Newspapers Books

Mrs Roosevelt is an amazing lady and is such an inspiration! Such an easy read and I loved it!

I recently picked this volume up when I visited Val-Kill her house a few miles away from the Hyde Park mansion. For many years the first lady shared her thoughts on current events and encouraged Americans to look upon racism and other social evils with shame. This is a good selection of her My Day columns which revolutionized opinions in America and remain an important testement to the power of free speech in this country.

I grew up during World War II and remember seeing Eleanor Roosevelt on news reels traveling around the world. I had no idea until I read this book of what a full and interesting life she was living. She had much pain and sorrow in her life, but she carried on.

I like her down to earth writing. She has written about ordinary things and left some things unsaid which is fine. She came from a very reserved background so it's to be expected. Her childhood was during a very different time than today. That she did so much for others is evidence of that upbringing.

After reading this book, I visited Hyde Park. I went first to her house at Val-Kill before I went to the Big House and Library. I recommend a visit to everyone because I believe you get a real feel for her there. At Val-Kill it's like she has just stepped out for a moment, but will be back.

I recommend this book to everyone. Editors give background information before each selection for those who weren't alive during the time. Eleanor did not go into great detail in her columns as, of course, her readers at the time would know what she was talking about.

My favorite way to learn about history is through the voice of a person who lived in that time. Often, however, the most readable first-person narratives leave something to be desired in breadth, since a single real person cannot be everywhere and have opinions on everything. Unless, it seems, that person is Eleanor Roosevelt. Her voice in her 'My Day' columns is authoritative, compassionate, wise, and insightful. Her opinions and philosophy on politics and diplomacy, both national and international, seem to me very pertinent to some of issues we face in our world today. Since I read this book, I have found myself hypothesizing about what she would have thought about some current happenings as I try to make sense of them. The editorial introductions to each year and each article excerpt in the book are well-written and provide the right amount of context to frame the excerpts without distracting from them.

As a former member of the Bulletin "Family" the memories were recreated in each chapter. The people described were exactly as I remembered them and it was on lifes greatest experiences from the 40's. Very informative and enjoyable book.

"Nearly Everybody Read It," edited by Peter Binzen, portrays very well the atmosphere of the pre-computer big city newsroom, as compared to today's antiseptic and better-educated counterpart.

Colorful characters abound, and are brought to life.

Unlike today, it was a time when readers felt close to their newspaper.

The book is an entertaining collection of anecdotes by the people who wrote and published the old Philadelphia Bulletin. Clearly every writer misses the old Bulletin, but it is never made obvious if a newspaper like the Bulletin could survive nowadays, when newspaper readers like their news "McNuggetized" a la USA Today. Still, for fans of regional histories, Nearly Everyhbody Read It: Snapshots of the Philadelphia Bulletin is a nice read.

This little book (163 pages)about the life and demise of Philadelphia's "Bulletin" is wonderfully entertaining. It also helps one to understand better how the old style of fact finding journalism changed and finally disappeared to permit room for more "modern" packaging of news. In their best days, Ben Hecht and Charley MacArthur couldn't have dreamed up the newsroom denizens immortalized here. It is a tasty slice of American and Philadelphia history filled with world class characters, madcap activity, and devotion to a great journalistic institution. The book was written for those who miss the "Bulletin", but its appeal reaches to all who miss an era now passed into American history. -Robert. C. Brecht

"On Writing Short Stories" is a masterful introduction to the craft of short stories. Editor Tom Bailey (an accomplished writer himself) has compiled some of the best essays by well-known authors that not only serve as inspiration but also as a fine learning tool for young writers.

The twelve stories included within this book are some of the seminal tales that any writer must be familiar with: Updike's "A&P", Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," Tobias Wolff's "Bullet to the Brain," and "A Father's Story" by the much too under-read Andrew Dubus. Bailey points at the genius of these stories in his own chapter "Character, Plot, Setting and Time, Metaphor and Voice," parts of which he expanded into his book "A Short Story Writer's Companion."

