Dispatches from the Edge audiobook

I have always thought of Anderson Cooper as a thoughtful-looking self-contained news guy, and expected this book to be a fair amount of self-promotional blather interspersed with a few biographical details. Instead, I found that Anderson Cooper, in addition to being a t-l s-c news guy, writes like one. This memoir is thoughtful, self-contained, filled with news-that-was, and surprisingly well written. (My expectations are seldom high.)The wars are comprehensive--Bosnia, Somalia, Niger, Iraq. The disasters are earth-shattering news--Sri Lanka after the tsunami, Rwanda at the beginning of the starvation, Hurricane Katrina--and life-shattering personal tragedies--the death of his father when he was ten, and the harrowing suicide of his only brother while he was at college. The survival is his own, both personally and professionally.Stories of his childhood and personal life are interspersed with behind-the-scenes reviews of the headline news he covered, from his first post-college foray into Thailand as a freelancer to his four-week CNN coverage of Hurricane Katrina damage from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. Cooper's knack of stringing these seemingly-disparate stories into a cohesive whole is a testament to his intelligence and skill. Add to that his ability to completely sidestep any personal life he might have had since 1991, and his skills ratchet up even higher. (You think I exaggerate? Careful reading reveals the existence of a dog, friends, and a phone call to his mother.)So, if you think you could like this, read it. You will.

God this was magnificent. Anderson Cooper weaves his own personal history with death and loss into his work covering tragedy across the globe in a way that's so profound...I picked this up thinking it'd just be stories and anecdotes from his assignments covering wars and disasters but it's so much more than that, and I love the epilogue and final words he leaves us with. It's from 2006, so it's pretty 'dated' in terms of his career and who he was/what he was doing at the time it was published, but I like having that remove and reading something that was published before he was truly FAMOUS-famous.

A difficult read, but an important one. What struck me the most was how much we see history repeating itself when it comes to devastating events and the failure to act. From a police officer after Hurricane Katrina: “Man, all I can pray is an independent commission comes in and looks at what happened. Whether or not there are criminal charges, at least the public knows who to vote for next time. The poor planning caused a lot of people to die. There was no plan, there was no plan.”It happened before, it's happening now, and it will happen again. Please vote.

Writer, explorer, journalist, brother, son. Anderson Cooper explores the notion and meaning of all of his life roles in this fast-moving and nerve-wracking book, centered around the tumultuous events of 2005, plus flashbacks to happenings that have shaped who he is today. From the tsunami in Sri Lanka to famine in Niger to the conflict in Iraq, the author gives you a revealing and in-your-face look at the heartache, violence and suffering that often we, as Americans, are seemingly disconnected from and apathetic towards. Cooper relentlessly pursues the stories we don't often see, internally struggling to reconcile the voyeuristic tendencies that this often requires. The most impactful part of the book occurs in the last section focused on Hurricane Katrina and the eye-opening cultural and moral implications this event had on the American psyche. In each chapter, he brings voices of the victims, caretakers and authority figures forward to put a face on every struggle. But most of all, Cooper takes an introspective look at his own life: what motivates him to chase danger, heart-breaking relationships with his father and brother and traveling a path of self discovery. The book is written in a raw and fast-paced manner and is revealing of the author's innermost thoughts. But what I will takeaway most from this work is how Cooper has the opportunity to literally and figuratively retrace the footsteps of his relationship with his father – footsteps and thoughts that are tied-to and woven throughout the events of 2005. Watching "Anderson Cooper 360" each week now, I can't help but wonder how he feels about the evolution of his career – and life. Has fatherhood fulfilled a place in his soul that chasing the never-ending story in the field never will? Maybe. But maybe that's for another book. And I hope he writes it.

Read for Read Harder 2019: “book written by a journalist”Interesting behind the scenes stories of Anderson’s own personal life interspersed with reporting from Sarajevo, Iraq and post-Katrina Louisiana/Mississippi.

Engaging and eye-opening. I think I would have preferred to read a physical copy of the book instead of an audio book as the book read in sections and that wasn’t portrayed as clearly through an audio book.

