false 4338 6 In 2005, two tragedies--the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina--turned CNN reporter Anderson Cooper into a media celebrity. <I>Dispatches from the Edge</I>, Cooper's memoir of "war, disasters and survival," is a brief but powerful chronicle of Cooper's ascent to stardom and his struggle with his own tragedies and demons. Cooper was 10 years old when his father, Wyatt Cooper, died during heart bypass surgery. He was 20 when his beloved older brother, Carter, committed suicide by jumping off his mother's penthouse balcony (his mother, by the way, being Gloria Vanderbilt). The losses profoundly affected Cooper, who fled home after college to work as a freelance journalist for Channel One, the classroom news service. Covering tragedies in far-flung places like Burma, Vietnam, and Somalia, Cooper quickly learned that "as a journalist, no matter ... how respectful you are, part of your brain remains focused on how to capture the horror you see, how to package it, present it to others." Cooper's description of these horrors, from war-ravaged Baghdad to famine-wracked Niger, is poignant but surprisingly unsentimental. In Niger, Cooper writes, he is chagrined, then resigned, when he catches himself looking for the "worst cases" to commit to film. "They die, I live. It's the way of the world," he writes. In the final section of <I>Dispatches</I>, Cooper describes covering Hurricane Katrina, the story that made him famous. The transcript of his showdown with Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu (in which Cooper tells Landrieu people in New Orleans are "ashamed of what is happening in this country right now") is worth the price of admission on its own. Cooper's memoir leaves some questions unanswered--there's frustratingly little about his personal life, for example--but remains a vivid, modest self-portrait by a man who is proving himself to be an admirable, courageous leader in a medium that could use more like him. --<I>Erica C. Barnett</I> 3212190 1 5 2006 Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival total:1710|5:419|4:736|3:459|2:86|1:10| 1710 6598 2233 393 3 2 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue May 29 12:05:09 -0700 2007 Tue May 29 12:20:17 -0700 2007
...Oh wait. I should be talking about his book, not his devastatingly handsome looks. Whoops! See what college education has done for women? ...more...]]> 0 1 false false Mon Jan 05 14:32:54 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 05 14:37:33 -0800 2009
Only partway thru...But who would've thought the gay son of Gloria Vanderbuilt would toss himself into war-torn countries in his tender 20's just to get the story. He is such an amazingly brave and complicated fellow. Not just that annoying CNN guy. Wow. Liking the m...more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Jun 09 13:34:51 -0700 2008 Tue May 06 12:04:49 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 09 13:34:51 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Jan 30 12:36:06 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 30 12:40:29 -0800 2009 more...]]> 1 0 false false Sat Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Thu Jan 29 10:53:51 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 29 11:02:27 -0800 2009
...more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 17 07:24:02 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 17 07:53:11 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Jan 04 12:53:53 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 04 12:54:05 -0800 2009 Where In The World Is Anderson Cooper?, 27 May 2006


Anderson Cooper relates this "All this came about for me in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and I started writing about a week after. In many ways, I'd been sort of writing it in my head for the last 15 y...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Aug 27 18:04:30 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 27 18:25:56 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Mar 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 11 22:14:18 -0700 2009 Fri Mar 13 22:07:22 -0700 2009
He also writes about his family: the father that die...more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Aug 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 04 07:16:18 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 05 06:15:37 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat May 30 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri May 08 13:31:05 -0700 2009 Sat May 30 14:28:52 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Aug 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 03 18:57:02 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 20 11:40:59 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Jan 31 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 18 15:59:50 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 02 16:50:13 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Jul 11 00:24:43 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 11 00:26:39 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 true false Mon Oct 26 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 27 13:51:58 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 26 09:49:39 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Aug 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 03 22:56:06 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 30 13:08:45 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Oct 05 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 13 13:30:19 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 13 13:48:48 -0700 2008 1
I'm not usually a fan of memoirs, finding them to be much like dreams - they're really only interesting to the person telling the story. ...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Oct 11 08:55:54 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 14 18:44:42 -0700 2008
The book was a lot about Cooper coping with personal tragedy ...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Oct 05 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Oct 04 08:56:13 -0700 2008 Sun Oct 05 18:35:48 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Aug 23 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 23 18:33:06 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 23 18:40:20 -0700 2008
This book was a surprisingly rapid and easy read. It's not very long and has a lot of white space, but its brevity does not...more...]]>