Customer Reviews

Late Edition: A Love Story

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

 

 

Late Edition is a nostalgic, fascinating, inside, and definitely sweet peek of a young reporter's foray into the newspaper industry. It left me with a clear understand of the magic it was to work for a newspaper but it also left me deeply pondering. If the death toll continues to rise among newspapers, what does this mean for our communities that relied on newspapers for not only current events, local coverage but also for bonding us together? Can YOU imagine your local newspaper fading away? I can't.

I don't know whether to like Bob Greene or not. Unquestionably he is a great observer of human nature. If you read any of his books it is easy to become intrigued by the sensitivity and the depth he uncovers within the people he meets.

On the other hand, he tends to occasionally drag me to boredom when he seems to just be filling pages. Late Edition is his latest example.

You will find this tale to be a revealing story of his memories as a young student while working at the Columbus Citizen. He intersperses information about the newspaper business in general along the way. Unfortunately, much of it is presented as unnecessary and laborious. On the other hand, his remembrances of the people he met and the events in which he was involved is interesting and enchanting (how many people get chastised by Woody Hayes for the way they answer the phone?!). Even his description of the sports department and the area where he worked is creative and well-explained. On the other hand, all too often he leaves his life and seems to be responding to an editor's plea to add more copy.

Greene became a favorite internationally by writing fascinating tales about people and their strange and unusual situations. He is at his best when examining people. He should stay true to his strengths.

Bob Greene's writing has always kept me interested but this book had me doubly involved because it takes place in my home town of Columbus, Ohio. Bob writes about his first job at the then morning newspaper, "The Columbus Citizen-Journal" and how he found himself back there each summer in a position of more and more authority.

The subtext of the book is about how we are losing a treasure: our local newspapers. As people (including myself)find other sources of news, our newspapers are dying off.

It's a great read and an easy read. I wholeheartedly recommend "Late Edition: A Love Story" by Bob Greene

Picture this. You walk into a room. The round dining table is set for ten. Delicious smells waft in from the adjoining kitchen. You are invisible. Suddenly, the family files into the room and sits down after placing platters of food on the table. They begin to converse. You are there; but you're not. Bob Greene draws you right up to the table in Late Edition; as he does in many of his other books. You are there. Living the life of a teen on the verge of beginning his adult life and career. This is really special. Read his books ! :-)

Way back when God was a little girl, my undergraduate major

at Rider University was journalism . . . I wanted to someday be

a sports columnist and so when I heard that Bob Greene wrote

about his days as a young journalist in LATE EDITION: A LOVE

STORY, I knew that was a book that I just had to read.

Was it ever a trip down memory lane!

Greene, long one of my favorite authors (WHEN WE GET TO SURF

CITY, ONCE UPON A TOWN, etc.), worked as a copyboy and in

other apprentice positions for the COLLUMBUS CITIZEN-JOURNAL

and the COLUMBLUS DISPATCH, two rival newspapers in Ohio's

capital city, just a few years before I began college . . . he recalls

those days with affection as he writes:

* In some American cities,famous journalists at mighty and

world-renowned papers changed the course of history with their

reporting. . . . [that didn't matter to Greene; his joy was

in the fact that each morning . . . ] I get to go down to the paper again.

Or when he comments that:

* I found myself not wanting days off, even though I had to take

them. Nothing that could happen on a day away from work could

match the delights of the sports desk.

I also liked his account of lessons he learned while a young

reporter, particularly this one about his coverage of a tennis match:

* I suppose if you want to be resolute about it, there were two lessons

to be taken from having written the story. One: When you write

something about someone, you should anticipate the moment when you

will have to look that person in the eye. Two: If you were correct in

what you wrote, you won't have to worry when the person's eyes

meet yours.

Toward the end of LATE EDITION, Greene tells about

his visit to the pressroom of one of the papers that he had

worked at (that was in the process of closing) . . . it touched

me and got me recalling how much I missed not having

two newspapers delivered to my doorstep every single day.

This was a great book that traces the true story of an internationally known reporter Bob Greene during his teenage years as a copyboy with the Columbus Citizen Journal and his current days as a CNN correspondent. It makes you chuckle but it is also a bittersweet story of how times have changed. We all had a love for our morning paper. It was created through blood, sweat and tears and now we have the impersonal computer. I cannot wait to read another book by Bob Greene.

For anyone who has been involved with newspapers and their production, whether it be a major city or small local paper, this book is a joy to read. Brings back some great memories of the way it once was. Typewriters and Linotype machines -- what could be better than that? I truly enjoy Bob Greene's style of writing.

