Newspapers Books

I'm a sucker for wordplay, especially when it takes communication to a new level. In this hit-and-miss volume, the New York Post puts its wordplay artistry on display, giving us the best of the wild and irreverent headlines from the last few decades. The most clever of the headlines move beyond merely play on words. "Sin in the Clones," blares one, accompanied by the photo of a couple of lab monkeys, is both a clever play on the song "Send in the Clowns" but also says something about the story -- that the Church finds sin in cloning humans. The headline from the book title does not skewer a song title, but is artful anyway: "Headless body found in topless bar" is gruesomely funny wordplay PLUS has the attraction of accurately describing the story. The Post (at least by its own accounting) lays claim to dubbing Ronald Reagan's anti-missile defense system "Star Wars." The name stuck, being more memorable and descriptive than "Strategic Defense Initiative." Alas, only a few of the Post's "best" achieve this level of art or incisiveness. "The Lady is a Trump," announcing one of "the Donald's" marriages, says little about the event other than that it occurred.

The book starts off with a 2-page history of the Post (mostly changes of ownership) followed by several pages bent on sliming the 1993 owner, real estate mogul Abe Hirschfield. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and the Post can't seem to get enough of laying this gentleman low. The rest of the book is devotes to covers and memorable inside pages. The chosen covers are taken from the world of politics ("The Full Monica"), sports ("May the Curse Be With You" -- odious to this Red Sox fan, but clever nonetheless) and the Mafia ("Gotti's Greatest Hits"). The selected titles also highlight the tabloid's propensity for bringing down the mighty -- be it Jim Bakker, Donald Trump or Martha Stewart -- and upping the cleavage count. Anything to get the proles to shell over a few clams. Later Post covers showed an alarming propensity to editorialize and pander to the masses in a way that goes well beyond journalistic limits of propriety. "Axis of Weasel" blares one headline from January 2003 over the photos of French and German leaders who opposed America's invasion of Iraq. While the locals must have lapped up that sentiment, after 5 years of war, the fun has gone out of it.

In any event, whether maddening or delighting, the Post headlines are eye-catching, if not always memorable, clever or right. They serve their purpose -- to attract reader attention, and entice them to pay 25 or 50 cents to see what other red meat might be lurking beneath the headers -- be they funny put downs or pix of some bathing beauty. "Topless Body" does not always show the Post in good light, but it does show it, and that may be all the point it needs.

It used to be that if someone wanted to keep educated with current events, a person would read THE NEW YORK TIMES. That paper used to be the paradigm of all the news that was "fit to print." Unfortunately, THE N.Y. TIMES isn't the paper that it used to be, has lost its objectivity, and has largely become a paper filled with little more than left-leaning political banter. Thank goodness for the NEW YORK POST! Started in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton the paper has gone through numerous shifts in ownership, but still exists not only as a newspaper, but also as one of the most amusing, interesting, and sensational papers in the country. I know that there are some that find the direction the Post has taken in recent years to be negative, but personally I find it refreshing compared to some of the more bland and completely uninformative writing in many large market newspapers.

HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR is a collection of famous and infamous headlines taken directly from the Post. The book is divided into seven chapters: general news, politics, interior headlines, celebrities, sports, mafia, and international news. There is a preface to the book from the Copy Desk of Robert Walsh. There's also an introduction that provides a short history of the newspaper and ends in a lambasting of former owner Abe Hirschfeld, who nearly drove the paper into the ground. Some of the Post's headlines became newsworthy in and of themselves, such as the Thursday, March 24, 1983 headline that named President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative "Star Wars". Others are just amusing such as the cover story that gives the book its title, "Headless Body in Topless Bar." The book is mostly composed of copies of front pages with an occasional background about some of the headlines.

I enjoyed reading through the book. My only complaint is that the NEW YORK POST is a newspaper over 200 years-old, but all of the covers are from 30-35 years, with most from the past 5-10 years.

Overall, HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR is an entertaining book that fans of the POST and newsjunkies in particular will probably find amusing.

There have been few fulllength studies of the short story, and Frank O'Connor's was one of the first and remains among the most influential. But it has held up miserably over the years. Even granted that he published the work in 1962, was it really necessary for O'Connor to refer so patronizingly to Katherine Mansfield as "the brassy little shopgirl of literature"? Or to treat Joyce's DUBLINERS as if it had been written in lightning on the summit of Mt. Sinai? (Of a sentence from "The Sisters," O'Connor writes, "You may play about as you please with alternatives to this phrase; you will find no combination of adjectives that will produce a similar effect, nor any way of reading the passage that will produce a different one.") Objectivity goes straight out the window; as a result, this study is much more useful as a picture of the literary attitudes of O'Connor's time than it is as any sort of rigorous study of the form it purports to analyze.

