Thinking Out Loud: On the Personal, the Political, the Public, and the Private by Anna Quindlen

From the Publisher

"A splendid collection...Eloquent, powerful, compassionate and droll. There is considerable variety in the subjects she addresses....Compelling."
THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER
Thinking out loud is what Anna Quindlen does best. A syndicated columnist with her finger on the pulse of women's lives, and her heart in a place we all share, she writes about the passions, politics, and peculiarities of Americans everywhere. From gays in the military, to the race for First Lady, to the trials of modern motherhood and the right to choose, Anna Quindlen's views always fascinate.
More of her views can be found in LIVING OUT LOUD, and OBJECT LESSONS.

Publishers Weekly

Concerned as she is with all manner of conflicts between public and private issues represented in this collection of essays from her syndicated New York Times op-ed column, Quindlen (Living Out Loud) admits to viewing even non-feminist topics through "the special lens of her gender.'' Sensitive to social and political trends and the "shifting sands of geopolitics'' that propel events, she points out their cost in human terms, especially as they affect the excluded and abused. Violence, notes the author--sexual, racial or political, performed by individuals or in groups as members of sports teams, gangs, police or the military--is routinely glorified, whether in children's cartoons or adult soap operas. Equally effective are Quindlen's always superbly controled commentaries on lying, bigotry and moral hypocrisy among political, judiciary and religious leaders, and the cynical use of ideals to justify military incursions.

Library Journal

Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Quindlen introduces this collection of her recent Op-Ed pieces with Dorothy Thompson's comment that her strength as a writer was from being "altogether female.'' The same is definitely true of Quindlen, who says her husband once asked her, "Could you get up and get me a beer without writing about it?'' No, she can't; even though Quindlen no longer writes the intensely personal "Life in the 30s'' columns (collected in Living Out Loud , Random House, 1988), her new "Public and Private'' columns are just that: discussions of world events as seen through her prism as wife, mother, and woman. This dual perspective has both pleased and infuriated readers, who may question whether a discussion of Jo March as heroine deserves to be part of "all the news that's fit to print.'' Still, Quindlen has offered a welcome human voice to the Times pages, and some of her best columns--her courageous condemnation of her own paper's decision to print the name of the woman in the William Kennedy rape trial, for instance--prove that. Essential for any journalism collection, this will be enjoyed by general readers also.

Library Journal

Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Quindlen introduces this collection of her recent Op-Ed pieces with Dorothy Thompson's comment that her strength as a writer was from being "altogether female.'' The same is definitely true of Quindlen, who says her husband once asked her, "Could you get up and get me a beer without writing about it?'' No, she can't; even though Quindlen no longer writes the intensely personal "Life in the 30s'' columns (collected in Living Out Loud , Random House, 1988), her new "Public and Private'' columns are just that: discussions of world events as seen through her prism as wife, mother, and woman. This dual perspective has both pleased and infuriated readers, who may question whether a discussion of Jo March as heroine deserves to be part of "all the news that's fit to print.'' Still, Quindlen has offered a welcome human voice to the Times pages, and some of her best columns--her courageous condemnation of her own paper's decision to print the name of the woman in the William Kennedy rape trial, for instance--prove that. Essential for any journalism collection, this will be enjoyed by general readers also.

Product Details

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents