This Hardcover Book item from PublicAffairs was reviewed on 4-Nov-2008. Search ISBN:B000NIJ4CY offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family, And Fate Reference Book. Classifications : Formats Accessories Alternative Formats Audiobooks Boxed Sets Calendars eDocs Historical Reproductions Large Print Libros en español Sheet Music & Scores Custom Stores Specialty Stores Books Women Spe . Click the following link to view the cover of The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family, And Fate. Related topics: Formats. Accessories. Alternative Formats. Audiobooks. Boxed Sets. Calendars. eDocs. Large Print. Libros en español. Custom Stores. requestid: 9647bc7c-7ac5-4d45-a1ef-178c318aeffc
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1) Hardcover Book The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family, And Fate by PublicAffairs. I used to read Marjorie Williams in the Washington Post, and was reminded of her work when her exceptionally moving essay "Hit by Lightning" was in a "best of" book by multiple authors. It was so good that I simply had to read this collection of only her work.
The finest essays and profiles here are wonderful. The writing is outstanding, and ranges from great insight to humor and sadness and to the biting remark that takes down somebody famous a notch or two.
My favorites were (besides "Hit by Lightning"):
- "The Alchemist", a previously unpublished profile of her mother. What an exploration of a mother´s relationship to her daughter and (presumably) perceptive view of her mother´s life!
- "Scenes from a Marriage" - oh, my, how it drills into the relationship between Clinton and Gore, after the 2004 election and back into their time in office. This essay was justifiably well-known.
- "Bill Clinton, Feminist" - Ms. Williams shreds the feminists who defended President Clinton in his sexual escapades, while disregarding the women involved. She doesn´t even break a sweat. Brutal and delightful reading.
- "The Halloween of My Dreams" - her final column, about her daughter´s Halloween, the last Halloween Ms. Williams would see.
- The profiles of Jeb Bush and Barbara Bush, both of which offered fresh insights and information.
- Of the columns, many of which are first rate, I particularly liked the one on Princess Diana´s death (I´m not sure why, to be honest) and one on assisted suicide.
The book actually got off to a slow start for me. The first two profiles were relatively dated and uninteresting, and the third, on Richard Darman, was wonderfully crafted, but I found myself not that curious about someone who moved rapidly into footnote status. However, Darman´s profile had one of the best lines in the entire book: "As always, the vapor of self-certainty leaks off him like rocket fuel". Didn´t these people know who they were up against in Marjorie Williams?
The short columns included are mostly very good, yet they also suffer from the usual fate of newspaper columns, in that they don´t age that well, as the topic in hand often quickly becomes old news. Ms. Williams is far from alone in that fate, of course, so some of these pieces serve as a reminder of past news to reconsider with hindsight and contemplate what has happened since.¤ 2) Hardcover Book The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family, And Fate by PublicAffairs. This book made me realize how painful it could be to at sometimes for the lack of a better word be a " dubmass " It took me a lot of brushing up on my reading skills to fully appreceiate this book and it was very insightfull just as the other books that were recomened to me to be read if I liked this one were. It also taught me that caring=sharing which can cause mass confusion sometimes to people who need to improve there reading skills which in turn = understanding and then ultimatly joy and happiness for many years to come. However this just could be a hopeful thought, but I would like to think it holds true for all readers especially the ones that would enjoy reading A year of Magical Thinking, where I think it says something about country boys being of big hearts are stubborn and rarely give up on anything.¤ 3) Hardcover Book The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family, And Fate by PublicAffairs. No, this isn´t about the typical zoon--but about the "Zoo" that is Washington, D.C.
Marjorie Williams, a journalist for the Washington Post, had a sense of unrelenting refusal to deal with just the surface reality--but find the truth beneath.
Sitting here in the Midwest, some of these stories, some of the people are not players we hear about every day, but some were.
Marjorie and Tim Noah (Senior writer for Slate) were married in 1990. In 2001, happy and healthy, Marjorie discovered a lump in her lower abdomen and after much effort, died in 2005 from liver cancer at the age of 47. Tim has selected what he feels are her most revealing columns written about politicians, the shakers and movers of Washington´s social ad business life, and about her family.
As an outsider I enjoyed reading about insiders like Ambassador Lucky Roosevelt and her long marriage, and other characters that made good reading.
Jennifer Senior, New York Times Book Review said, "Williams was a crowbar, prying great quotes from her sources, and she found herself face to face with rather intimate details of their life."
So true, whether she was writing about Bill and Hillary, the couple that always give us something to talk about, her own illness, her mother´s illness, or her children--her observations were always sharp and often sweet.
Some of my favorites were her most personal stories, like The Cat Race about how she was "going to raise her children," that is, until she actually had children. This felt very familiar.
The Art of Fake (and Useful) Apology, (in the news again as I write this) used by politicians reminds us that this happens far too often.
With another Presidential campaign heating up, Williams takes us back to 1992 when Al Gore was running for President (without hitching his star to Clinton). Her article, "Scenes from a Marriage" is about that time, and the end of that "marriage" and the not-too-obvious divorce of Clinton and Gore.
Sadly the world will never again read about current events from her.
Armchair Interviews says: This book was a New York Times Bestseller.¤ 4) Hardcover Book The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family, And Fate by PublicAffairs. Really two books. One, a series of pieces about inside Washington stories, often with characters who are largely off stage but important in how things get done in the seat of empire. Rather than the usual insider´s view, Ms. Williams has an extraordinarily keen eye for seeing what is there for all to see, perhaps along the lines of I.F. Stone´s insistence on using only attributed sources. The second book is an account of her diagnosis and subsequent experiences with an ultimately fatal cancer, its impact on her life, outlook, work, as well and an account of her medical care.¤ 5) Hardcover Book The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family, And Fate by PublicAffairs. I bought this book primarily because I enjoy memoir and it was represented in the media as a collection of personal essays by a woman who fought what was eventually a losing battle with cancer.
In fact, the personal essays comprise the smaller part of this collection. Most pieces are in-depth political commentary or profiles of Washington, D.C. personalities. I´m not interested in that subject matter at all.
To correct one of the other reviewers, this collection was compiled after Williams´ death by her husband. It contains material that she apparently never intended to publish. But long-time fans of Williams should not fault *her* for what was and was not included in the book, since these decisions were made posthumously.
Williams was a gifted writer -- insightful, precise, and painfully honest. I enjoyed the personal essays immensely (particularly the piece about her complex relationship with her mother) and even found myself reading and enjoying the political essays.¤ 6) Hardcover Book The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family, And Fate by PublicAffairs. Marjorie Williams knew Washington from top to bottom. Beloved for her sharp analysis, elegant prose and exceptional ability to intuit character, Williams wrote political profiles for the Washington Post and Vanity Fair that came to be considered the final word on the capital´s most powerful figures. Her accounts of playing ping-pong with Richard Darman, of Barbara Bush´s stepmother quaking with fear at the mere thought of angering the First Lady, and of Bill Clinton angrily telling Al Gore why he failed to win the presidency — to name just three treasures collected here — open a window on a seldom-glimpsed human reality behind Washington´s determinedly blank façade.
Williams also penned a weekly column for the Post´s op-ed page and epistolary book reviews for the online magazine Slate. Her essays for these and other publications tackled subjects ranging from politics to parenthood. During the last years of her life, she wrote about her own mortality as she battled liver cancer, using this harrowing experience to illuminate larger points about the nature of power and the randomness of life.
Marjorie Williams was a woman in a man´s town, an outsider reporting on the political elite. She was, like the narrator in Randall Jarrell´s classic poem, "The Woman at the Washington Zoo," an observer of a strange and exotic culture. This splendid collection — at once insightful, funny and sad — digs into the psyche of the nation´s capital, revealing not only the hidden selves of the people that run it, but the messy lives that the rest of us lead. ¤Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 2-Dec-2008, , 570-311-781-061-991-CYB-8 
The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family, And Fate, Book, Image © PublicAffairs
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