All Things at Once [Hardcover]

Mika Brzezinski (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 2010

As the co-host of MSNBC’s popular morning show Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski has established herself a leading political news journalist and beloved television personality. She daily interviews world leaders—Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain—and discusses the major events of the day with  guests like Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Andrea Mitchell, Chris Matthews, Maureen Dowd, and Tom Friedman.

But success hasn’t always come easy for Mika. Growing up the only daughter of a former National Security Advisor, she struggled to find an identity in a family of over-achievers. She found her dream job early on and was hailed as the “It Girl” of CBS, only to be fired just a few short years later. After an unsuccessful stint as a stay-at-home mom, Mika went back to the workplace with encouragement from her 8-year-old daughter. She took a job that seemed a long-shot at best, and against all odds achieved the greatest success of her career. Now, in a time when many women are losing their jobs or struggling to find the perfect balance between work and home, Mika guides women of all ages to a place where they can find peace and fulfillment in their lives.

All Things at Once is a motivational book aimed at women, based on Mika’s own personal and professional triumphs and failures—all of which have led her to her current position as one of television’s most outspoken and respected journalists. Blending the personal with the prescriptive, Brzezinski’s book will address the perpetual question of “having it all” when it comes to work and family; the importance of remaining equally humble in the face of great success and seemingly devastating setbacks; as well as the necessity of knowing and embracing our limitations so that we may transcend them.

In the tradition of Gail Sheehy’s classic Passages, this illuminating book shows women how to reach their full potential in all areas of life, and at every stage of their journey. Readers will recognize their friends, their mothers, their daughters, and themselves in this refreshingly honest memoir.

 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her second year as cohost of MSNBC's Morning Joe, TV news veteran Brzezinski is on fire, after enduring her share of professional setbacks and personal hardships. In this straightforward, frank account of her career trajectory, Brzezinski, the daughter of President Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, does not bother to disguise her hard-fought ambition to secure a top news anchor position or hide the fact that she is not satisfied (nor very good at) being a stay-at-home mom of two daughters. From the beginning of her TV career, working her way up at local affiliates in Hartford, to her big break, getting hired in 1997 for an overnight CBS network anchor program in New York, Up to the Minute, the author resolved to make the frantic pace work, despite the increasing toll the late hours and absences from her family were taking. Distracted, pressured to return too early to work after the birth of her second child and exhausted, she took a bad fall down the stairs of her Yonkers home while holding her infant. The trauma scared her into slowing down, but not for long. Opportunity has seasoned Brzezinski but not hardened her, and having found her venue and voice with Morning Joe, she shares a refreshingly pragmatic approach for the professional woman: don't wait to have children and don't let your job treat you like a bad boyfriend. (Jan.)
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From Booklist

“Having It All,” the title of the modern Superwoman’s to-do list, implies a sequential mastery of the tasks at hand. Career? Check. Husband? Check. Kids? Check. Yet instead of accomplishing her life’s goals one at a time, Brzezinski managed to juggle them more or less simultaneously. Occasionally, however, something came crashing down, and it was one such literal fall—down a flight of stairs with her four-month-old daughter in her arms—that caused the bright young star of broadcast journalism to rethink her priorities. From her days as a cub reporter in a small New England TV station to high-profile anchor responsibilities with CBS and MSNBC, Brzezinski’s career frequently fell prey to network politics, causing her ability to simultaneously function as a committed wife and mother to suffer as a result. Filled with as much self-deprecating candor as self-congratulatory bromides, Brzezinski and coauthor Paisner nonetheless offer a realistically detailed portrait of the pitfalls to be avoided on one’s professional and personal paths to success. --Carol Haggas

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Weinstein Books (January 5, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1602861110
• ISBN-13: 978-1602861114
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #409,187 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mika Brzezinski is the co-host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," a show Time Magazine calls "revolutionary" and the New York Times ranked as the top news show of 2008. In January of 2009 Mika launched and became the Co-host of Citadel Media's syndicated radio show "The Joe Scarborough Show".

Prior to joining MSNBC in January 2007, Brzezinski was an anchor of the "CBS Evening News Weekend Edition" and a CBS News correspondent who frequently contributed to "CBS Sunday Morning" and "60 Minutes." Brzezinski joined CBS News in 1997 as the anchor of "CBS News Up To The Minute," but took a short hiatus in 2000 to co-host MSNBC's weekday afternoon program "Homepage." In September 2001, she returned to CBS to become their principal "Ground Zero" reporter for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Brzezinski began her journalism career in 1991 in Hartford, Connecticut, as a general assignment reporter at WTIC. A year later she joined WFSB, also in Hartford, and quickly became the weekday morning anchor.

A native of New York City, Brzezinski is the daughter of Foreign Policy Expert and Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. She attended Williams College and received a degree in English. Brzezinski lives in Manhattan with her husband and two daughters.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

104 of 134 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't forget to have children! And employ a slew of hired help!, January 23, 2010

By 

reader 2227 "coniferite" (ct.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All Things at Once (Hardcover)

Mika Brzezinski has promoted this book, by saying that she has advice that she wants to give, to younger women in the workplace. One piece of advice, that Mika likes to trumpet, is: "Don't forget to have children!"

