The Book of the Week is “Ogilvy on Advertising” by David Ogilvy published in 1985. The author was the co-founder of what has become a world-famous, worldwide advertising agency– a major feat, as he started his advertising career at 38(!) years old. Perhaps his business has endured because he had the right idea. He wrote that he did not care whether the viewer of an ad said “What a great ad!” Ogilvy’s major goal was to get the viewer to say, “I must go out and buy this product!” This way, he would make money for the client. This book recounts his experiences in the field and provides tips on how to advertise.
Category: Career Memoir
Asking for Trouble
The Book of the Week is “Asking for Trouble” by Donald Woods, published in 1981. This book’s author (miraculously) lived to tell of his experiences publishing an anti-apartheid newspaper in South Africa under apartheid in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
South Africa’s then-leader allowed Woods’ newspaper to remain in existence only to maintain the public relations charade, that the country allowed free speech on the subject of its treatment of certain of its citizens. Nevertheless, Woods lived under threat of death all the time, from his numerous enemies. His family was also in danger. He described one incident in which his children naively tried on T-shirts that had come in the mail from what appeared to be a politically friendly source. The shirts contained the acidic chemical ninhydrin, which burned their skin.
Read the book to learn what dire action Woods eventually had to take to save his own life.
Kitchen Confidential
The Book of the Week is “Kitchen Confidential” by Anthony Bourdain, published in 2000. This is the eloquent account of the author’s personal experiences as a worker in the restaurant business. He provides anecdotes on the people, their personalities, problems and the kinds of behind-the-scenes activities and events that restaurant patrons do not see.
Bourdain describes one of his first kitchen jobs he held when he was a brash youth, and how his older coworkers put him in his place. Other forms of entertainment that culinary workers enjoy include the initiation rite of sending the new kitchen help on a fool’s errand, and playing practical jokes on the restaurant manager. Bourdain tells of his employment woes and others’. He also reveals culinary dangers (dirty little secrets) about which diners may not want to know. This book is educational for anyone wishing to enter the restaurant business as well.
The Tennis Partner
The Book of the Week is “The Tennis Partner” by Abraham Verghese, published in 1999. This is the autobiographical account of the relationship between a medical professor (the author) and an intern at a teaching hospital in the United States. The two play tennis against each other. At the time, they are each going through traumatic personal problems; the professor, the aftermath of a failed marriage that produced two sons, and the intern, a struggle to beat drug addiction. Verghese deftly describes these in engaging detail, throws in his perception of the playing styles of various professional tennis players, and recounts some interesting medical cases.
Lieutenant Birnbaum
The Book of the Week is “Lieutenant Birnbaum: A Soldier’s Story: Growing Up Jewish in America, Liberating the D.P. Camps, and a New Home in Jerusalem” by Meyer Birnbaum, published in 1994. This is the autobiography of a memorable character. He rose quickly through the ranks of the U.S. Army during WWII, though not without trouble.
In one incident, he was court-martialed for practicing his religion. Religious law dictated that Birnbaum wear a yarmulke all the time, including meal times. An Army rule prohibited the wearing of a “hat” while eating. Birnbaum’s attorney was incompetent, so Birnbaum defended himself at his hearing. He argued that a phrase in the oath he took upon his military induction indicated that his religion was more important than his patriotism: ” …to serve God and my country …” He was acquitted.
Read the book for further adventures of this clever military officer.
True Story
The Book of the Week is “True Story” by Michael Finkel. It is an unbelievable story about a journalist (the author) and a criminal. The journalist’s future looked bright at the start of the story.
Finkel was assigned to write an article on slavery in the cocoa plantations of West Africa. He discovered for himself from interviewing hundreds of people, that the said slavery was almost nonexistent. He was under pressure to write an honest story, but also one that would sell. He did not want to denigrate the community of media people who had been reporting the falsehood (knowingly or naively).
If he had written honestly, he would have had to explain that his fellow journalists had been lying. Besides that, the word “slavery” could provoke a boycott of West African cocoa, which would only increase the level of poverty. Half the world’s cocoa comes from West Africa.
Finkel ended up sabotaging himself by concocting a story about one poverty-stricken Malian boy (from Mali), a composite of several boys he had interviewed. He used the real name of one of the boys. When his story was printed, Save the Children complained that the story was inaccurate, and his cover was blown.
The story gets curiouser and curiouser as events unfold.
Around the same time, a criminal was fooling around in Cancun, posing as Finkel. The criminal, Christian Longo, knew only that Finkel was a journalist, and had stolen his name because he liked his stories. He had committed the most heinous crime of all just days before.
Read the book to experience the intrigue.
The Vineyard
The Book of the Week is “The Vineyard” by Louisa Thomas Hargrave, published in 2003. It is a memoir about the first wine-grape farmers on Long Island in New York State.
In the early 1970’s, Louisa and her then-husband, Alex, wanted to grow grapes to make wine to sell. “I [Louisa] decided that having a vineyard wouldn’t take much time, so I enrolled in chemistry and calculus courses at the University of Rochester while we scouted for vineyard property.” They thought they would be able to spend more time with the children they planned to have, if they worked in the same place where they resided. Running a winery seemed to fit the bill. The endeavor turned out to be more difficult than they imagined. The Hargraves had never managed a vineyard before, let alone any business, but prior to plunging in, they “did their homework” the best they could, were passionate about wine and were willing to work hard.
