Over several decades, the owners, editors, and reporters of a Rome-based English newspaper deal with one another, the quick-turnaround news cycle, family, life abroad, and the decline of print journalism in this comic novel.
The book's like an interconnected series of short stories - vignettes of life from the modern-day editor of the paper, the original founder, his descendants, the copy editors, a wanna-be stringer, and more. There's love, there's hate, it's funny and it's sad.
I really liked this book - it's a gossipy bit of behind the scenes in the world of journalism. I've been listening to the audiobook in the quilting studio, and it's been sort of like serial television: office rivalries and home life and a lot of the challenges of expatriates in Italy.
Showing posts with label reporters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reporters. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Lost At Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries by Jon Ronson
New age zealots, the Alaskan townspeople who write Santa's return letters, and a horrifyingly large number of people who go missing from cruise ships - these are just a few of the interesting people you'll learn about in this book of stand-alone essays by British reporter Jon Ronson.
Ronson is a freelance journalist who gets to pursue crazy stories and fantastical personalities. He made a bit of money when a previous book, The Men Who Stare At Goats, was made into a movie starring George Clooney, so in these tales he travels the world and hunts down bizarre and unbelievable characters. Most of this volume's articles were previously published in The Guardian.
Many of the stories are funny and heartbreaking at the same time. Several of the people he meets would incite anger - if they weren't ultimately such sad, pathetic souls at the core of it: he takes a cruise with celebrity psychic Sylvia Browne, he hangs out backstage with the Insane Clown Posse, he gets profiled by the consumer target marketing company Experian, and he meets a guy who split atoms in his kitchen.
It's a fun book, but Ronson avoids drawing any real conclusions - you're left to ponder your own thoughts on the matter, in the end.
Ronson is a freelance journalist who gets to pursue crazy stories and fantastical personalities. He made a bit of money when a previous book, The Men Who Stare At Goats, was made into a movie starring George Clooney, so in these tales he travels the world and hunts down bizarre and unbelievable characters. Most of this volume's articles were previously published in The Guardian.
Many of the stories are funny and heartbreaking at the same time. Several of the people he meets would incite anger - if they weren't ultimately such sad, pathetic souls at the core of it: he takes a cruise with celebrity psychic Sylvia Browne, he hangs out backstage with the Insane Clown Posse, he gets profiled by the consumer target marketing company Experian, and he meets a guy who split atoms in his kitchen.
It's a fun book, but Ronson avoids drawing any real conclusions - you're left to ponder your own thoughts on the matter, in the end.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Brain on fire
by Susannah Cahalan
Cahalan writes an autobiographical account of her experience with an auto-immune disease that nearly caused her to spend a lifetime under constant psychiatric supervision. At times the story is a eerie look into the vastly unknown world of neuroscience. Cahalan recounts her weeks of catatonia and psychosis through family diaries and hospital videos. Much of that time is completely lost to her own memory. The discovery of her disease, and subsequent writings by her doctors and herself have allowed many more people to be diagnosed than ever before. She admits that, most likely, she would not have gotten this diagnosis of salvation had the disease struck her just a few years earlier.
Cahalan was lucky to have a background in journalism before she was struck by her illness. This allowed her a foothold into the dedication needed to research her own lost days. Provocatively written, this saga will capture your heart as you champion Susannah towards health.
The audio version is hauntingly read by Heather Henderson.
Cahalan writes an autobiographical account of her experience with an auto-immune disease that nearly caused her to spend a lifetime under constant psychiatric supervision. At times the story is a eerie look into the vastly unknown world of neuroscience. Cahalan recounts her weeks of catatonia and psychosis through family diaries and hospital videos. Much of that time is completely lost to her own memory. The discovery of her disease, and subsequent writings by her doctors and herself have allowed many more people to be diagnosed than ever before. She admits that, most likely, she would not have gotten this diagnosis of salvation had the disease struck her just a few years earlier.
Cahalan was lucky to have a background in journalism before she was struck by her illness. This allowed her a foothold into the dedication needed to research her own lost days. Provocatively written, this saga will capture your heart as you champion Susannah towards health.
The audio version is hauntingly read by Heather Henderson.
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