Posted on 03/15/2006 12:37:21 PM PST by abb
NEW YORK The long-awaited memoir by Howell Raines, the former New York Times executive editor, will be published on May 9, according to an e-mail to E&P today by its publisher, Scribner's.
It is called "The One That Got Away," which may be taken as a reference to Raines exiting the Times after the Jayson Blair scandal, but which actually (or also) concerns fishing. The cover, in fact, shows Raines in the water holding a whopper. His previous memoir was "Fly Fishing Through the Midlife Crisis."
Scribner's said review copies would be arriving in early April. It describes the book's content this way: "fishing, change, renewal, and life upstream after the New York Times."
An early review in Booklist gave it a thumb's up, saying in part:
"Skillfully drawing parallels between the deceptions practiced by fishermen, journalists, and politicians, Raines describes his love of the unpredictability of fishing and of life. ... Memories of Captain Beddingood, owner of a fish camp, segue into a painful account of how management at the Times was lulled into believing in the capabilities of Blair, later spectacularly disclosed as a plagiarist.
"Though Raines' tenure as executive editor started after Blair began his reporting career with the paper, Raines was toppled in the housecleaning that followed Blair's firing and left to examine his own shortcomings. Long before his ouster, Raines had been coming to grips with his disappointment with his beloved Times, a paper some of the staff thought was not as good as it could be, hidebound by tradition and by defenders who took refuge in the truism that it's hard to turn a battleship.
"With extraordinary grace, Raines explores some missteps that have haunted him so long 'as to become icons of instruction about the importance of avoiding avoidable mistakes.' Although he directly addresses 'brothers and sisters of the angle,' Raines' writing is poetry to all of us." E&P Staff
It should be a classic fishing story, and Raines can give expert advice on fishwrap.
He went away mad; here's hoping he drops a dime on them.
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The fish metaphor applies so aptly here that it is hard to believe that a dunce like Raines came up with it.
"Holding a whopper"??? Why not? His newspaper has become famous for publishing whoppers!
"The one that got away"??? You mean, like the formerly respectable empire that WAS the New York Times? Or do you mean The Truth?
Fish and the New York Times are both reputed to be good for the mind, but both are slimy, smelly, and stupid.
Finally, the New York Times is the perfect companion for wrapping fish guts once you've finally caught one of the slippery buggers.
I think I'm gonna go fishing this afternoon....
Long-awaited huh! Not by anyone on Freerepublic I bet.
Another thousand-copy mega-blockbuster for Scribner's.
Long-awaited by whom? Nobody I know...
This on a day when NYT's stock hits another 5-year low.
I'm sorry, is there some reason I should care?
It will go straight to the dollar bin along with Mary Mapes' book!
The One that Got Away : A Memoir (Hardcover)
by Howell Raines
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #271,923 in Books
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Don't hold back, Jack. Tell us how you really feel...
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