long and repeated complaints that there are no bold, iconoclastic journalists in, er, the Conde Nast empire. Where in the world did he get the idea that the glossy magazines devoted to fashion, celebrity profiles, and photo spreads are the stomping ground of bold, iconoclastic journalists?



5. But it's pretty bad.
   
   Toby Young comes to America for a job at Vanity Fair and succeeds in American Cafe Society about as well as the Duchess of Windsor did with the Royals after her husband's abdication. Imagine the Conde Nast headquarters as a combination of high fashion and low life and make the author the lowest of th e low lifes and you have a pretty good clue where this memoir goes.
   
   There is a movie deal, but my bet is that it will be greatly fictionalized because failure just isn't that funny.