Airhead by Emily Maitlis review – up close with Trump and the Dalai Lama

The chief presenter of BBC Newsnight vividly chronicles the pains and perils of news televisionEmily Maitlis’s book isn’t an autobiography. By the end we are none the wiser about what she was like as a child, her personal relationships or the pivotal moments that led to her becoming arguably the BBC’s sharpest interviewer and lead presenter of Newsnight. While she does devote a chapter to her experience of being stalked, Airhead is mostly a compendium of her biggest interviews with politicians, celebrities, thinkers and, in one case, an actual living god. In showing us what happens in front of the camera as well as the chaos behind it, her aim is less to tell her life story than reveal the blood, sweat and tears that go into planning and delivering the news. “Unlike print there is no room for annotation or commentary as you go along,” she writes in the introduction. “What appears on the screen is what people see. Everything else is just interpretation.”And so we accompany Maitlis as she is dispatched to Paris to cover the Bataclan terrorist attack; to Hong Kong to report on the umbrella democracy protests, and to Boone County, Iowa, for a Democratic caucus in a snow-smothered farmhouse. There are one-to-ones with Donald Trump, Tony Blair, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, the former civil rights activist Rachel Dolezal, Emma Thompson, James Comey and more, and here the presenter is able to share the build-up and comedown around each exchange. Some accounts work better than... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2019-04-18 00:00:00 UTC ]

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Bill Clinton is writing a political thriller with best-selling novelist James Patterson

Former President Barack Obama might be getting all the attention for that reported $65 million book deal, but former President Bill Clinton is soon coming out with an unusual book: He's writing a novel with prolific thriller writer James Patterson. Continue reading at Stuff

[ Stuff | 2017-05-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Bill Clinton and James Patterson collaborate on political thriller

Former US president Bill Clinton and James Patterson are collaborating on a novel, publishing with Cornerstone, called The President is Missing.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2017-05-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Bill Clinton, James Patterson Team Up for Novel

'The President Is Missing,' slated for June 2018, was sold in a joint deal to Knopf and Little, Brown. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2017-05-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sheryl Sandberg: ‘Everyone looked at me like I was a ghost’

As Facebook’s chief operating officer, she is one of the most powerful women in the world. How did she cope with the sudden death of her husband?• Scroll down for an exclusive extract from Sandberg’s new book Sheryl Sandberg’s last words to her husband, like all last words, assumed a haunting... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2017-04-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ardagh pens open letter to Simon Cowell

Bestselling children’s author Philip Ardagh has penned an open letter to Simon Cowell recommending he enlist the services of a librarian in discovering good children’s books after he called them all “boring”. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2016-05-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Condé Nast Time Ends for Maurie Perl

Maurie Perl, the longtime chief spokeswoman at Condé Nast, is hanging it up after 21 years at the company. For 12 years, Perl built and oversaw the PR machine of the publishing company, reporting to parent Advance Publications Chairman Si Newhouse and then-Condé Nast CEO Steve Florio, who since... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2013-01-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Mitchell Beazley signs Cowell food book

Mitchell Beazley is joining forces with Simon Cowell for a book tying in to his production... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-10-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sonny Mehta to receive LBF Lifetime Achievement Award

Publication Date: Tue, 08/03/2011 - 09:44 Sonny Mehta, editor-in-chief of Alfred A Knopf, is to be awarded the eighth Lifetime Achievement Award in International Publishing by London Book Fair. Mehta has published authors including Thomas Mann, Willa Cather, Albert Camus, John Updike, Toni... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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