Mika writes on pg. 4, "One of the first things I talk about, when I speak with young women about jump-starting their career - even if they don't ask is, 'Don't forget to have children...'" Ms. Brzezinski's publisher's blurb blares, "She shares a refreshingly pragmatic approach for the professional woman: don't wait to have children..."

However, when Ms. Brzezinski gets pregnant in her 20's, as Mika promotes and expounds in her book, Ms. Brzezinski is also privileged enough, to be able to hire a slew of nannies and back-up, beginning when her children are babies. Mika speaks of her supportive husband, and she is able to employ a squadron of babysitters and housekeepers, but nonetheless, Mika can't seem to manage, and although Mika has a staff of childcare aides, Mika bemoans continually about how depleted she is.
It turns out, that taking care of children can be quite exhausting. Who knew that children had so many needs?
Another reminder: It is really essential to have a plenitude of hired hands to take care of your children! Don't forget the fleet, of domestic help!

Even with assistance and support, Mika, distracted, falls down her stairs while holding her second daughter. There is panic in the emergency room thinking the baby might even be paralyzed. Luckily, that was not the case, and the fracture to the little girl's femur bone, is repaired. Still, this prompts Mika and her husband, to hire even more household help and caretakers, to make sure of always "having the kids 'staffed.'" (pg.112)

Ms. Brzezinski is able to employ an array of surrogate help (can't everyone do that) to handle all the 'things' in her life. "We set it up so the house could run efficiently in my absence - and even in my presence." (pg. 114) Even so, Mika laments repeatedly, about how drained and fatigued she is. Given that Ms. Brzezinski is dependent upon a plethora, of round-the-clock childcare and custodial stand-ins, it would seem that Mika's advice would be to think carefully and arduously, before taking on the demands of having a baby, or having another one; not to rush into it or take on the responsibility before one is ready. Mika's 'advice on motherhood' also seems a bit insulting, to all the working moms, working dads, stay-at-home moms and dads, and all those who raise children without a fraction of the help that Mika is fortunate enough to have.

Mika Brzezinski is on a morning show with a co-host, whose intelligence, even her own father calls, "stunningly superficial." If Mika's father feels this way about their program, others can't be blamed for thinking the exact, same thing.

It is deflating and demoralizing, that these "stunningly spurious," self-righteous, duplicitous, disingenuous, pompous co-blabberators, ended up bungling their way to having all this 'news' air time, when there is no doubt that Mika's and Joe Scarborough's main concerns, have always been their own artificial, egotistical, hypocritical, confusing, caterwauling histrionics.
Not surprisingly, Mika sounds the same way in her book.

Speaking of advice, whether you've remembered to have children or not, do yourself a favor, save your money, and instead of buying this book, spend it on a babysitter.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Cautionary Tale--How Not to Have It All, November 23, 2010

By 

min-bee (Nyack, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All Things at Once (Hardcover)

I read this book and thought Mika was wise to make marriage and childbearing a priority. But then it became the usual drivel. Mika may have borne two children, but she's been too busy with her ego and her career to rear them. She appears to have adjusted totally to this sad situation, as revealed by the family Christmas cards--one shows her daughter with a broken femur in a hospital bed, with a balloon caption claiming this is what happens when baby is naughty. Actually, it was Mom who was naughty--she didn't get enough sleep and tumbled down the stairs, managing to fall on her daughter twice. Then there's the one showing her husband, two daughters, and a stand-in woman, which asks the recipient to say hello to Mommy if you see her. The final example shows Mika, hubby, daughters, and a baby (not their own). Some people thought she'd had a third child, not realizing it was a "joke" card. Let's hope her daughters, when they grow up, have a good laugh on the way to their shrinks. This book provides a graphic illustration of how to have "All Things at Once" without really having the substance of any of them. How sad.

29 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Delusional, March 1, 2010

By 

Lisa Janda (Bucks County, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All Things at Once (Hardcover)

I got this from the library and finished it in less than three hours. Wow. Driven by what seems to be an obsessive need to be in the spotlight, Brzezinski neglects her children for a life that keeps her--rather than them--the center of attention. She freely admits that she finds true parenting to be a chore and would much rather be a "fun" parent. Being a parent means accepting that some days are nothing but temper fits and tears, whilst others are hugs and fun, and most are in the middle, with a little of both to keep things interesting. Brzezinski believes the proper way to raise her children is to take out loans and foist her daughters upon nannies and sitters so she herself has as little interaction with them as possible. At first I found this incredible; however, by the end of the book, it became quite clear that those kids may well be better off with people who actually want to be around them. If her horrific recounting of what happened when she believed her daughter to be paralyzed couldn't make her see the forest for the trees, well, perhaps it's best she sticks to her book tours and morning show and leaves her children in much more capable hands.