When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines

by Graydon Carter

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2025 IN THEINDEPENDENT, GQ, NEW STATESMAN, FINANCIAL TIMES AND BBC CULTURE

'Graydon Carter is a brilliant raconteur of his own life...it's a real yarn of a lost world' Marina Hyde, The Rest is Entertainment


When the Going Was Good is Graydon Carter's lively recounting of how he made his mark as one of society's most talented editors and shapers of culture. Carter arrived in New York from Canada with little more than a suitcase, a failed literary magazine in his past and a keen sense of ambition. He landed a job at Time, went on to work at Life, co-founded Spy magazine and edited The New York Observer before catching the eye of Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse, who tapped him to run Vanity Fair.


With his inimitable voice and raconteur's quip, Carter brings readers inside the drawing rooms of the great and not-always-good of America, Britain and Europe. He assembled one of the best-ever stables of writers and photographers under one roof, and here he re-creates in real time the steps he took to ensure that Vanity Fair during his 25-year run cemented its place as the epicentre of art, culture, business and politics. Charming, candid and brimming with humour, When the Going Was Good perfectly captures the last golden age of print magazines from the inside out.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Audiobook, History, Journalism, New York

440 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 27, 2025

About the author

Graydon Carter is a Canadian journalist, editor, and publisher best known for his tenure as editor of Vanity Fair from 1992 to 2017. Before joining the magazine, he co-founded the satirical publication Spy in 1986 alongside Kurt Andersen and Tom Phillips. Under his leadership, Vanity Fair became known for its mix of celebrity profiles and investigative journalism, winning 14 National Magazine Awards and earning Carter a place in the Magazine Editors’ Hall of Fame.
Carter's editorial influence extended beyond print, as he played a key role in producing several documentaries, including Public Speaking (2010), His Way (2011), and Gonzo, a film about Hunter S. Thompson. He was also an executive producer of 9/11, a CBS documentary about the September 11 attacks, which won both an Emmy and a Peabody Award. In 2019, he co-launched the newsletter Air Mail with Alessandra Stanley, targeting a global readership.
Beyond journalism, Carter has been involved in the restaurant business, co-owning The Waverly Inn in New York and previously partnering in the historic Monkey Bar. His contributions to media and culture were recognized in 2017 when he was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada.

Reviews

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

No teenybopper ever swooned over the pages of Tiger Beat as ardently as I once pored over every new issue of Spy magazine. Teaching undergraduates at a little Christian college in the cornfields of Southern Illinois, I didn’t know many of the magazine’s gilded targets far away in Manhattan, but the blend of style and satire that editors Graydon Carter and Kurt Andersen published was everything I yearned to be a part of.

This week I’ve been reading Carter’s chatty new memoir, “When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines.” It’s like a bound edition of my old vision board.

“Looking back, I honestly don’t know what I was thinking,” Carter confesses with humility that’s equally winning and insincere. “Who was I to start a magazine that poked holes in the bloated egos of the city’s grandees?”

Huddled in his office at Life magazine, he and Andersen jotted down 100 potential story ideas for a new publication of “wit, satire, and what Kurt called literate sensationalism.” Inspired by Looney Tunes, London’s Private Eye, The Washington Post’s Style section and Mad magazine, they wanted “a bemused detachment but witheringly judgmental.”

Despite a flock of blue-blooded investors, Carter and Andersen never had enough money. They borrowed furniture for their tiny offices. The staff writers earned just a little more than $5,000 a year. (Although Christopher Hitchens liked the idea of Spy, he wasn’t willing to write for the fee they could pay.)

Nevertheless, when the first issue appeared in 1986, “its sheer shock value made Spy an....

This review is excerpted from The Washington Post's free weekly email newsletter, The Book Club, which you can read here:
https://s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw...

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Generally light, with a couple of deep dives now and then. I was especially curious about the Spy years. Carter has a light touch, but a neat quip every so often livens things up. Obviously made of sterner stuff than he lets on, or how else could he survive both Spy and VF and the people he met -- elbows up more often than not, to use a newly popular canadian phrase. I'm sure he could tell more searing stories if certain subjects weren't still alive. If you preferred VF without Tina Brown (I preferred it before her tenureship) and liked Spy, this is worth reading. Otherwise, I'm not sure what readers would find attractive in it.