Also of note are essays by Mike Curtis who contribute a frank but ultimately moving lesson on the pain or rejection letters-and no one knows this better than the fiction editor of The Atlantic Monthly. The essay by Dubus is one of the best pieces on writing that I've read and illustrates the necessity of "the habit of writing" through his illustrious and gentle prose.

Bailey's pulled off a collection of essays on and about short stories that are not only an introduction for young writers but also have lessons that even the more seasoned veteran can take to heart.

If you are looking for a guide through the mire of writing short fiction, you can't go wrong with this book! The editors really knew what they were doing when they chose the contributors as I found the comments by published authors very insightful, and the selection of short stories includes some of the best ever written.

There is no recipe for the perfect short story. Prose discusses the short story as written by the best and includes examples of the work of each. The reader then has a quick reference to better understand the style of each writer and his/her contribution to the history of the short story.

Pound for pound, this may be the best book on, about, or for aspiring writers.

I have read at least 10 books on the craft of writing and a bunch on theory and technique... this book is right up there with the best of the best. If you couple this book with Raymond Carver's posthumous "Call if You Need Me" and mix in a few careful readings of any Richard Yates interview, you've got yourself some tough rope to tow. But if you want to be a strong writer, suck it up and do it anyway!

I hold a BA in fiction writing. I also tend to write literary realist fiction. If you are of the same mind, this book will help you tremendously. It is brutal in it's explanation of what to steer clear of and what to include, but that is how it should be. If you take writing very seriously, and want to take it to the next level, this book is a great start.

You can't go wrong when you have advice from C. Michael Curtis (Fiction Editor of the most prominent publication in America) and Frank Conroy (Chairman to the most prestegious writing institute in America.) Pay attention folks. This is the real deal. Add in some very helpful workshop activites from one Tom Bailey (only a head writing professor at Harvard) and some very heartfelt tips from a true master like Dubus... Forget about it!

"On becoming a Novelist" was good. "ABCs of Reading" was good. "The Lonely Voice" was decent. Forster's guidance was revolutionary, but this book is perfect for now. Go buy it and then read all the Carver and Yates and Dubus and Wolff you can get your grubby little hands on. You'll be a better writer for it. Trust me!

The book is so good!!! It's about two mice, the real Stilton and the fake Stilton battling against each other. One day real Stilton gets locked out in the cold and fake Stilton takes over his life. The next day real Stilton calls Thea, his sister, and Thea says, "Unless you know what Aunt gave you on your birthday you can't talk to me."

The reasons I like this book are:
1. It's funny and it's good for humorous people and children.
2. It's kind of confusing but once you read on you'll get it. It's also kind of cool how every food and drink is made out of cheese. eg. cheese chews and cheese tea.
3. It's very mysterious. I always think something bad is going to happen.

Even though it's not a good bedtime story, this book is good entertainment! So I think If you like funny books you should give this one a try!!!

(Review by Isabella)

Help! I seeing things. Maybe I should explain. My names Geronimo Stilton and suddonly people have been saying things about what i did and i `know i didn't do it! Aha, some one it dressing up as me! Find out more in the book

This book is sooo funny I laughed all day long!This is my favourite Geronimo Stilton.You should really.......I mean really buy it!! It's coool!!!!!!!!!

It was strange. Paople kept telling Geronimo he did not have in mind. Then he realized the truth, there's a mousae alike Geronimo running in town.!

This book gives a fascinating glimpse into the minds and hearts of newspaper reporters. The section of how reporters covered the Black Dahlia murder case was interesting, if not a little disturbing. Very thorough look at L.A. and its newspapers.

Rob Wagner has performed a great and long overdue service. He has chronicled the history of L.A. newspapers in the first half of the 20th Century---a "Front Page" era when L.A. had a half-dozen dailies, with many editions per day. Wagner is to be particularly congratulated for recounting the rise and fall of the original L.A. Daily News, a peach-colored oversized tabloid much revered in its day. The DN, at one time the circulation leader, hosted an array of great writers, from the legendary Matt Weinstock (THE L.A. columnist of his day)to Jack Smith and Jim Murray. The book is painstaking in its research of circulation figures and union struggles---spiced with rollicking anecdotes about great newspapermen (and women) of the day. This is the definitive history of Los Angeles newspapers.

Red Ink, White Lies is an impressive and informative chronicle of the successes and failures of six Los Angeles daily newspapers during an era of the city's fiercest newspaper wars and competitions. Author Rob Wagner (who is a veteran of more than 26 years as a reporter, city editor, managing editor, and night editor) interviewed dozens of newsman and women, resulting in a vivid and candid portrait of prewar and postwar newspaper reporters, including their lifestyle, ethics and professionalism. From celebrity journalism to mob era police corruption, reportage of ethnic minority communities and the "red-baiting" 50s, Red Ink, White Lies is a thoroughly fascinating, insightful contribution to the 20th century history of journalism.

I love to read about Los Angeles history, and I thought I've studied just about everything on this city. But this book just blew me away. It's a totaly different take on early 20th century Los Angeles told by the men and women who lived it and reported on for the city's daily newspapers. It is filled with anecdotal accounts of L.A.'s most sensational crimes, mobsters, and bad cops. It tells the history of the city not from the scholarly ivory tower but through the eyes of the newspaper reporter, editor, and photographer who witnessed these actual awesome events. A real wonderful read. It's well-sourced. I got a kick out of the who's who at the end of the book that lists and provides bios of nearly 200 L.A. journalists of the day.

My Daughter has every American Girl book and Mystery. They are fantastic for elementary school age girls. Lots of history in each one.

I like this book because of the way Emma Henderson feels about how her mother dresses, and because of all the mystery! I recommend this book to whoever loves mysteries and\or has read any other American Girl History Mysteries.

I like this book because of the way Emma Henderson feels about how her mother dresses, and because of all the mystery! I recommend this book to whoever loves mysteries and\or has read any other American Girl History Mysteries.

Whistler in the Dark is a great historical mystery book about a twelve-year-old girl, Emma Henderson, who is sad because her father was killed in the Civil War, and her mother has no time to spend with her. When her mother decides to wear a Reform Dress and move to Colorado to start a newspaper, Emma is even more upset. But her troubles become even worse when they arrive in Twin Pines. The gold rush town has no houses, no schools, and no other girls Emmaýs age. Someone also doesnýt want the newspaper to succeed and sends them a threatening note, dumps their ink, and does awful things to try and scare them off. Emma is also scared because a ghost-like figure has followed them from Chicago and, each night, goes by her window at the boarding house and whistles a tune that her dead father used to whistle all the time. At the end of the story, Emma figures out who is trying to scare them away from Twin Pines, and who is the secret whistler. Emma also learns to admire her mother for going West where she could be more than just a mother.

I read this book for my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Maull (who rocks!) The book was a little bit scary at one point, but it was still really a great book. I loved learning about how women couldn't wear pants or do a lot of jobs other than be a mom or wife! My grandmother read the book and loved it, too. So I recommend this book to all girls of all ages!

Insightful and well written. I really enjoyed sharing the life of this remarkable woman.

Ms. Greenwald's insightful biography of the fascinating woman who was both a shaper and observer of the women's movement is fascinating reading. Highly informative and entertaining this book is a real page turner.

The authors writing style is captivating and I look forward to her next endeavor.

As a former Times writer I was impressed with Ms. Greenwald's thorough investigation and her ability to capture Charlotte's persona.

After seeing a re-broadcast of Marilyn Greenwald on CNN and having just read yet another review (NY Times and Dallas paper), there is no brouhaha over this one --this is a fine work.