O'Connor's in-depth analysis goes to the heart of what the short story genre is about. It is written with unstinting commitment and erudition, and never strays into shallowness of any kind. For those who love his stories, it is perhaps surprising to find the beguiling storyteller in this academic vein. What is convincing is not so much his arguments as his evident passion and long reflection on the topics he chooses. To grapple with the theories he propounds, such as that of the short story representing "submerged populations" is to try and share a little in the maestro's genius. Something to come back to again and again. I'm sure my little review hardly does justice to it, so I suggest you read the book and see for yourself.

Mp 101 does not go into great detail about "how" to actually be successful in music publishing, but then again what worked for one person may not work for you anyway. Im a novice to music publising so i found it to be helpful as it taught me about copyrights, publisher-songwriter contracts, etc. All this book does is give you a working knowledge to further educate yourself, which i intend to do. SO if you have experience in this industry this book is not for you, but if you are clueless as i was get the book.

I was searching for a book that was a 'How To' on the details of setting up a small music publishing company --- this wasn't it. The title 'Music Publishing 101' gives the impression that there is enough information for a semester (or quarter or whatever) of study. (Maybe I should have paid more attention to the subtitle 'Crash Course.') I found only the very basic information that might, at most, take a couple of weeks to digest. About 1/4 of the book (mainly toward the end) seemed like filler material. Overall, I was disappointed.

It is a pity that not more of Joseph Chaim Brenner's works are translated into English (there is this work, Out of the Depths, and a novel, Breakdown and Bereavement, and some short stories in various anthologies). For not only is Brenner an important figure in Hebrew literature, he is also a modernist of high caliber, capable of being compared to Joyce or Proust. Quite simply, Brenner inhabited a world in transition, in a language which was being revived and enriched by the modern scene. Out of the Depths shows the level of commitment which Brenner had to the cause of literary modernism. This novella is a pastiche of styles; the narrative is broken apart and put back together again. There are journal entries and first person narration and third person perspective. The characters have the hypersensitivity we would expect in early modernists. Every thought, idea, or fleeting feeling is on the table top of examination. Nothing is taken for granted any more since every idea is open to new interpretation. This gives this work an edgy, exhausted feel, as if the entire world was about to implode. An old world is dead but a new world has not yet fully arisen to replace it.

Although its title alludes to a psalm of lamentation, this book (first published in 1908-09) is a secular product. Set in early 20th century London, it has all the familiar motifs of "engaged" Jewish writing: starving workers exploited by corpulent capitalists, former revolutionaries in search of an identity, failed strikes--the classic pained world of Jewish emmigration.

Brenner's novel excels, however, similar creations (e.g. Leivick's "Shop") on a number of counts: it was fortunate to find a top-class tranlator (Webber Prize 1989), and in itself it employs an interesting variety of literary techniques (journal, stream of consciousness, a certain drama-like quality when the narrator disappears for long spells, and some powerful albeit feverish storytelling when he checks back in). The novel goes beyond the usual socio-economic agit-prop of the time: Brenner, something of a celebrity in the Hebrew literature of the day, is more focused on ethical issues, with his compelling insistence on heroic responsibility for one's actions and compassion for others.

With its decent plot-weaving and some good comical sketches, this is a thoroughly readable book.

I got this book when I got appointed the advisor for my high school newspaper. While the book itself has a lot of information, it really seems to be geared toward college kids or journalism students. The majority of my students are English as a Second Language students, and the language used is too hard.

I am keeping the book as a reference, but not specifically using it with my students.

I got this book when I was assigned to revive a dormant community college newspaper and it was the single most useful resource I encountered. In particular it helped me figure out how to recruit and motivate editors and staff and how to guide student writers in their reporting, writing and revising process. There is a lot of basic and useful information and it's presented in an appealing and easy to grasp manner. There are sections with tips from the pros on topics like investigative reporting, how to write a sex column, how to write a review, and how to gather documents through sunshine laws. The book has easy to follow charts for basic newswriting and story construction, it shows the organization of a typical newspaper staff and the order of events for every news cycle. It has easy to xerox templates for article assignment sheets and more. For each section there are suggestions for further reading both online and in print. About the only thing missing here is a section on how to deal with finances. Still it's a great tool and very readable. If you're looking for a good place to start as a student journalist or a media advisor at the college level, this book has what you need.

Using articles from the pages of Tombstone, Arizona's major newspaper, the Epitaph, and some pieces from a rival paper, author Martin paints a vivid picture of life in this booming mining "camp" as it is referred to. Besides plenty of bordellos and saloons to divert the hardworking miners, the affluent citizens of Tombstone enjoyed concerts, elaborate parties, and social events of various sorts. The exploits of some of the more colorful lawmen and outlaws (sometimes they were one and the same) of the Arizona territory were chronicled in the Epitaph's florid articles, and the much-recounted shootout at the OK corral is detailed (Epitaph writers went into almost clinical detail in describing gunshot wounds). The last part of the book covers a disastrous blaze in one of the mines that shut down mining and the town and then presents a series of exuberantly optimistic articles in which new investors and mining engineers restore mining activity by installing massive pumps to keep groundwater from invading the ore face. However, by 1908, the water had overwhelmed all efforts, and Tombstone camp ceased to produce ore once and for all. The book suffers some from the author's rather awkward writing, but the book is mostly taken directly from the pages of the Epitaph, and his selection of colorful and evocative prose by various Epitaph editors and reporters conveys the life and times of this vibrant community very well.