[Cindy Burnett (Thoughts from a Page) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Fabulous on audio.

[Brian Tuft · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who has read Vanity Fair for almost two decades. And misses the monoculture of old world media dearly. It is not a surprise that I found this book to be juicy, fascinating and impossible to put down. While I have never met Mr. Carter the tone felt like I was hearing stories from a new friend I had met at a party.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had such high hopes! Carter's early years in Canada are fun, but the magazine days are just one list of names after another: editors, photographers, writers, assistants, celebrities... dull, dull, dull! There are a few amusing stories and profiles of eccentric creatives, but it just never caught on fire for me.

[Matt Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

(audiobook)

We love a humble king, especially when he's also an aesthete, scholar and a really good gossip. Loved the inside scoops and bits of honest shade about so many big names, especially his still ongoing feud with Trump about Trump's small hands. He is candid and honest about the way the world has changed in the digital age and how he has had to adapt but also refused to change. I learned a lot about the way magazines work as well. Note: I felt inspired and seen by the way he operates and approaches his life and work and family, and after checking his zodiac chart (LOL) it appears we have both the same moon and rising...

Reminded me of: Tina Brown's Vanity Fair Diaries, Griffin Dunne's The Friday Afternoon Club, Emily Sundberg and her Feed Me Substack empire, Nancy Meyers' The Intern, my love for NY 80s literature

[Susan Neuwirth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ll give it a 3+. One reviewer called Carter a varsity socializer. I agree. Fun listen and interesting history of magazines & nyc but he’s such a snob. Not sure I finished it.

Lorne. Graydon. Keith. Three abiding kings of New York City’s cultural life are the subjects of new books. Lorne is Lorne Michaels, the creator of “Saturday Night Live,” who is examined under the stereo microscope that is Susan Morrison’s biography, “Lorne.” Graydon is Graydon Carter, a co-founder of the stinging magazine Spy in the 1980s and the editor of Vanity Fair during its plumpest and happiest decades, whose memoir is our topic today. Keith is Keith McNally, the proprietor of that consummate French bistro Balthazar — which is so well run, so well lit and so well victualed that surely one idea of a good death is to deliquesce in one of its red leather banquettes — who has a memoir out soon.

Lorne is 80; Graydon, 75; Keith, 73. Each is still very much in the game. But to have these books in a clump on my coffee table has given me an Auld Lang Syne-ish feeling. An era is approaching its end.
Carter’s memoir, “When the Going Was Good,” runs on two overlapping tracks. It’s the story of an underdog — the hockey-playing, Canadian-born son of an air force pilot — who morphs into a crisply dressed and flamboyantly maned overdog. It is, figuratively, the story of a young man who walks into Gotham barefoot and leaves, whistling, owning the keys to one of its castles.

[Jeannette Cowell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is 417 pages of name dropping of people I’ve never heard of…not for me!

[Alana Rudman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating life lived that seems impossible to be recreated even one generation later. That said, several parts read like a Rolodex (literally paragraphs of names)

[Jill Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s a lot of truth that Canadians are just better people than thee and me. They tend to be nicer and treat their own and others with respect. This isn’t a bash Americans review; I’m a proud American. I sometimes just we treated each other like Canadians.

Graydon Carter was editor of “Vanity Fair” for 25 years. Before that, he founded and ran “Spy” magazine and worked for Time Magazine. Born in Toronto and raised in Ontario, he fell into magazine editing after stints at publications in Canada and the United States.

Being the editor of first “Spy” and then “Vanity Fair” in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 21st century years was to live an exciting and luxurious life. Of course, Carter had a lot of work to do to maintain his editorship.

REVIEW UNDER CONSTRUCTION

[Lorna Berry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ate this up. He is a pleasing writer. I searched London to source a copy of Vanity Fair and gave up after five shops. But an issue is now on route to me in the mail, arriving in 6-8 weeks. Hooray!! I can now play at being chic.