This is a fascinating book, not just for Civil War buffs or journalism junkies - but for any of us who get a daily news fix from the newspapers, TV or the Web. It reminds us that we should always bear in mind who's delivering the information.
In his book, The Words of War, Mr. Bracken takes a very novel approach to a discussion of the Civil War, contrasting the coverage of several wartime events by two newspapers from two disparate regions, The Charleston Mercury of South Carolina and the northeast's New York Times. The differences in the reporting are striking, with the tenor and the details differing greatly.
How interesting it is to read news reports from over a century ago against current events. The politics, the war, the economy and the specific issues might vary; now it's not the North and the South, as much as it is the red states and the blue states.
This book serves as a terrific reminder that we must continue to question the objectivity and validity of the information we get. I highly recommend it.

The old axiom, "History is written by the winners," is essentially rejected in Donagh Bracken's new book, The Words of War. Bracken compares the Civil War battle reportage of the New York Times and the Charleston Mercury, juxtaposing the articles back to back. The result is a clear demonstration that history, at least during the many battles of the Civil War, is simply written by those who happened to be there.

In his introduction to the book, Bracken writes, "When the Civil War started, American journalism was put to the test. It was the start of the modern age of journalism, and it was a rough start indeed." The formative years of American journalism saw newspapers operated almost exclusively as propaganda organs, owned by some political person or party and used primarily to persuade the public for one cause or another. But when the Civil War came along, the very purpose of newspapers changed.

The public wanted information that was current, demanding up-to-date reportage of events that took place hundreds and thousands of miles away. Newspaper editors switched the focus of their papers' content from propaganda to covering the facts of battle, the "who-what-when and where" of it all. While the papers in the North and South always had different takes as to the "why" element of battle reportage, they still had to meet the chief demand of their reading public: that they get the facts, preferably as soon as possible. The new telegraph technology allowed for current reportage, and for the first time in the history of warfare, correspondents provided stories in a timely fashion.

New York was the newspaper capital of the country when war broke out, boasting 17 dailies. Many were pro-South and only five of them supported President Abraham Lincoln. Bracken focuses on one of those five, the New York Times, and its considerably talented editor Henry J. Raymond. Long interested in politics and journalism, Raymond was a principal founder of the New York Times in 1851 and also helped create the Republican Party after he left the Whigs in 1856.

In contrast, Bracken presents the firebrand editor of the Charleston Mercury, Robert Barnwell Rhett. Under the wonderful pseudonym "Hermes," Rhett penned the editorials that would lead South Carolina to be the first state to secede on Dec. 20, 1860. "He was quick of mind, brash and self-confident," writes Bracken, "and of the latter, annoyingly so to some." Rhett had considerable editorial influence over the Charleston Mercury, which was owned by Rhett's family.

Bracken is described on the book jacket as "...a writer of long standing having written extensively for newspapers and magazines for thirty years on subjects ranging from world history to economics." His familiarity with the Civil War subject matter is obvious in The Words of War and his approach to writing the book is organized and efficient.

Each chapter presents a battle, beginning with an author's commentary that sets the context. Then Bracken prints verbatim and unaltered the articles from the Charleston Mercury and then the articles from the New York Times that covered the battle. Sometimes maps, drawings and paintings are reprinted. Bracken then concludes each chapter with a section called "What Historians Say," usually a few paragraphs that cut the facts about the battle down to the barest of bones.

The most interesting portions of the book are found in the sections where actual dispatches and communications between the armies were published in the papers. For example, Bracken presents the fascinating exchange between Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Simon Bolivar Buckner during the battle at Fort Donelson early in 1862, as printed in the New York Times. Buckner sent Grant a dispatch proposing that a group of commissioners be appointed to determine terms of surrender. Grant responds:

Sir: Yours, of this date, proposing an armistice and the appointment of Commissioners to settle the terms of capitulation is just received. No terms except unconditional surrender and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works. I am very respectfully, your obedient servant.

Thus we learn how the famous nickname, Unconditional Surrender Grant, was created. The exchanges and notes between opposing commanders add a great deal of interest to Bracken's book.

The Words of War will appeal to a wide variety of audiences. Civil War buffs, journalists and history students will find a great deal of value in the book. The book is so well organized that the reader does not have to go through the entire book in one sitting; he can peruse this chapter or that chapter, go to whichever battles he finds most interesting, and not lose any of the overall context. The book reads easily and provides information and perspective that even the most diehard of Civil War buffs will find new and enlightening. Bracken's effort is a solid one.

