WORKING: RESEARCHING, INTERVIEWING, WRITING by Robert A. Caro

As a librarian, I enjoy matching books with people. People I know often receive books for birthday or holiday gifts, and library patrons often get recommendations from behind the reference desk. When I saw this book reviewed months ago I thought it was a good match for me. I knew I'd be fascinated bay Robert Caro's writing and research habits, but I doubted I would recommend the book to anyone other than my nonfiction writing friends. The truth is, the scope of the book is much wider than one man's research habits. He has written two Pulitzer-Prize-winning biographies, and the reader gets to learn about those subjects by way of reading about Caro's research and interviewing practices. I suspect curious readers other than my nonfiction crowd would enjoy this well-written book.

I didn't know Robert Moses's name, but I sure know his work: he was behind many of the bridges, expressways, and other projects in the New York area. Learning about him was fascinating, and learning about his use/abuse of power was disturbing! The fact is, though, that his projects are his legacy and we use them now without even thinking of how they came to be or what might have been on that land where a highway or bridge approach is now. Who had to lose their homes? Why does a particular highway have that strange curve in it? Robert Caro describes the meticulous research he engaged in for this book along with the many interviews he conducted. His wife, Ina, researched along with him, and in some cases smoothed the way into interviews with Moses's contacts and and those of the second prize-winning biography, Lyndon B. Johnson.

In order to write the book on LBJ, Robert Caro announced to his wife that they would be moving to LBJ's part of Texas to see what it felt like to live there. They got to know the land and interviewed many people who knew LBJ when he was younger. Lots of secrets came out that hadn't been in other Johnson biographies, making Caro's multi-volume work unique. I often encourage college students to dive deeper into their research for assignments (and I'm picturing an Olympic regulation swimming pool when I say that), but Caro here dove into the deepest, darkest, coldest ocean for his research!

I was captivated by this book, even more than I predicted I would be. I gleaned some ideas for my own writing, such as "dressing for work" when I sit down to a day of writing. It is work in the sense that writers need to shut out distractions for optimal productivity, but it is not grudge work. I might try "dressing for work" when I carve out writing days. Caro writes in longhand as I do, at least for research and interview notes and first drafts. I like knowing that. But the item I liked best from his description of his process is that each chapter of his books has its own notebook. I think Caro and I would have lots to talk about.

Ernie Pyle's War: America's Eyewitness to World War II

James Tobin. Ernie Pyle's War: America's Eyewitness to World War II. Free Press, 1997.

I thought the tip-of-the-iceberg perspective I would use for the World War II project I'm working on would be a comparison of what was going on overseas and how the home front coped with the results of the war and the absence of their loved ones. Unfortunately, that strategy is still too large for a ninety-minute lecture, so I contemplated and I brainstormed, I watched videos, and most importantly I kept reading. I learned about war correspondents, and Ernie Pyle in particular, and became fascinated with that writer who we don't hear much about anymore.

In his time he was wildly popular. He joined the guys on the front lines in Egypt, Italy, France, the Pacific theater, and places in-between. The violence he witnessed took its toll on his mental health but he soldiered on, only occasionally returning home to check on his wife, Jerry, who was also battling depression. This biography follows Pyle through his 44 years and supplies

samples of the war writing that made Pyle famous. Ernie Pyle described his columns as written from "a worm's eye view," meaning that he wrote about the experience of the infantry guys with whom he toured the war. There are occasional profiles of officers, but mostly he wrote about the enlisted men he knew well and shared their feelings and post-war aspirations with the world in his columns. He was everyone's friend and everyone's hero.

Ernie Pyle walked along the beaches in Normandy the day after D-Day and took in the sights as he stepped over bodies and parts of bodies. His resulting columns, though, described the equipment and vehicles damaged and left behind. This was for the benefit of the people at home who would soon find out that they had lost sons, brothers, and fathers and didn't need to know exactly, in gory detail, how they died. Learning about the broken vehicles and equipment littering the beach gave them an idea of the magnitude of this battle and how bravely their loved one fought.

This fantastic book pushed me over the edge of fascination with Ernie Pyle into obsession with this talented, original writer. Author James Tobin did his research and paints a complex portrait of Pyle the man, Pyle the innovative writer, and the phenomenon he created at home and on the front line. Oh, does this sound like a commercial for the book? I hope not, but it probably does. What I would like prospective readers to know is that this book is an effective and compelling way to learn about that huge war that affected almost everyone on the planet. I had a father and six uncles who served in various branches of the military. They all came home, but didn't talk much about the experience except, in the case of my father, to identify photographs and a few artifacts without much story. Even by the time I came along, twenty years after this war, my father wasn't sharing war stories. This book filled in some gaps for me. At the same time it enlightened me about the writers, photographers, videographers, and cartoonists who did their part by informing the troops and the public about the war in a time before Twitter, the World Wide Web, and even TV news.