Another Life: A Memoir of Other People

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Summary: Another Life: A Memoir of Other People by Michael Korda
Review: This dreadful piece of pap should be pulped. It is rife is factual errors so embarrassing one wonders if Mr. Korda has become senile, yet is still so hungry to publish that he is willing to lie ruefully in order to sell a book. Fact-checking will bear out appalling errors. Mr. Korda's memory requires a make-over, and his style is unbearable. Don't waste your money.

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Summary: A rousing story of a life in publishing
Review: Those who love the story of writing and how stories are made will love this book. Those who work closely with authors to help them develop their work will appreciate it even more.

Korda gives us a rare inside look at how publishers publish. He shares with us how he got into the business, how he climbed the S&S ladder, and how he came to run the editorial department of one of the most successful houses in publishing history. He tells us hilarious and eye-opening stories of Tennessee Williams and Jacqueline Susann and Harold Robbins. We learn just how much work editors put into creating bestsellers. We find out who the authors are and who the writers are. If you're like me, you'll read these stories as you would a bowl of candy. You'll eat and eat until you're scratching at the bottom of the bowl for more.

I don't recommend this book without reservation, however. Michael Korda, the famous editor, could have used even a junior editor to help him dig out his story. At times, the book thuds along, caught up in Korda's telling of the history of publishing in the United States. His asides into the money side of the business -- how publishing developed from a cottage industry into a mere cog in larger multinational entertainment companies -- is numbing. Still, I soaked in these parts of his story to get to the good parts.

Korda is not a great writer, though he worked with many, and has a wonderful story to tell. Skip past the dull moments if you like, but most definitely read this book.

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Summary: Fascinating glimpse at world of publishing
Review: Two television shows -- Brian Lamb's Booknotes, and Kitty Kelley's reception honoring Michael Korda (her editor and the author of this book)-- convinced me to read Another Life, and the decision was most rewarding. Korda had told Lamb that the common trait shared by best-selling authors -- regardless of style or genre -- is the ability to tell stories. Who would know better than someone who has been an editor at Simon & Schuster for 41 years? A voracious reader who has worked with hundreds of writers (one wonders just how many manuscripts he has absorbed during his career), Korda is a clever writer himself. Another Life is basically a string of hilarious anecdotes involving authors (not all of them household names) whose work he has edited. Excerpts from this book have appeared in The New Yorker (Korda's memories of legendary playwright Tennessee Williams and his ventures into other forms of writing ran in the magazine just this year), and Another Life can be enjoyed as a collection of magazine-length pieces. Writers as diverse as Jacqueline Susann, Richard Nixon, Joan Crawford, Truman Capote, Harold Robbins and Graham Greene (among dozens and dozens of others) are discussed, and Korda also intermixes am ample sprinkling of stories about his co-workers at S&S and his competitors at other publishing houses. Another Life not only lived up to my lofty expectations, it exceeded them. Highly recommended to anyone interested in how books come to fruition.