Why do people write memoirs?Because they want to understand the life they lead by looking back at the life they led.Why do people read memoirs?More or less the same reason, but just reversed. Isn’t it rather fashionable to read about someone else’s life, learn what you can and quote it next time in casual conversation in order to pass oneself as learned?Sure we can.At times we do and even get a kick out of it equally, especially when someone takes notice of it and marvels at your apt usage of it and at the significance of such a tidbit. Admittedly, what drew me in to buy & read the book is the author himself; a prominent anchorman and news personality on CNN and hosts his own show, AC360. And even if he went by another name, who wouldn’t take notice of him; of his piercing stare, his clear and crisp commentaries and equally creative repartee with his guests. Not to mention his distinguished looks; all grey-haired and smart looking. Yes, Anderson Cooper is well liked.When I found this hardbound 1st edition at a Book Sale branch in Makati, I liked it all the more because I didn’t have to order it from Amazon as Powerbooks don’t have it and it only cost me only P70, which is roughly $1.56 just to get to know him.Born into a family of wealth and opportunity, Anderson is the son of famous fashion designer, Gloria Vanderbilt. But he traded all that to live his life, to pursue and discover his calling, wherever it may take him. The book touches on his reminiscing about his father, of his own identity crisis after he died and the chasm that threatened to pull his family apart that claimed his brother’s life as well, for he took his own life by jumping off their condo balcony, just minutes after speaking to his mother.There are no words for situations like these but somehow Anderson has managed to weave all of this family history and drama into the dream that ever more gets strengthened and tested whenever he travels to other countries like Sarajevo, Nigeria, Iraq, Indonesia and more recently in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck the city in 2005.Finishing the book tonight and reading his entries about missing his father, I can’t help but think of my own; how my Dad’s own passing changed me and continues to do so and affect me in profound ways that I could not have predicted.They always say that life is for the living and that the good of men (as well as the bad) are often interred with their bones. And knowing that it is said often; might we not rock the foundation just a little bit and remember properly those who died? That what they left behind propels us to look inward and decide for ourselves what and how much can we leave behind, when it is time to do so?I may not be a parent yet. But when the time comes, I would want to do the same for my child, be they be a son or a daughter.That as a child, you live your life in accordance with what you parents have taught you, what your values dictate. And in so doing, you honor their life and memory by giving and living your life; giving it the best show that you can give. So far the best shots that I have given have resulted and manifested in creative endeavours like the release of my first album, dedicated to Dad and also embarked on the writing of my first book which I am dedicating to Mom who has strongly carried on for us and whom we equally feed and give our own strength back to whenever needed.Although 3 years after Dad’s passing, I may not be a crack shot just yet, I can at least say that I’ve managed to aim dead center and increase my chances of getting a bullseye.Target up.Ready. Aim. Fire.Bullseye.……Next Round please.

Powerful, riveting, beautiful, passionate. It made me cry. Highly reccomended and a new favourite of mine.

I really wanted to give this a 5, but reading about how ill prepared America is to handle a crisis is not something I needed to read this week.

Very sad book! Holy smokes, his assessment of the disaster after Hurricane Katrina and the bedlam that was New Orleans is a real eye opener. His family history is haunting. His honesty is actually unnerving. I thoroughly enjoyed the book although the truth is, I would rather it never had had to be written.

I really enjoyed reading about some of the assignments that AC has been on as well as learning about his family. The book is very well written and very interesting. I had no idea he needed to be on the go all the time and loves adventure. He is very caring and respectful of all the people he meets in his travels.

I LOVED this memoir. The section about Katrina was absolutely heart-wrenching.

Listened to the audio book. Love that it is narrated by the author.

This book has a very unique tone. Until the chapter “Aftermath”, he talks of everything like... like an alien! Like, no passion, no emotions, a total outsider. It was almost scary. I wonder, hearing fragments of his life, how he leads his daily life now?

I really enjoyed this book. It was done in a journalistic style, which I really like. Plain and simple . It also show his more sensitive side.

I stumbled upon this book a few days ago and am very glad that I did. It's a quick, but significant read. I've never really paid that much attention to news anchors, but Anderson Cooper's life is worth a story. Born into the Vanderbilt lineage, Cooper lost his father and his brother at an early age. He has spent the rest of his life trying to cope with both of those losses and chose the medium of field reporting in order to do so. This particular book chronicles Cooper's 2005, a year fraught with the tsunami, the Iraq war, famine in Niger, and of course, Hurricane Katrina. Cooper shares his bird's eye view, having covered them all from the front lines.This book is much more than an annual almanac, however. Cooper weaves his life story into the disasters of 2005, and in the process, connects his losses with those of the greater world. If I had criticisms of the book, it would be that the writing is sometimes choppy (very news headline-ish) and the tangential stories told in the midst of chapters can make the timeline a bit confusing. However, I see what Cooper is doing - this book is almost a stream of consciousness for him as he tries to come to terms with the losses in his life. Beyond that, Cooper offers a window into the dissension that goes on in the mind of a journalist, attempting to maintain journalistic objectivity while remaining a compassionate human. It's a timely topic as the issue has arisen several times in Haiti. In any case, I highly recommend this book. To be sure, it is less than uplifting and offers a window into some of the more tortured parts of the human experience, but it's brutally honest about it. In addition, for anyone who's ever lost someone in their life, I found this book as a bit of a salve and I definitely recommend it. Finally, the book only added to the respect I've been building for Anderson Cooper in watching him cover the Haiti earthquake. He seems to be the model of what journalism should be.