No comments about Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson.

4 comments about Small Matters: A Year in Writing.

1. This is a series of journalistic columns by author/journalist Joe Woodward. He's a Californian, yeah, that's right, one of those. I am sure my conservative friends and I would normally get into a good row with Mr. Woodward--but he makes his points about what's wrong with life in California eloquently. He writes about the first-time-homebuyers' assistance program. Hey, if you find a house for under $170,000 and are low income, you just might qualify. Sad to say, the median price of a home in his area is over $300K and bidding wars are happening on every house. Oops! And rents are over $1200. Where ARE people who don't earn six figures going to live? Hmmm. And he laments about the result of Prop 13 --the voter mandate to reduce property taxes that came about to keep homeowners on fixed incomes from having to sell their homes to pay rising property taxes but ended up with more inequities as the result. Million dollar properties pay less than $2000 a year in tax, while the community contributes less than 20% of the cost of running the schools. Yes, I agree with Mr. Woodward here--it's a problem.
   
   But what I enjoyed more than the journal columns were the short stories and memoirs. One, about Mr. Woodward's mother, who came from Georgia and goes home again to see the house where she grew up was amazing. And the short story about the Lemon Festival Princess runner-up left me wanting more, much more of Joe Woodward's fiction.
   
   If you live in California and like to read good journalistic essays on life on the Left Coast, this should appeal. I enjoyed it.



2. From the photograph on the cover of this important little book - a small child standing by his RadioFlyer reaching for a California orange on his backyard tree - to the collection of weekly newspaper columns to the final musings of memoirs, author Joe Woodward enters an arena of writing that immediately thrusts him into the company of Mark Twain, Jack Smith, Susan Sontag and other names which will doubtless surface to other readers as they slowly enjoy the thoughts of a quiet Everyman.
   
   Joe Woodward (again, notice this is not a "Joseph" Woodward who addresses us) writes from his home in Claremont, California, words gleaned from a weekly column in the LA Times sectional newspaper for his area, about the kinds of issues that folks in the homier locations outside the city gates of the megapolis of Los Angeles face and incorporate into their modus operandi of daily living. Woodward feeds the fires of public resentment about racial profiling accusations of the protectors of the city, about the noise from the freeway that burrows into the calm sought in the periphery of the city, allows his own emotions to surface and share about the extended super market strike that affected both workers and shoppers alike. These things may sound like 'small matters' in the milieu of Iraq and tsunami and train derailments/drive-by shootings/suicide bombers etc. But if you read his core responses carefully, you will find that Woodward uses these 'minor issues' of his columns to carefully mold his readers' thoughts as to what things in our lives are important. These issues, while not equal to the major events internationally, these issues do 'matter': these issues reflect how the individual relates to his immediate environment and that immediacy that shapes global coexistence.
   
   Alert! This is not just a series of crises that afflict one suburban location: for every bit of anger or sadness there is a partner celebration of the little things (other small matters) that make life joyous. Woodward knows how to celebrate as well as how to tackle human foibles and corporate emulsification. To this reader he uses his Claremont focus as a microcosm: lift your eyes from the pages and glance over the newspaper and the metaphors become obvious.
   
   Small towns, whether isolated in the prairies of the great Midwest or conjoined with the panoply of suburbia around great cities with increasingly ill-defined cores, are special places quiet enough and walkable enough to know neighbors, care about personal tragedies down the block, support grassroots revolutions against loss of schools or community grocery gatherings or parks or peaceful air. And like the other writers who have this Norman Rockwell way with words, Joe Woodward proves in this little matter of a book that he is a man of sound gifts as a writer, an observer, an entertainer, and a pickle barrel philosopher. This is a 'first book' that pleads for subsequent writings. Highly recommended reading. Grady Harp, January 2005



3. Small Matters , A Year in Writing is a great collection of columns and memoirs about growing up and living in Southern California. The author uses great language to describe his outlook on interesting events. A must read that definetly deserves to be read.



4. This book is so much fun to read! The chapters are quick and easy to get into. They offer insights into suburban life through an interseting use of language. I particularly enjoyed the stories at the end about the author's childhood. This book has the kind of writing that you remember like Anne Lamott or Anna Quindlen.

No comments about Who Was Marshall McLuhan: Exploring a Mosaic of Impressions.

No comments about The Missing Will.

No comments about Never a Shot in Anger (Battle of Normandy Museum Edition).

1 comments about Desmond Fennell: His Life and Work.

1. Fennell has ranged from traveller to the East in the 1950s to 1960s theologian to 1970s republican to 1980s Irish language activist (I blur the decennial distinctions a bit to make a point) to 1990s media critic to an exile in Italy (could be worse) in the 2000s. His acidic attacks on his nation's complacency I always find stimulating and refreshing, if increasingly sounding like jeremiads rather than analyses. He, like many of us, finds lots wrong with an Ireland too eager to jump into bed with Anglo-American hegemony and multinational servitude, but is short on answers on how to stop the seduction.

   This collection of essays brings, then, those Irish intellectuals who wag their fingers as well as clap their hands for their veteran friend, antagonist, and colleague. While it overlooks his European and republican contributions in favor of a more "insular" concentration, it does serve as the first volume, slim as it is, devoted to taking the man seriously.

   Seeing that many of his works are out-of-print and often impossible to find even in good libraries, this festschrift should mark not the end of Fennell's four-and-counting decades in the public eye, but spark him and us to taking his jabs seriously, and putting them to work in today's Ireland. And, wherever sufferers of the "postwestern condition" languish.

No comments about Inside the National Enquirer: Confessions of an Undercover Reporter.

1 comments about Assignment in Utopia.

1. Eugene Lyons was a clever and amusing fellow. Assigned to be a reporter in Moscow during Stalin's rule he broke the mold: he, unlike Walter Duranty of the Times, would tell the truth. Initially attracted to the Great Experiment, Lyons soon learned the misery and death suffered by the eggs broken in Lenin's omelet: the NEP men slaughtered when the New Economic Policy fell from favor, the kulaks liquidated as a class, the Ukraine nearly exterminated. Though tragic, Lyons recounts the times with wit and pathos, and with a grasp of English not unlike a cross between Conrad and Nabakov.

5 comments about Five Seconds to Air: Broadcast Journalism Behind the Scenes.

1. I've been a fraternity brother of Bob's for many years and enjoyed following his career in TV journalism, although I haven't talked to him since 1972.
   It was a fun read for me since I know him.
   You always wonder how someone gets from point A to point B and C and this book helps answer those questions.
   I admire Bob for coming back to his roots in Tulsa after all these years. He always had a golden voice and a really good sense of humor.
   Good job Bob and thanks for sharing your story.



2. When I started reading Bob's book, I expected a lot of media shop talk and lingo with a focus on the life of a well-known and very talented broadcast journalist. What I got was a book about a man and his experiences; very candid, funny and sad. It was about the Bob that I have known so many years, but until lately, not so well. Excellent job, Bob!



3. Faced with the choice of being stabbed in both eyes or reading this BOB LOSURE BOMB, I chose reading the book. All I can say is, can I change my mind??? Go ahead, NOTHING could hurt anymore than reading this fireplace starter kit! Bob the Bomb is bitter, mean, egotistical, critical, full of himself, egotistical, a fading star, arrogant, and did I say egotistical?? I guess this stuff might have had my attention, gee, 15 years ago; but Losure is a has-been, at best, with a severe ax to grind...and I wish he would have done it to my skull instead of reading this insult to the First Amendment. Buyer be ware!



4. I listened to Bob Losure when he was on KRMG Radio in Tulsa, watched him on KOTV in Tulsa and CNN and finally met him in San Fransciso several years ago at a National Speakers Association meeting. Now I am following his career as a professional speaker. I was compelled to read Bob's story and can honestly recommend it. I was in broadcasting for 12 years, am also a professional speaker/author and find it intriguing to be able to take a look behind the scenes at CNN. Great book, Bob!



5. I've watched Bob Losure on CNN Headline News for many years. He is someone everyone knows, but know nothing about. It is fascinating to follow Bob's life and career and to get a deeper look into the news reporting process. I have a child who aspires to achieve the success that Bob has... his book has been a definite insight. Bob is very candid about the tough times. With him always looking perfect on television there is some comfort in knowing that he has a life like the rest of us. He has always reported the news, it was a pleasure reading a story where he "is" news. I think this book should be required reading for anyone seeking a broadcast news career.

2 comments about Fanatic Heart: A Life of John Boyle O'Reilly 1844 - 1890.

1. This was a well-written, detailed biography of a man who deserves to be more well known than he is. I agree with the other reveiwer that it did focus too much on his time in Australia nad not enough on his Boston career, but that is understandable since it was first published in Australia.



2. i wish that the author had concentrated more on his career in boston and less on his time spent in australia , but overall this is a superb book for those unfamiliar with o'reilly. o'reilly was way ahead of his time in his social views and in his regard for oppressed groups and should definitely be remembered for that. the author has done a fine job. i greatly admire o'reilly -though i must admit i have a bias as i am related to him indirectly through his wife.