What an incredible book! Mr. Greene has done a fantastic job of sharing his memories of working at an old school newspaper. From his starting at the Columbus, Ohio Citizen-Journal during its pinnacle days to being there at its final edition, the reader is treated to a total insider's look at the workings of journalism when the lead was hot as the type was set!

This missive is much more than journalism however. Mr. Greene's recollections of downtown city life in the '60s when there were vibrant downtowns, paints vivid pictures of those simpler days. I grew up in the same town that this book is set and it evoked vivid memories of so many of the situations he recalls.

I highly recommend this book as a detailed time capsule of life when newspapers were an important, intrinsic part of EVERY person's life. I look forward to re-reading it again shortly.

There have been inestimable love stories written about men and women... there have been fathomless love stories concerning date and time... but you'd be hard pressed to find such a poetic... romantic... infatuation... between a young man and a crumbling industrial industry such as the newspaper business. The author Bob Greene's reminisces regarding his youthful... loving abandon... to the written word... that was captured by individuals that the author places on mighty pedestals... with the exalted title of *REPORTER*... is akin to watching Romeo and Juliet perform with their clothes smudged with printers ink. As the reader progresses into the story it's as if you're being dragged in by the velvety glove of an otherwise ink stained type setter in a 1960's middle-America Newspaper office.

It all starts when an eleventh-grade Columbus, Ohio student named Bob Greene who always dreamed of being a writer is in English Class and President John F. Kennedy is assassinated. The future author sat down and began to type: "THE CLASS SITS IN STUNNED SILENCE... NOT QUITE ABLE TO REALIZE THE FULL IMPACT OF THE SITUATION. A GIRL IS QUIETLY WEEPING AT HER SEAT...".

After class... on his own he went downtown to an old building at 34 South Third Street... the home of the "COLUMBUS CITIZEN-JOURNAL" and the "COLUMBUS DISPATCH"... the place where the daily newspapers for his hometown were created each day. The author painstakingly recreates the bliss of daily life... that wouldn't be a complete day... without a family's daily newspaper. You couldn't start the day without the morning paper... and you couldn't finish the day without the evening paper. And inside this utopia is where young Bob's goals and aspirations dwelled. As he warmly recreates his begging for a chance... a job... an internship... hell... even just to be a "go-fer"... if that's what it took to get him inside this mystical newspaper business... that some might call a job... but to him it was his dream of dreams. He brought in his five-hundred-typed-words that described his view of the immediate effect of JFK's assassination in his Ohio classroom to the Citizen Journal. Being in that building was like what a trip to Disneyland for any other teenager would be. But Instead of magic carpet rides and Peter Pan... he saw reporters... copy editors... and typesetters. As the author cracked open the door to squeeze inside in an attempt to get a foothold towards his future... unbeknownst to him and the entire industry... the newspaper industry as we knew it... was already on a rapidly increasing downward spiral.

There were hints and clues all around him... but in the midst of his passionate fascination with the written and reported word... he and the world were blind.

"MY FATHER WOULD PUT DOWN THE "DISPATCH" EACH NIGHT A MINUTE BEFORE WALTER CRONKITE-BEFORE *THE NEWS* ARRIVED IN OUR HOME. HAD I BEEN SMARTER-HAD I BEEN PAYING PROPER ATTENTION-I MIGHT HAVE SENSED WHAT THIS SIGNIFIED."

As the years passed computers replaced typesetters and proofers. On-line newspapers and bloggers were updated around the world with the clicking of a key... the morning paper "news-flashes" were already old news due to the web. Who would pay for a newspaper when it was free in your home without putting on your slippers to go outside. If you were in Tokyo and wanted a copy of the New York Times you didn't have to wait days for the mail... you simply clicked a key. In 1985 the "CITIZEN-JOURNAL" was no more.

The author introduces his narrative from his current position in the inner-sanctum of an electronic-computerized-satellite-communication CNN Election Express bus... where each character he types shoots off into outer space and around the world in a micro-second... but each chapter of his story is dripping with his tears... from the oh-so-long-ago memories of a love that is no more.

In "Late Edition," Bob Greene gives us yet another heartfelt journey through a world which, unfortunately, seems to be slowly winking out. Greene's keen eye and his honest emotion make this book both a triumph and a somewhat bittersweet tale. In the future, there will hopefully still be at least a few writers like Bob Greene and someone at a City Desk such as Sam Perdue who will say: "Nothing to write? There are PEOPLE out there!"

Thank you, Bob Greene, for once again sharing your passion with us. I would recommend this book to anyone with a passion. Actually, I'd recommend it to anyone with a pulse.