[Carrie Doyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting glimpse into the behind the scenes world of Vanity Fair. I worked in magazines in the 90s, so I was familiar with the decadence. But this really illuminated how magical that world was, and how it is truly a bygone era. It is hard to not be nostalgic for that time, especially as Graydon describes his world, because it was a time when the arts really mattered, and people were truly interested in interesting people rather than people with money. There are moments of candidness, which are fun, and I laughed out loud at the parts about Spy Magazine, I had forgotten how witty that magazine was. I enjoyed the dishy parts about people behaving badly, and I wish there were more of them! They were mostly reserved for dead people. It was interesting to read about Dominick Dunne behind the scenes, I had loved his work but he sounded like a real jerk. I was confused that Graydon was so vociferous in his condemnation of Harvey Weinstein yet totally defended Roman Polanski--what the hell? I also didn't like that he totally glossed over his divorce, one second he is having the best life, then next second divorced. But amicably. Weird. Anyway, it is a bit sad because it truly is the end of an era, and Graydon is in his mid-seventies, which is mind blowing. He does capture an interesting time. I listened to him read it, which I recommend.

[Morgan Kinney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Less a memoir than a series of anecdotes strung together, which isn’t a bad thing when you’re listening to Graydon Carter recite them. I actually found the whole thing a bit understated given the bonkers extravagance of his career. A very interesting contrast to Tina Brown’s Vanity Fair memoir, which, like its author, tends to embellish its gilded subject matter.

[Subashini · Rating 3 out of 5]

The amount of money flowing through Condé Nast at a certain point in time is jaw-dropping. Especially if you work in independent publishing in the global South. The fact that all of that money was just there. To be used. You didn't have to scrimp and scrounge and be paid peanuts? Astounding. The obsession with and veneration of a liberal war hawk like Christopher Hitchens? Less so.

[Abe Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a refreshing and fun read!
Not for everyone. I love namedropping and hearing about the lives of the rich and famous, especially when the narrator is more parallel than a part of the celebrity class. He narrates this glamorous and intellectual world with wit and skill. Also he is a bit of an outsider and the way he sees the world is incredibly interesting, especially the chapters where he isn't working in a newsroom or just started out in new york. I think the back half of that book is missing that.
The end of the book isn't so fun. After 2000 he stops talking about being an EIC and instead talks about his friends and producing movies and making fun of donald trump. I would have liked to hear about the move to more digital content, a discussion of 9/11, and the impact of the 2016 election on the newsroom. There is this really revealing chapter about Anna (he always omits the Wintour which is fabulous...) and how she wants to reorganize Conde Nast in her image because of her friends in Silicon Valley which is still sort of happening today. Literally no one gives a fuck about Airmail.

[Nick Bello · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read with a lot of interesting stories. Graydon sounds like the kind of old guy you get into conversation with randomly at a coffee shop begrudgingly at first but by the end you’re like this guy is pretty cool!

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I fell in love with Vanity Fair magazine during the Carter years, so really enjoyed the behind-the-scenes stories in this book and learning about how some memorable pieces came to be/some of my favourite writers came to join the title. Definitely one for fans.

[MB Hodgkiss · Rating 5 out of 5]

When the going was good, is putting it mildly! Wha a time to be alive! I really enjoyed this book and miss the Vanity Fair of yore.

[Christine Merrill]

I was glad when it was over.

[Amber Appelbaum · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️ enjoyed revisiting the glory days of media and publishing in NYC but definitely a more niche story about Carter’s life and his friends and foes

[Gregory Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the 1980s and '90s, I was fascinated by print magazines. I would spend hours scouring newsstands, admiring the glossy best sellers, indie start-ups, foreign imports, general interest titles, and niche periodicals, spending money I could ill afford on anything that caught my eye.

I rarely missed an issue of the snarky, NYC-centric SPY, devouring every word of the smart, pull-no-punches takes on the city's rich and infamous (including a certain short-fingered vulgarian). I'd never been to New York but felt like a Gotham insider from reading Spy, Details, Interview, and others. And, always a nerd for small-print info, I'd pore over mastheads, bylines, photo credits, and graphic design signatures, imagining I might one day work alongside these creative talents, or even start my own magazine.

When Vanity Fair relaunched in the early '80s, I researched Frank Crowninshield's original from the early 20th century and wrote a story for the University of Washington Daily -- part history, part review of the re-launch. For the next several years I watched VF struggle, then thrive under editrix Tina Brown, and then really take off under Graydon Carter's stewardship. I loved the touches and tone he brought, echoes of his Spy days like Easter Eggs for those of us who knew.

So this book was made for me. All the BTS history and gossip, the names dropped -- not just of household-name celebrities but all the creatives whose names I'd followed and admired from afar -- and the fantastic stories of Carter's experiences in that world of east coast periodicals publishing of which I'd once so longed to be a part.

Carter's writing is smart, witty, and humble-braggy in a way that's self-deprecating more than boastful (although it sometimes teeters slightly into a gushy style Carter claims to have banished from VF when taking over from Brown). Carter isn't afraid to name names, mostly offering praise and compliments to co-workers and celebrities alike, with anecdotes and evidence to back it up, but not hesitating to call out bad behavior when truly deserved. And he's just as likely to skewer himself over the occasional fumbles and missteps he's committed over the years. Carter's own narration on the audio book version only adds to the verisimilitude and engaging voice.

Even if a reader didn't obsessively devour magazines as I did in my younger days, one might still find this an entertaining and compelling read, if only for the stories of the VF Oscar parties and photo shoots and Carter's intermittent interactions with that aforementioned short-fingered vulgarian. An enthusiastic five stars.

(Footnote: In the bonus materials at the end of the book, Carter talks about his odd collections of old stuff, and the many reasons why one should always carry a handkerchief, only adding to my delight.)

[Sofia Tafich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and plenty fun. This dude’s life and career anecdotes are crazy. I love magazines. Carter’s Vanity Fair: you’ll always be famous. Long live physical media, babyyyyy ❤️✨ “Journalism is a lead-from-your-instinct business… be really curious, and care, about everything.”

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was sure I would adore reading this memoir since I think Spy Magazine was brilliant and every month I would read Vanity Fair cover to cover when Carter was the editor. I don't know if it's that the terrible state of the economy these days that is bumming me out or what, but I struggled with how tone deaf and clueless Carter is about his charmed life. I certainly am not one of those people who hate to read of others successes. Celeb memoirs are a weakness of mine. The more lavish and over the top lifestyle, the more entertained I am.

Yet here I sit, vaguely irritated at Carter's talk of expensing every meal and a bar at the end of the hallway at the office and work paying him to fly on the Concorde and stay at the most luxurious hotels in the world.....maybe because he is discussing office jobs and not discussing being a supermodel or rock star that the excesses bug me.

I stayed at the Connaught in London, the Ritz in Paris, the Hotel du Cap in the South of France, and the Beverly Hills Hotel or the Bel-Air in Los Angeles. Suites, room service, drivers in each city. For European trips, I flew the Concorde. I took round-trip flights on it at least three times a year for almost a decade.That's something like sixty flights. My passport picture was taken by Annie Leibovitz! The top editors were given a car and driver in the city.

I cannot stress how completely batshit crazy excessive the magazine world was. The money was flowing like water. He was the final generation to wallow in the luxury of that sort of workplace. I'm talking mouth hanging open I can't believe this was their office life stories. Vanity Fair had no budget. Meaning the sky was the limit. Yes, I know Silicon Valley and tech companies have also offered lavish benefits - onsite free restaurants and nap pods and massages. I visited Pixar about 20 years ago and was gobsmacked at the free restaurant, ping pong tables, the arcade etc. I told my friend how cool it all was and he said no one ever played any of the games, that would show your boss that you don't have enough work to do. And the free onsite restaurant was to keep you at the office working.

A lovely woman in an English maid's uniform came to make fresh coffee every few hours. My office had an adjoining private bathroom so luxurious that when a colleague from Spy came up to visit one day, she said it looked like Mitzi Gaynor's. At Vanity Fair, as I mentioned, I had not one but two assistants. Staff members could expense their breakfasts-not a working breakfast with a writer or photographer. Just regular breakfast.Large dinners at home were catered. Flowers went out to contributors at an astounding rate, sometimes just for turning a story in on time. Does your boss send you flowers every time you finish an assignment?

Everybody at Vanity Fair had an assistant. All the deputy and senior editors. The photo edi-tor. The art director. The fashion editor. At Condé Nast, there were interest-free loans to buy houses or apartments. Even the moving costs were covered by the company. SHUT UP. Did your company give you an interest free loan to buy your home?