This book is certainly fun to read, but don't get the idea that it will give you a complete history of Tombstone. Those who want that will need to look elsewhere. This book is no more than what its title says it is, perhaps a little less. It is chock full of old Epitaph articles on the more colorful occurrences in Tombstone's history. It was a decidedly partisan newspaper, and regrettably, the reader doesn't get to see the opposing articles from "The Nugget", which was the Epitaph's nemesis during the Earp-Clanton days. The book also ends rather abruptly without any attempt at summation.

Nevertheless, for light reading this book is very entertaining. I recommend it on that basis.

This book is exactly what you think it will be; good puzzles, moderate difficulty. Great way to relax at the beach or kill time on a plane or other lengthy travel sojourn.

USA Today is always consistent with the content of their puzzles. This book would be perfect with a spiral binding instead.

While the information in here was of some value, I found that other books that I have on this subject are more indepth. The market info was no use because it was very outdated.

I really enjoyed this book and hope the author(s) come out with something else on related subjects in the future. As someone just starting out in the business, Lynn's observations are very indicative of my experiences, so far. The listing of top media markets around the country with addresses was very helpful.

This is a comprehensive book which covers every aspect of feature writing. It provides many examples along the way to highlight good and poor writing. It is obvious why this fantastic book is used by many Australian universities.

This book will tell you a lot of what you need to know about writing feature articles. But what I didn't know when I purchased it on Amazon was that it's geared toward the AUSTRALIAN market, which he refers to regularly in the book. Also, most of the examples of writing that he provides, the language and cultural references are of Australia, making it a bit harder to follow for a North American English speaker. If you are not interested in writing for the Australian market, you can be better served by another book. One thing that was missing was the lack of attention given to the distinct writing styles for newspapers and magazines. Considering the title is "how to research and write newspaper and magazine articles," one would imagine that the author would address the differences between the two.

"Confessions" is one of my absolute favorite books and I have read it multiple times. I get a tickle out of the people who hated the book. The complaints all seem to stem from the fact that there was not a single deep moment, or any kind of introspection, no one grew as a person and the vile main character recieved no real comeuppance.

That is the point! From the first chapter its clear we are dealing with someone who wouldn't know she'd recieved her comeuppance even if you explained it to her. She -in point of fact- was humilated by the end of the book, but she was far too self-involved and egotistical to see it as such. The books humor comes from the idea that Katya is completely devoid of introspection and empathy. This frees her from any guilt or shame she should have over her behavior. Katya is free to behave as badly and as meanly as she wants, which is great fun for this reader.

I love dark comedies where the good guys don't always win and the bad guys REVEL in their badness. If you like those kinds of stories, you will LOVE this book. If you are looking for redemption in a character the title refers to as "sociopathic", this book is not for you.

This may be one of the worst books I have read in years. I don't expect much from chick-lit -- it's a good way to pass an afternoon with no drain on the brain. This book was just insultingly stupid. Why the author (let alone the publisher) thought this drivel was worth killing trees is beyond me. If you want to read the boring diary of a self-centered egotistical whiner, this may be the book for you, everyone else take a pass!

This is one of my favorite books. It's hysterical. Katya Livingston is both the protagonist and the antagonist at once. If you like British humor you will especially enjoy it.

If you want to thrill vicariously to the wicked thoughts of a caricature shallow English career woman, this book has some good chuckles. Men are humiliated, women rivals are defeated, friends and family are exploited and cast aside, cute little animals are thoughtlessly murdered, and all business contacts are left to wallow in failure.

The trouble is the thing has no plot, none of the characters are remotely sympathetic or believable, and it's just too darned long. As a result, it's funny enough for the first few chapters, but there's a point where you realize it's just going to meander and repeat similar gags forever. Even if you like this sort of crass humor, you look to see how much longer you have to go and wonder if you should bother to finish it. Would have been great as a short story or novelette.

This is cheesy light reading and it doesn't try to pretend it's anything else. In my view that makes it even more likable. This is a comedic record of the life of a deeply flawed, fantasy-prone, sociopathic woman in the business world whose ambition and willingness to do anything, sell out any friend, rival or co-worker, flatter any boss or hatch any plot to get ahead is the darkly funny antidote to the increasingly silly misadventures of a certain diarist named Jones. Should I be ashamed to admit I read this because Kelly Ripa said it was her favorite book ever? Ha, I don't care, cause this little novel made me laugh!