They purchased a plot in Cutchogue on the North Fork of Long Island. Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay were the first grape varieties they planted. Fortunately for them, the soil was compatible with these high-quality varieties. They released their first wine in July 1977, from fruit picked in 1975, aged in barrels.
Louisa provides a detailed account of the numerous risks grape farmers and wine makers face; the birds, bugs and weather, to name a few. She also recounts problems her family encountered, including educating their daughter and son and dealing with legal tangles concerning their business. One particularly stressful episode involved fighting an extortion attempt by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
Despite all the hardships, the Hagraves nurtured a successful vineyard because they possessed and/or acquired the passion, courage, focus, skills, talents and luck in sufficient amounts.
Stand for the Best
The Book of the Week is “Stand for the Best” by Thomas M. Bloch, published in 2008. Thomas M. Bloch is the son of the founder of H&R Block (“Block” in the tax-advisor chain is spelled with a “k” so people do not mispronounce the name). Bloch made a career change in mid-life, becoming a teacher.
Bloch taught at a Catholic school, then co-founded a charter school in a low-income area of Kansas City, with a super-rich friend of his. He approves of private money donations to schools, but admits he is an idealist when it comes to closing the racial achievement gap. The school founders experienced a long, frustrating learning curve, although they thought they knew what they were getting into.
They started with middle-school students, but learned that starting with the early grades and adding older students later, would have been a better approach. For, students’ problems multiply as time goes on. In an urban area, in addition to a high dropout rate, gangs, drugs, and disruptive behavior, there may be multiple ethnic groups who must get acculturated.
Bloch relates the quote, “Our earth is degenerate in these latter days; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; and the end of the world is evidently approaching.” This is not just the lament of a modern teacher, but of an Assyrian sufficiently educated to write on a clay tablet, living in 2800 B.C., proving once again, that there is nothing new under the sun.
The Woman Who Fell From the Sky
The Book of the Week is “The Woman Who Fell From the Sky” by Jennifer Steil, published in 2010. This is the personal account of an American journalist who went to Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, to lead a 3-week training program for Yemeni journalists at an English-language newspaper in 2005.
She fell in love with the country. The Yemeni publisher, with whom she had attended high school in the United States, invited her to become the editor of the paper for a year. She took him up on his offer.
However, because she was an American moving to a third-world country in the Middle East, she experienced culture shock. For Ms. Steil, one of the most frustrating aspects of the culture, is that it is mostly Muslim, and therefore, male-dominated.
Although she was required to wear the prescribed head-to-foot clothing, and could not have her name on the newspaper’s masthead with the official title of Editor (reserved only for men), as a foreigner she was considered a special, third categorization of person, and was treated almost as well as the men.
The newspaper, the Yemen Observer, was very liberal in that it employed female journalists. The females’ families were very liberal in allowing their daughters to pursue a career. However, the females were paid a fraction of the males’ wages, were looked down upon and subjected to a host of societal restrictions.
Unlike the men, the women were punctual, did not take smoking breaks, did not chew qat (a mild narcotic chewed like tobaccco that is the national drug and the center of all social life), and submitted their stories by deadline time, even though they had to leave the office earlier than the men, as they were not allowed on the street after sunset.
Ms. Steil had to teach the group not only journalism, but how to form coherent sentences in the English language. In the early going, she spent many, many hours re-writing and editing. She was extremely dedicated in that she worked around the clock, despite the various, serious problems hindering the publishing of the paper.
She quickly realized that disseminating print news whose quality met Western standards was out of the question. The publisher was unwilling to contribute resources to important areas, such as paying the workers competitively, reimbursing journalists for story-gathering related expenses and supplying them with press passes.
Ms. Steil was forced to engage in a power struggle with a male journalist who had been working there before she arrived. Her standing by her principles of journalistic integrity caused friction with the marketing and advertising department. She would not let her staff write “news” stories pushing goods or services, even if it brought more revenue to the paper.
Despite all of the problems, living in Yemen, with its other-worldly, frustrating culture (for an American such as she), was a life-changing experience for her. She was in love with the people, the food, the architecture and many other aspects of the country.
This book is a good primer on Yemeni culture and engagingly recounts one woman’s adventures in living and running a newspaper there.
Walking on Walnuts
The Book of the Week is “Walking on Walnuts” by Nancy Ring, published in 1997. This book is the career memoir of a pastry chef in New York City. Ms. Ring discusses the uncertainty surrounding the fiercely competitive restaurant business in New York, and thus the attendant job insecurity of a pastry chef. She discusses the details of the job– long hours, difficult bosses, hard work, and a hilarious episode in which The Fig Tree restaurant personnel were tipped off that a very influential restaurant reviewer, one Bette Brown, was to visit one night.
A woman fitting the reviewer’s description entered the eatery with her entourage. She proceeded to complain about a draft at her table, then when moved, about being too close to the waiter’s station. The bread basket caught fire from a candle on the table… You can see where this is going– a long series of further mishaps, complaint-fodder for the fussy diner, “… who sarcastically asked Liz [the waitress] if she had graduated from high school.” Ms. Ring, who was also a waitress there at the time, witnessed Liz’s feisty temper flare as she finally told off the customer.
The supposed Ms. Brown confronted Carl, the restaurant owner, who, at the bar, was “… busy crying into his fourth double bourbon.” With the ‘don’t-you-know-who-I-am’ speech, she told off Carl, telling him her name. It was not Bette Brown. Carl was extremely relieved. A good dining experience was had by the actual Bette Brown, who had been there earlier that evening.
This book contains not only entertaining anecdotes, but recipes, too.