At Conde Nast they were leaving the office every day to take multi hour meals with booze. Going to top end restaurants on the company dime. Carter tells a story of leaving a restaurant with Si Newhouse and it starting to rain so they jumped in a cab so as to not ruin their bespoke Saville Row suits. They then both realize that neither are carrying wallets. Doh! Because?....they are so rich and spoiled and well known they can go into a restaurant and not pay, the restaurant will bill them? Not sure how life works at that level. And the cabbie doesn't trust them to leave the cab and go into the building to get cash to pay. One of them has to wait in the cab. Hardy har har! Shades of 'don't you know who I am'. It isn't as funny a story as Carter thinks it is. I recently read Prince Harry's memoir and he discusses how infantilized his life was with the royal family. He never carried money or keys because why would he need either. This cab story reminded me of Harry's situation. Being that out of touch with the world is somewhat icky.

He does tell fun anecdotes as well. His running fight with Trump is pretty funny. At one point, since both are so transactional in their relationships with others, they "made up" and Carter actually attended Trump's wedding to Marla Maples. That surprised me, that he attended the short fingered vulgarian's wedding. Soon enough though, their mutual animosity and pettiness came to the forefront again and they took up sniping at each other.

The reason why Trump is President.
In 1983, Art Cooper, the editor of GQ, had asked me if I was interested in writing a story on Trump for the magazine. I wasn't, but I needed the money, so l agreed to do it. Trump was at the beginning of his florid tabloid residency, and since this was going to be his first major bit of national exposure, he let me hang around with him for three weeks. He hated the story when it came out. The piece portrayed him as an outer-borough sharpie with taste that veered toward the showy and the vulgar. And worse, I made the observation that his hands were a bit too small for his body. He was on the cover, and as I later discovered, wanted to keep that issue of GQ away from as many of his fellow New Yorkers as possible, so he had his staff go out and buy up copies on the newsstands. Years later, Si Newhouse told me that it was the brisk sales of the Trump GQ cover that led him to urge Random House to publish Trump's ghostwritten The Art of the Deal, which led to to the reality TV show The Apprentice, which led to where we are now. As they say, a butterfly's wings. It's all Graydon Carter's fault!

Carter mentions Kurt Vonnegut being rage filled that Spy magazine dubbed his wife a champion namedropper and that made me laugh out loud since Carter himself is a champion namedropper. It was a bit boring at first - he's not even namedropping super famous people - but after a while it started to amuse me. At times, Carter reminded me of those people who win an Oscar in the middle of the ceremony - the non famous people - who proceed to recite a litany of names to thank while no one listens.

Carter is a sucker for an Ivy League degree. He surrounded himself with people who went to Harvard or, if they were British, Oxford. I was not surprised to learn in the book that at least one son went to Groton($61,000/yr) and others to Collegiate($65,000/yr). If you had parents who were minor royalty, a CEO or famous in the arts then never fear. Carter will hire you to work at Vanity Fair.

We had a Washington Post heir. An E.F. Hutton heir, who also happened to be an heir to the Safeway supermarket chain. The CEO of ConAgra, the giant food processor, became an investor. We
had a member of the Frelinghuysen family as an investor. Tom's father was CEO of Raytheon, the giant defense contractor. He came in too. Gary suggested that we should meet Carl Navarre, a
champion shot, the owner of Atlantic Monthly Press, and, not incidentally, a Coca-Cola bottling heir The initial Spy investors. HEIRS!

Upon reflection, this obsession with "society" explains why Spy Magazine was so funny and on pointe. Carter is deeply interested in these people so was able to poke fun at them in a perceptive and humorous way.

Each chapter in the book reads almost like a stand alone essay. Yes, they build upon one another chronologically but you could certainly dip in and out of the book and only read certain chapters and not be lost. My favorite chapters were the ones about Spy and the one about the annual Vanity Fair Oscar Bash.

Some quotes from the Spy chapter.

A photo essay on what nightclubs looked like in the morning was shot by Sylvia Plachy, the mother of the then thirteen-year-old future Oscar-winner Adrien Brody. Even minor asides are worthy of namedropping!

When Larry Tisch, of the New York Tisch real estate family, bought CBS and began firing hundreds, we gave Tisch the epithet "churlish dwarf billionaire."...Henry Kissinger was a "socialite war criminal" - God, Spy was funny.

