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Ricky Jay, Baryshnikov, Brando, and Anatole Broyard are by far the most interesting and well-written profiles.
Re-reading this collection ten years later, it strikes me that a lot of these profiles haven't aged very well, especially ones written by male writers on female subjects. The one exception, the profile that most endures, to me at least, is Janet Malcolm's "41 False Starts," which is a masterpiece of form echoing content.
My ratings of books on Goodreads are solely a crude ranking of their utility to me, and not an evaluation of literary merit, entertainment value, social importance, humor, insightfulness, scientific accuracy, creative vigor, suspensefulness of plot, depth of characters, vitality of theme, excitement of climax, satisfaction of ending, or any other combination of dimensions of value which we are expected to boil down through some fabulous alchemy into a single digit.
These stories make the ordinary extraordinary, and although that may sound like a back cover review quote, it's true. I started reading this book to get a break from Guns, Germs, and Steel. I felt like every time I read about a new historical tribe or new society, it was a tease because the next chapter was about crops spread around the world before the year of Christ. I do enjoy the book and I understand the magnitude of its purpose. However, I miss hearing about people... Individuals like Mr.
Quite good; a wide range of interesting people profiled by interesting people.
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These were my favorite stories from the mix. Well written and well read.Isadora (Isadora Duncan), by Janet FlannerNobody Better, Better Than Nobody (Heloise), by Ian FrazierThe Coolhunt (Baysie Wightman and DeeDee Gordon), by Michael GladwellMr. Hunter's Grave (George H. Hunter), by Joseph MitchellShow Dog (Biff Truesdale), by Susan OrleanThe Man Who Walks on Air (Philippe Petit), by Calvin TomkinsCovering the Cops (Edna Buchanan), by Calvin Trillin
the only one i keep coming back to is 'travels in georgia,' 1973. a profile of biologist/ecologist carol ruckdeschel by john mcphee. it's available online. read it
One of the best books I've ever read. Sometimes when I read New Yorker Profiles, I think they're a little too in-depth. I read the first third and think, ok, I'm good, but then it goes on and on beyond that point. But right now this worked for me. Almost every profile opened up dozens of doors in my mind, led me down new paths of thinking. And almost every profile had at least one (some had a dozen) references which I didn't quite get; I thought more than once that going back and rereading, taki...
This is a big fat book of over 600 pages. But the quality of the writing and variety of the subject matter keeps it fresh. I especially loved checking out the different approaches the writers take to reveal their subjects -- some conventional and some much less so. Mr. Hunter's Grave (the first story) is the master of the form. It's so quiet and unassuming with such beautiful prose. The Education of a Prince wins for pure reading enjoyment. Dealing with Roseanne is funny and bold and is the best...
I wanted this book to be perfect and it wasn't. It made me realize that too many New Yorker profiles are too long and too staidly written. That said, there are some fantastic examples of the form here. The contributions from Richard Preston, Lillian Ross, Henry Louis Gates, Jr, and janet Malcolm are stunning.
Below are listed the essays in the order they appear in the book. In parentheses are the persons about which the respective essays are about. Then is stated the author and my personal rating of the essay. Please do keep in mind that even a 2 stars rating indicates that I felt the essay was OK, 3 stars means I liked it, 4 that I liked it a lot and 5 that it was fantastic. The average of my ratings comes to between 3 and 4. I am choosing to give the entire book 4 because when I look at the whole,
I did not read this whole book BUT: there are two profiles in it that are utterly brilliant and unforgettable. The most amazing one is on Ricky Jay, the magician, scholar, and unclassifiable entertainer. I recall reading it in the New Yorker years ago and being blown away by it. Jay is probably a true genius and might possibly be able to do real magic, if the stories told here about him are true. You have to read it to believe it. Plus, the article serves as a sort of introduction into the world...
So I haven't actually read this whole book, just several of the essays, but I have been spending a lot of my time lately with my nose in the New Yorker archives. My print subscription ran out a few months ago, but for some reason my digital subscription and archive access hasn't changed. The biggest problem with the New Yorker archives is that unless you know what you're looking for, it's hard to run across anything interesting. What they need is a digital archivist, like Sports Illustrated has,...
Some amazing profiles in here. And some older, less interesting ones. Two that surprised me were "Dealing with Rosanne" by John Lahr - he painted such a full portrait of what she has overcome to be who she is. I was floored. And "Man Goes to See a Doctor (Max Grosskurth) by Adam Gopnik. That one brought tears to my eyes: a weird thing task when you're reading about someone's shrink. Also enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell's "The Coolhunt" and Nancy Franklin's "Lady with a Pencil" about Katharine White and...
A reference in portrait journalism.
This was amazing -- the best collection of essays I've read since, well, the best American essays of the century collection. Coming from the New Yorker this collection has more of a formula (there is a certain style that runs throughout, despite the variation in subject) and I suppose a certain similarity of perspective -- that of an uptown Eastern elite looking with somewhat clinical interest down on the specimen... Nonetheless these are wonderfully entertaining and also terribly educational (f...
This one took me a while to read (about 6 weeks). I would read one profile and then feel the need to sort of “digest” it before going onto the next one. I read them all, and the ones I particularly enjoyed were about Ricky Jay, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Ponce Evans (Heloise), Edna Buchanan, Johnny Carson, Roseanne Barr and Steve Blass. All were beautifully written and utterly fascinating.
I was going to read the essays on Roseanne and Richard Pryor and call it quits but this whole book is really incredible. Especially and unexpectedly interesting: essays on the Chudnovsky Bros., Anatole Broyard, Ricky Jay, and Heloise. On Anatole Broyard: "You know, he turned it into a joke. And when you change something basic about yourself into a joke, it spreads, it metastasizes, and so his whole presentation of self became completely ironic. Everything about him was ironic." Also introduced m...
A collection of profiles from the magazine that invented (or notably developed) the genre, the subjects range from Ernest Heningway to an unknown state wildlife employee. The charm of the anthology is not only in the pieces, which are individually interesting, nor in the authors, who are among the twentieth century's best, but in their arrangement. It adds something to read a profile of Mikhail Baryshnikov right after a profile of Isadora Duncan from several decades earlier.bb