The Times of My Life

Rating:
Summary: An extraordinary appraisal of an extraordinary life
Review: One can only wish Max Frankel long life and the best of health so that 50 years from now he can take us for another journey through journalistic history. A most candid look at the politics and personalities of the world's greatest newspaper and its most accomplished star.

Rating:
Summary: A Cut-to-the-Bone Inner Journey of a Public Man
Review: The essential story of Mr. Frankel's extraordinary memoir has been amply described in the reviews on this site, and requires no further repetition by me. I urge everyone to read them, and of course to read the book.

Hardly anyone can fail to be moved by the prelude to his story, his family's escape from the Nazis. Mr. Frankel's mother perhaps deserves at the least a book of her own story. A remarkable woman.

Mr Frankel's story might be of another brilliant journalist whose professional story alone is worth the telling, and it is. But for me, it is his almost brutal, scalpel-like self-dissecting to reveal to us his inner turmoil in meeting challenges of his life-style and career that riveted me to the book.

Early in life, he tells us, he learned to always prepare an escape route, another way out. Repeatedly, he recounts many brushes with conflict where he seemed to side-step adversity, to protect himself from pain, to indeed take another way out. Courageous and wise, or cowardly and untrustworthy as a human being? He so presents himself to us for our judgement. He accurately points out how news media (persons) suffer the worst of narcissist sensitity at criticism, yet he stands up bravely, I think, lead on by his personal and professional vision while living in a fish bowl.

How many of us as private people, or world renown persons could stand so tall? I thank Mr Frankel for forty years of helping to educate me, and the rest of us to boot.

Irwin Moss, LA [e-mail] PS. Candor requires me to reveal playing tennis once with Mr. Frankel at Cape Cod many years ago. One learns and reveals much in a tennis game.

Rating:
Summary: Great reading!
Review: The first part of the book dealing with the author and his mother's travails in pre-WWII Germany in Weissenfels was absolutely the best part of the book. (And, this was unexpected as I bought the book to read about the editor of my favorite newspaper.) The author puts a human face to his German friends, neighbors, towns people, local officials, and even the Nazi that finally gave the exit visa to Frau Frankel and her son, Max. Even after the war and the Holocaust, Frankel admits he maintained some empathy with the ordinary German folk. I found this perspective to be refreshing and enlightening as it seemed more realistic of the German peoples and their behavior in pre-War Germany. (I do not wish to politicize my book review, please read the book to get your own opinion on this matter-- although one does have to remember Frankel's experiences were that of a young boy). In fact, most of the book was written in a honest, straight-forward manner. The authos's candor was a surprise on many topics including those of race. It is always refreshing to read an honest appraisal rather than the double talk you hear from politician-types.

The remainder of the book amazed me that Max Frankel lived through and was involved in many of the historic events that occurred during the Cold War. Although at times Frankel seemed to explain in hindsight his prescience at events about to occur on the world stage. (As aside, you wonder why you didn't have people like him working for the CIA).

An aspect of the book that I didn't enjoy was the author's apologetic tone in explaining his executive decisions while an editor at the NY Times. It seemed this portion of the autobiography was aimed at the co-workers and people at NY Times that Frankel had worked with.

Definately, the parts of the book talking about the author's personal experiences, whether in Germany, Washington Heights, or the tragic illness of his wife were captivating. The rest about his career seemed routine.

Rating:
Summary: A masterful autobiography by a great journalist.
Review: This is the riveting saga of a boy who arrived in New York at the age of ten, a refugee from Hitler's Germany, speaking no English, and who by his own extraordinary talent rose to the pinnacle of the journalistic world. It is also a story of America, for where else has such an achievement been possible? It is a beautifully written personal journey, interwoven with an inside view of the mighty institution that is The New York Times. Max Frankel won a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for his coverage of Nixon's trip to China. A second Pulitzer, for autobiography, would be fitting capstone to a remarkable career.