One month we ran an article called "Gore Vidal's 8 Bonus Tips on How to Feud." Tip number eight was "When all else fails, sue." A few days after the issue hit the newsstands, I got a call from Gore.
He said that if we didn't print a retraction, he'd sue.- Hahaha

Andy Warhol's diary was published without an index and, in the best use of interns EVER, the magazine assigned a dozen interns the job of creating one. What a brilliant idea and talk about a fun job to be assigned!
A sample entry:
Taylor, Elizabeth, mysterious trips to the bathroom with Halston, 49 resemblance to "fat little Kewpie doll," 115 "Very fat, but very beautiful," 177 "John Warner wasn't fucking her," given cocaine by Halston,178

This is not a personal memoir, not in the slightest, and that is fine with me. Honestly, I don't care about his relationship with his mother or his high school friends. I found the first part of the book dull precisely because he was writing about his pre-fame/pre-wealth lifestyle. I am reading this memoir for his work stories and his society stories, both of which he delivers in spades. That's why I ended up rating the book so high, even with the constant low level irritation I felt about his obliviousness about his pampered world. I wanted the details about his posh, upscale lifestyle. Yes, I realize the mixed message. Tell me about your extravagant lifestyle so I can simmer with annoyance. I didn't say my reaction made sense.

His brief mentions of his kids and his three wives didn't ring fully true for me. I am dying to hear his second's wife's version of their breakup. I highly doubt it's because Carter gained weight and his hair went grey. And for all his insistence that he was a hands on dad, I doubt he was. There are not enough hours in the day for him to be both a hands on father and to have the career and social life he did.

Some of his stories contradicted each other. A few pages after saying he made a point to come home every day to eat dinner with the kids and then sit around and do his editing work while they did homework he starts talking about all the restaurants he was a regular at. One he mentions eating at least 3 times a week at. Huh. I wondered if he meant he came home and watched the kids eat and then went out to eat separately after the nanny I presume put the kids to bed. Then he tells his great tip as to how parents can create tight sibling bonds amongst their children. Go out to eat with your family and have your children sit at a separate table. You sit at one table with your spouse and another couple, and you tell the restaurant host to seat your young children at a separate table next to you. That way the kids will be forced to talk to each other and entertain each other. He mentions that his kids were 3, 6 and 8 when he started doing this. Uh-huh, sure, that will work. Next time you go out with your very young kids try telling the restaurant you want your 3,6,and 8 year old to have a separate table while you drink and carouse with adults at your own table. See what happens. If you, like Carter, are a wealthy celeb regular, then the restaurant will probably say ok and humor you. Otherwise, get ready to be looked at like you are nuts.

[Larry Kirshbaum · Rating 5 out of 5]

To sum it up, I'd say, Graydon Carter's book "When the Going Was Good" could be summarized as "When the reading is fantastic." At one point, the author says he never likes to be the smartest person in the meeting so that he can learn from others. That's a generous goal, but, judging by this book, he can't help in many cases being the smartest person in the room. He's an old-fashioned magazine guy, an import from Canada who worked at Time Magazine, co-founded Spy Magaine, and spent 25 glorious years developing Vanity Fair into the must-read of every literate and upscale gossip-loving person in America. I know whereof I speak, because I'm an even older magazine and book guy who worked for the owner of Conde Nast, Si Newhouse, as his circulation director when the modern, renovaated Vanity Fair was launched in the early 1980s. We struggled finding the right audience until Tina Brown arrived from England. Tina put her stamp on the right combination of two sensibilities: The New Yorker and People magazines so that Vanity Fair started to take off. Graydon took over in the early '90's and the rest is glorious history. (Just for the record, I've only met Graydon once or twice for a handshake, so he's not a friend. I was gone from Conde Nast by the time Tina arrived.) In fact, considering the list of grandees and celebrities and brilliant lovers of the treasured printed word that Graydon cultivates in this book, I'm very proud of his success and happy that Si Newhouse recognized and cultivated the talent and used his considerable resources behind Tina and Graydon to make Vanity Fair such a success. One of the great virtues of the book is Graydon's description of the close 25-year relationship that he developed with Si that made it possible to sign on a list of talent which produced a great monthly magazine and poignant anecdotes aided by James Fox, the editor and Eric Hanson, the illustrator, and the whole spectacular Vanity Fair team. My only quibble is when Graydon tries to get even with some of his past critics including a certain President of the United States. The best thing about the book is that it's a tributee to the arts with minimal political digressions while Graydon's star has illuminated Peabody-winning tv documentaries, a hit play, and the famous kill-for-an-invite, post-Oscar party, plus a new venture called "Air Mail." He also has five children and a partial interest in a restaurant. This is a busy man and we're lucky that he has taken the time to share his life with us. Finally, I also highly recommend the hardcover version of the book which shows Penguin Press and Random House at their very best.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Adventures? Can these anecdotes be classified as adventures? They're more incidents. Perhaps episodes. I should have known to stop reading after the book opens with the boring tale of the Deep Throat revelation. That's the best you got? This is going to be a long slog, and it was for me.