Beginning with the firing on Fort Sumpter and concluding with the Appomattox surrender of General Lee to General Grant four years later, "The Words Of War" is a unique and seminal contribution to the American Civil War literature. What author and Civil War historian Donagh Bracken has done is to compile and organize in chronological sequence the reports by newspaper correspondents from both the North and the South with respect to how the journalists wrote about the war for their newspapers back home. Specifically, the reporters for 'The New York Times' like Franc Wilkie, L.L. Crounse and others who were embedded with the northern Armies of Grant, Sherman, McClellan, and other officers and admirals in the Eastern and Western Theatres; and the reporters for such southern newspapers like the 'Charleston Mercury' like Robert Barnwell Rhett Sr. & Jr. and George William Bagy (under the pen name of Hermes). The northern and southern newspaper accounts are placed in juxtaposition with each other making for an inherently fascinating, impressively informative, enthusiastically recommended contribution to personal, academic, and community library Civil War Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

Fascinating perspective on the role journalism plays in guiding the minds and hearts of the public. The same events told from the perspective of the participants. Civil War scholars will want to add this to their collections!

Compiled and organized by Elaine Morrison Fitch, The 1848 Boston Cultivator: Marriages, Deaths, And Miscellaneous Readings presents articles abstracted from the Boston Cultivator weekly newspaper, carefully arranged in chronological order for the year 1848. A straightforward presentation accurately indexed for quick reference, The 1848 Boston Cultivator is a superb primary source for genealogists, historians, and non-specialist general readers curious to read anecdotes of life and death in a bygone era of American history.

This book is a terrific read for the history buff! Reading the stories truly brought 1848 America to life for me. It was nice to have all the information in chronological order as you read through them. There is a wealth of information in this book. It has a huge index with over 8,000 names making it easy for those people researching family histories. I particularly enjoyed reading the articles concerning westward expansion. It is incredible to relive those moments recounted in this book. An enjoyable and informative read!
Highly recommended to anyone interested in history, society or genealogy. Can't wait for her next one!

This is a truly excellent resource for anyone doing research on this time period, you just cannot find this information anywhere else. There are thousands of names in it. This book has birth, marriage and death announcements for the entire New England area for 1848. I found the stories so interesting, actual accounts of shipwrecks, fires, accidents and crime as they were reported in 1848. I highly recommed this book!

I've been interested in old magazines for a few years now, and have been looking for a helpful price guide. I just bought this, and I highly recommend it. There's a lot of information, not just about the magazines most of us are familiar with, but also about many lesser knonwn older magazines that have great value due to authors who published their early work in them--e.g. Edgar Allen Poe. It's not just helpful information as a price guide, it's very interesting reading! Lots of great color photos also. I looked through another magazine price guide in a bookstore, and this one is much, much better.

I picked up this book to learn more about vintage ads and magazines I was interested in. I was pleasantly surprised that not only was the book a complete guide to magazines but had great analgoies and stories the "editors" wrote within.
Great information on a subject that seems to be little explored.

When we moved into our 1920's home,we found boxes left in the attic filled with old fashion magazines. My husband was ready to trash the lot, but being of the pack rat variety I found a home for them in my office.

With the help of The Antique Trader Vintage Magazines Price Guide the door was opened for me to the world of old magazines. The beautiful color photos helped me to easily identify my boxes of "trash" and give them a value.

Most important, the love affair the authors have for magazines comes across in their historical entries. The unique way they organize collectible magazine people into Sleepers like OZ artist W.W. Denslow or Stars like F.Scott Fitzgerald makes me want to haunt local yard sales. My major problem with the book was that I became so fascinated that I wanted more. The book could easily have been double in size and information and kept my interest as both a reader and for use as a desk reference. With what I've learned, our next home will hopefully be an 1890's Victorian with a basement full of Godey's Lady's Book magazines.