A Good Life

Newspapering and Other Adventures

By: Ben Bradlee, George Newbern - introduction, Sally Quinn

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

The classic New York Times bestselling memoir by legendary Executive Editor of The Washington Post Ben Bradlee—with a new foreword by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and an afterword by Sally Quinn.

The most important, glamorous, and famous newspaperman of modern times traces his path from Harvard to the battles of the South Pacific to the pinnacle of success at The Washington Post. After Bradlee took the helm in 1965, he and his reporters transformed the Post into one of the most influential and respected news publications in the world, reinvented modern investigative journalism, won eighteen Pulitzer Prizes, and redefined the way news is reported, published, and read.

His leadership and investigative drive during the Watergate scandal led to the downfall of a president, and his challenge to the government over the right to publish the Pentagon Papers changed the course of American history.

Bradlee’s timeless memoir is a fascinating, irreverent, earthy, and revealing look at America and American journalism in the twentieth century—a “sassy, sometimes eye-poppingly, engrossing autobiography...must reading” (The New York Times Book Review).

A Good Life

Excellent, I will read it again soon i may have missed something! Very good read.

Very interesting and enjoyable

I found Bradlee's book highly enjoyable and very informative. There are many many lines of information that I had not previously known, or been aware of, which led me to do more digging on my own.

For anyone interested in Washington D.C and the goings-on therein, I would recommend this book.

Bawdy journalism at its' best

Any additional comments?

Anybody who has ever had contact with a newroom/newsperson would enjoy this. Narrator Morey captures Ben's adventure and mischief perfectly. If Bradley's autobiography at times seems too heavy on long-forgotten names or bystanders, it's small price to pay for the doggone spirit of his life. (Tina Brown's Vanity Fair diaries also suffers from a number of who-the-hell-was-that nonentities a savvy editor should have struck out.) Bob Woodward's foreword sets Bradley's life in context, especially in the current age of journalist bravery.
Every Congressman should encounter this book, perhaps to grow a spine.