Carter seems like a nice enough man, he makes his own phone calls after all, but he's out of touch and probably has no understanding of how the majority of people live. That's not his fault. It's just annoying.

How about this line - "he made the team at Harvard and then played pro in Europe before ending up, as so many kids do these days, at a bank." What? As a teller? What does that mean?

He also believes that taking his children out of school for two weeks to stay at the Ritz in Paris or the Connaught in London were great learning experiences - "I figured my kid would learn a lot more about life ... just by being in Paris or London- than they ever would in the classes they missed." What does a kid learn from staying at the most expensive hotels in the world other than to be a pompous ass? Put him up at the Motel 6 in Bakersfield for two weeks, I guarantee your Groton boy will learn much more about life and how most people live.

Like I said, Carter seems like a nice, albeit out-of-touch man, but he's no more interesting than your neighbor. He just has more money and has dinner at expensive restaurants with people with more money. Maybe he has better stories that he held back, but if that's the case, why waste our time?

Oh, and the one piece of advice he can't believe hasn't caught on? At your next dinner party, make your place cards two-sided. Remember that, everybody, the next time you throw a dinner party that includes place cards.

[Myles · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was kind of annoyed that Carter left the memoir without pictures. But then again, there are plenty of pictures of almost all of the people named in the book on the web.

Reading this book, one can’t help but compare it to the memoir of Carter’s predecessor at Vanity Fair, Tina Brown.

Carter is four years my senior. Brown is one year younger than me.

Brown’s book is spryer. Funnier. More memorable. She is the better writer.

Carter, I think, had the greater impact on the magazine industry. I also think he underplays how hard the job of editor of a monthly is, and most particularly, how hard running Vanity Fair was during those glory years.

I also was left with the feeling that for all the people Carter worked with or knew, he seemed to know best his mother, his father, and his children.

Names, personalities, colleagues fly through memoir at breakneck speed. Too quickly to feel as though neither he nor we get to know them very deeply.

If he made me a little envious, it wasn’t attending all those after-Oscar parties. It was that incredible expense account he had. My goodness.

[Dodi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading about Spy magazine was great fun. I have fond memories of the "twins separated at birth" feature. Graydon Carter spends much of his book dropping names, and I can't help wondering how all those mentioned feel about it. It's fascinating to read about really rich people claiming they're poor. In Carter's case, he asserts his financial woes result from paying private-school tuition. I'm sure that was a drain on his budget, but there are cheaper schools than Collegiate. His bottomless expense account at Conde Nast amazes me.

[Lisa Claborn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was hooked from the very beginning. I could relate to certain styles of his upbringing with his parents having bridge parties. The fact that he was raised in Canada opened my mind to some traditions unlike in the US. Graydon Carter has a wonderful way of telling his life story and you feel his highs, lows and quick wit along a wonderful stimulating and spectacular life. I can’t remember loving a book as much as this book in a long time.

[Dipra Lahiri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amongst the great editors of the last 50 years, from the heydays of magazine publishing, and at centre of that world, NYC. GC is a terrific raconteur, and probably knew everyone in the city those days. Credited with the immortal and most succinct character sketch of Donald Trump - "the short-fingered vulgarian".

[Alexis Tirado · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ate this memoir up! I grew up reading Graydon Carter’s era of Vanity Fair and after college worked in magazines in NYC for a few years. Graydon is a man of great taste and his stories are fascinating and oftentimes, amusing.