Just another kid in the newsroom

Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom by Carl Bernstein
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Chasing History with Carl Bernstein is a remarkable journey back to the early 60s--the election and assassination of JFK, the civil rights movement and the optimistic beginnings of the Vietnam War -- a time when newspapers were the trusted tellers of the tale. Long before Bernstein and his Washington Post co-worker Bob Woodward became famous for exposing the Watergate scandal, Carl was a cheeky teenage copy boy at the Washington Star, with phenomenal powers of observation, a note-taking obsession, and determination to be one of the last of the era to rise from copy boy to page one bylines without the benefit of a college degree.
I have to admit I am biased toward this story. Carl is just four years older than me and much of the business he describes is the world I remember in my early newspaper career. Smelly jars of rubber cement to slather on torn chunks of cheap copy paper when making additions or insertions in pre-computer editing. Linotype machines stamping out pieces of lead type, teletype machines chattering in the corner and dinging with news alerts. And a caring family of devoted reporters and editors working all hours for the stories, most of them idealistic to a fault.
Bernstein's talent as a storyteller is unmatched. His telling of the assassination of JFK from the point of view of the reporters covering events swept me up so I could imagine being there instead of hearing the report in my high school choir class. He had me crying as if I were hearing about the tragedy for the first time.
Bernstein grew up in DC so he describes the city more as a hometown of friends and relatives instead of a bureaucratic, impersonal political capital. His perspective adds a dimension of soul to every event.
The main part of the book covers the years from 1960-1966 when Bernstein was working at the Washington Star while going to high school and college. It closes as he sells his car and heads off to a new job in New Jersey. In the postscript he tells about working in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, for a couple years before returning to D.C. to join the staff of Washington Post. He also updates the reader on the careers of several Washington Star co-workers who form the family of characters during his six years at The Star. The postscript gets a little tedious but it does answer a lot of potential I-wonder-what-happened-to questions.

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The mystery of the road not taken

 

The Other Me by Sarah Zachrich Jeng
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I like a book with messages and this one delivers many. Everyone has wondered about the road not taken, what would life be like if you had married so-and-so or selected a different college, so the basic premise of Chicago artist Kelly who suddenly finds herself in a different life as small town Michigan wife with a wanna-be graphic design career, spotlights a lot of the what ifs. A man from her past who she could have loved. A better relationship with her parents. But it also gets into real life questions of how we manipulate each other. How mothers may steer daughters toward husbands and homes instead of careers, how men use dinner and gifts to bribe affection and then rely on that affection to build their own self-worth. Is it fair to change someone else's life to improve your own? Do we actually know what is best for someone else? And as Kelly says she learned in art school: a failure isn't the end it is the beginning, a lesson, the start of something new.
Technically this book is science fiction because it deals with time travel. I am not usually into science fiction but this one plays out more like a mystery because Kelly is trying to solve the mystery of how she has suddenly been pulled out of one life and into another. But as a mystery thriller fan I expect a lot of action. For me the first 90 percent of this book plods along, as Kelly goes along with her new life not making waves in case someone will say she is crazy, slowly unraveling rumors of some new AI ap at the local tech company, Gnii; overheard phone conversations, a mysterious thumb drive.
The climax is plenty exciting and fast-paced. When you think about it, however, a story about time travel is guaranteed to be happily ever after because if you don't like the ending you just go back in time to fix it.

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