An illuminating TV show biography that will appeal most to fans, but no need to read it all at once.
Insider accounts of 60 Minutes, published in conjunction with the program’s 50th anniversary (and counting), a milestone that makes it the longest airing show in the history of TV.
A mixture of professional and personal gossip, as well as accounts of controversial episodes aired during the hour each Sunday evening (as well as other time slots during the early years), the book is mostly chronological, with one major exception. 60 Minutes executive producer and former CBS news chairman Fager begins with the third decade (1988-1998) because he believes that demonstrating the saga of the program after it reached maturity is the most effective way to help readers understand both the internal dynamics and the external impacts. Following the first section, the author travels back to the first decade and then settles into chronology with decades two, four, and five. Always at the center of the saga is founder Don Hewitt (1922-2009), portrayed as a benevolent newsroom dictator who mercilessly drove the show’s producers and on-air correspondents. Almost every correspondent receives attention from Fager, who tells of journalistic and personal blemishes as well as successes. Mike Wallace is clearly the most dominant of the talent portrayed here, followed by Morley Safer, Harry Reasoner, Ed Bradley, Lesley Stahl, Steve Kroft, and Scott Pelley. To his credit, the author also offers detailed insights into many of the program’s producers, who are rarely seen by viewers but generate most of the story ideas and conduct most of the reporting. Fager provides an up-to-date account, noting the rise of Donald Trump and the eight pre-presidential Trump episodes on 60 Minutes, including one about how he drove up rents to perhaps illegally evict tenants in his residential buildings. The author covers so many stories—about domestic politics, corporate wrongdoing, global wars, celebrity high jinks, adoring profiles, among dozens of others—that the book is best consumed a few pages per sitting.
An illuminating TV show biography that will appeal most to fans, but no need to read it all at once.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5011-3580-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered...
The incredible true story of three Jewish women who survived the Holocaust.
Priska, Rachel, and Anka were married Jewish women in their early 20s when the Nazis took control of Europe. Like millions of other Jews, they were forced to give up their normal lives, all of their belongings, and their homes. Shuttled into ghettos and then off to one of the most notorious camps, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, they suffered through the Nazis’ increasing atrocities. But these three women all held a secret: they were pregnant. They were moved from Auschwitz and ended up in Mauthausen, another notorious death camp. With facing the most horrible conditions imaginable, all three gave birth right before the Allies accepted Germany’s surrender. In this meticulously detailed account, Holden (Haatchi & Little B: The Inspiring True Story of One Boy and His Dog, 2014, etc.) compiles an enormous amount of information from interviews, letters, historical records, and personal visits to the sites where this story unfolded. The graphic history places readers in the moment and provides a sense of the enduring power of love that Priska, Rachel, and Anka had for their unborn children and for the husbands they so desperately hoped to see after the war. Even though it occurred more than 70 years ago, the story’s truth is so chillingly portrayed that it seems as if it could have happened recently. These three women and their infants survived in the face of death, and, Holden writes, “their babies went on to have babies of their own and create a second and then a third generation, all of whom continue to live their lives in defiance of Hitler’s plan to erase them from history and from memory.”
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered through at the hands of the Nazis.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-237025-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2015
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.
Four decades after Watergate shook America, journalist Woodward (The Price of Politics, 2012, etc.) returns to the scandal to profile Alexander Butterfield, the Richard Nixon aide who revealed the existence of the Oval Office tapes and effectively toppled the presidency.
Of all the candidates to work in the White House, Butterfield was a bizarre choice. He was an Air Force colonel and wanted to serve in Vietnam. By happenstance, his colleague H.R. Haldeman helped Butterfield land a job in the Nixon administration. For three years, Butterfield worked closely with the president, taking on high-level tasks and even supervising the installation of Nixon’s infamous recording system. The writing here is pure Woodward: a visual, dialogue-heavy, blow-by-blow account of Butterfield’s tenure. The author uses his long interviews with Butterfield to re-create detailed scenes, which reveal the petty power plays of America’s most powerful men. Yet the book is a surprisingly funny read. Butterfield is passive, sensitive, and dutiful, the very opposite of Nixon, who lets loose a constant stream of curses, insults, and nonsensical bluster. Years later, Butterfield seems conflicted about his role in such an eccentric presidency. “I’m not trying to be a Boy Scout and tell you I did it because it was the right thing to do,” Butterfield concedes. It is curious to see Woodward revisit an affair that now feels distantly historical, but the author does his best to make the story feel urgent and suspenseful. When Butterfield admitted to the Senate Select Committee that he knew about the listening devices, he felt its significance. “It seemed to Butterfield there was absolute silence and no one moved,” writes Woodward. “They were still and quiet as if they were witnessing a hinge of history slowly swinging open….It was as if a bare 10,000 volt cable was running through the room, and suddenly everyone touched it at once.”
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1644-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2015
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