Customer Reviews

The Girls in the Van: Covering Hillary

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I had a great time reading this book! Enjoyable from beginning to end! In fact, I read the whole thing pretty much straight through once I started. AP reporter Beth Harpaz conveys her experience of covering Hillary Clinton's campaign through a series of sometimes funny, sometimes touching and always interesting anecdotes about suriving life on the campaign trail with Hillary. She creates a uniformly interesting story without dipping into the typical "kiss and tell", dirty-laundry type fare we see too much of these days. At the same time, however, there are enough revealing bits about the various players in this campaign to satisfy the voyeur in all of us. Somehow, in reading this tale I became fascinated by the job of a political reporter and was intrigued with Harpaz's descriptions as to what constitutes news in a campaign and how that news is created and controlled. And of course, there were the many related stories about how the campaign itself desperately strove to create an image, appeal to constituencies and control the news themselves.

Harpaz also strikingly relays her personal struggles in balancing the demands of the all consuming campaign trail with her even more consuming job as mother of two young boys. And she openly discusses her conflicts about her choices as a professional and as a mother. We all know what that's about! Harpaz also has some interesting thoughts on the role that sexism may or may not have played in press coverage of the campaign and in Hillary's role as a candidate and First Lady.

But "Girls in the Van" is not really a heavy, ponderous book. It's actually alot of fun. I laughed out loud a number of times while reading this book, for instance when reading the lyrics of the naughty songs the reporters on the press van made up about Hillary or while reading Harpaz's account of how the press lost it at a campaign rally where the singing group "10,000 Maniacs" opened the program and Hillary followed by stating how great it was to be there with 10,000 maniacs.

In the end, I really didn't know how Harpaz felt about Hillary, but I also didn't care. I was simply taken with the story. Check this book out. It's a really good read. - (***)

As a New Yorker and a political junkie, I've been waiting for the inside scoop on what really went on during Hillary's campaign. Beth Harpaz has finally shed some light on one of America's most celebrated and enigmatic public figures -- and she's done so from a woman's distinct perspective.

Why do we love Hillary? Why do we hate her? Would we like her more if we knew her personally? less? Why does Hillary inspire such a range of emotions in New Yorkers and Americans? And how, after all she endured, was Hillary able to get such a plurality of New Yorkers to vote for her? Harpaz asks all the right questions, and has some inspiring and entertaining answers.

Not to mention the fact that the book is a highly enjoyable read - I couldn't put it down, and I breezed through it in one weekend.

I really would recommend this book to anyone interested in reading a witty, enjoyable insider's view of the Hillary campaign. This could have been a dry, boring political analysis, but the author really made every page seem fresh and interesting. Whatever your view of Hillary Clinton, your time won't be wasted reading about her run for senator.

I hope Ms. Harpaz writes more books, as her insightful style is very refreshing.

Beth Harpaz has written a wonderfully clever, beautifully written, and thoroughly entertaining behind-the-scenes look at one of the most high-profile New York campaigns in a long time.
She maintains a true reporter's neutrality, offering, for example, an intriguing perspective on how the press coverage shaped the public's view of Hillary. At the same time, she offers so much more than "just the facts, ma'am." Harpaz is willing to reveal how she struggled with the choices she made in covering the campaign and offers an often hilarious glimpse into the life of an AP reporter. What makes the book even more enjoyable are the poignant glimpses into Harpaz's own life as she struggles to balance the career demands of covering the campaign with raising a family. What a delight to read a political book that is breezy, funny, and all-together human!

From start to finish,I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Although I had followed Hillary Clinton's campaign trail via television bites and newspaper coverage, it is through Beth Harpaz's book that I learned about the missing links -- what it was really like behind-the-scenes and behind the headlines. The author's writing style is smooth and fast paced, yet she manages to fit in an incredible amount of detail, insight and delightful (and often humorous) trivia about this historically significant race for the votes. I also enjoyed Harpaz's honest accounts of her struggle to balance a rough reporter's working schedule with her equally challenging role of mother and wife. As I read each chapter, I felt like I was peeking into the press van's windows and seeing the truly human side of this type of adventure. Highly recommended.

For what it's worth, I found this to be a terrific read, and probably a good one to pick for a book group. Very funny and hard to put down, but with a lot of thought-provoking points, both about politics in the post-Clinton era and about the real life of a working mother (i.e. Beth Harpaz, an AP reporter.) Although Hillary fans will find the portrait of their heroine mostly positive, Harpaz raises many sharp points about manufactured news in our celebrity-mad age.

Beth Harpaz provides an inciteful view of the campaign trail. While reading the book we are provided with a view of how Hilary's campaign responded to the various crisises and questions raised by the Giuliani/Lazio campaigns. We are also delighted by Beth's struggles to balance our homelife with the 24/7 life of the campaign. We are enlightened about Hillary but the real winner is Beth and her two sons.

Ms. Harpaz has allowed us to view Hillary's Senate campaign from the perspective of the reporter covering her. This is not a book about Hillary or her views. This is a book is a first-person account of the trials and tribulations of covering her campaign. This is a book in which we learn first hand of the "joys" of juggling a family (with little kids) with the pressures of reporting on a grueling campaign. This book also gives us a glimpse of the differences in styles between Hillary's and Lazio's campaigns.

Reading the book is like what one would imagine it is like having a conversation with Ms. Harpaz - only one cannot interrupt her to ask her more questions. She's honest about when she did it right, when her fellow reporters did it right, and brutally honest about when she got it wrong. I have to say that her point of view, through all of this, provided me with a lot of insight and laughs about Ms. Harpaz, the other reporters, the campaign, Hillary, and the opponents that Hillary faced throughout the campaign.

I could not put the book down. It is one of the best books that I've read in a long time. A great way to romp through a weekend

I thought this was an insightful account of a day to day campaign. It is interesting to read about a woman journalist juggling both work and job. Many of us can relate to this.

I very much enjoyed her story-telling. I felt as if I were sitting and having coffee and listening to her tell her stories to me. "We" had a lot of good laughs together.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Beth Harpaz invites the readers to observe the goings on of the campaign. Unlike many TV pundits she does not take herself seriously but she clearly takes her job seriously. I was especially impressed by how she questions herself and her own news judgment. It is truly refreshing in an age of arrogant know it all journalism. I also liked the fact that Beth Harpaz does not seem to have a political agenda like so many other books about Mrs Clinton. She simply shares with the readers her witty and engaging observations. Mrs Clinton comes across as reserved but it is easy to understand why. Her every utterance, every gesture is fodder for headlines, sometimes exaggerated, misleading headlines. She had to develop a reserved persona as a protective shield.