Quality writing but too much war reporting. | The Mammoth Book of Journalism: 101 Masterpieces from the...

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	• The Mammoth Book of Journalism: 101 Masterpieces from the Finest Writers and Reporters, Including Ernest ... Running Press, 2003 - 544 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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An overflowing, but narrow, treasure trove.

This hefty paperback tome is an excellent addition to any library for the wealth of Anglo-American classics contained within. Here we get the great modern war stories along with cultural classics like the infamous article where John Lennon is quoted as saying the Beatles are more famous than Jesus. Many journalism collections are just dreary and dusty old collections, but the selection here is mostly enjoyable and sometimes truly great. I'd recommend this book to fellow journalists and to history buffs alike. The main trouble with the collection is its narrow casting - it is Anglo-American to the core. For this collection to be truly great - and truly a compendium of journalism - it'd need some great African voices like the column South African activist Steve Biko wrote under the byline "Frank Talk" that broke that county's censorship rules to tell the truth about apartheid. There must be other examples from around the world, but this collection is mostly an Atlantic cup of tea.

But a remarkably flavorful cup of tea at that.

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Quality writing but too much war reporting.

This book has an incredible cast of writers: Hemingway, Dickens, Orwell, Churchill etc. However, if you are not a big fan of war reportage, you may want to look elsewhere. The majority of these articles are war related and although they are very well written, war is not a topic I find very interesting. Still, there a number of fascinating pieces of journalism, like the one about the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, and Dickens piece on a guillotine execution in a town square. It's worth a read but I would have liked to see more of a variety in topics.

While it's said that journalism is the first draft of history, The Mammoth Book of Journalism demonstrates that sometimes the reporters have outdone the historians in analyzing great events and bringing them to life. Veteran editor and former journalist Jon E. Lewis has chosen the best articles, editorials, reviews, commentary, interviews, and reportage for this unique anthology, which spans from Charles Dickens on "Execution by Guillotine" and Mark Twain on "Americans Abroad" to contemporary reporting of the first McDonald's in Moscow and the funeral of Princess Diana. Covering such diverse topics as war, politics, sports, disasters, crime, fashion, humor, civil rights, and culture, this unique encyclopedic collection features such award-winning and event-making writers as H. L. Mencken, Martha Gellhorn, Studs Terkel, William Shirer, Harrison Salisbury, Tom Wolfe, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, John Hersey, and many more. Whether with the humor of P. J. O'Rourke, the film criticism of Pauline Kael, the observations of Bill Byrson, the book reviews of Dorothy Parker, or the political analysis of I. F. Stone, The Mammoth Book of Journalism will delight and inform not only the student of the modern newspaper but also lovers of history-in-the-making.

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