Journalism: Reading List

Nonfiction

  • All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians, and Artists by Terry Gross
  • All Over But the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg
  • All The President’s Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
  • America’s Mom: The Life, Lessons, and Legacy of Ann Landers by Rick Kogan
  • The Art of Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism by Kevin Kerrane and Ben Yagoda (editors)
  • The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq by George Packer
  • Ava’s Man by Rick Bragg
  • Be True to Your School: A Diary of 1964 by Bob Greene
  • Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News by Bernard Goldberg
  • Blood Libel: The Inside Story of General Ariel Sharon’s History-Making Suit Against Time Magazine by Uri Dan
  • The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn
  • Boys on the Bus by Timothy Crouse
  • Brinkley’s Beat: People, Places, and Events that Shaped My Time by David Brinkley
  • Completely MAD: A History of the Comic Book and Magazine by Maria Reidelbach
  • Deadlines and Datelines by Dan Rather
  • A Death in Texas: A Story of Race, Murder, and a Small Town’s Struggle for Redemption by Dina Temple-Raston
  • Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why: True Stories of Miraculous Endurance and Sudden Death by Laurence Gonzales
  • Devil in the WhiteCity: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
  • Dispatches by Michael Herr
  • Dispatches From the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival by Anderson Cooper
  • Drew Pearson Diaries: 1949-1959 by Tyler Abell (ed.)
  • E.W. Scripps and the Business of Newspapers by Gerald J. Baldasty
  • Fear and Loathing:On the Campaign Trail ’72 by Hunter S. Thompson
  • Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks
  • Flirting with Danger: Confessions of a Reluctant War Reporter by Siobhan Darrow
  • Florence Harding: The First Lady, the Jazz Age, and the Death of America’s Most Scandalous President by Carl Sferrazza Anthony
  • The Franchise: A History of Sports Illustrated Magazine by Michael MacCambridge
  • Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H. G. Bissinger
  • Friendly Fire: The Remarkable Story of a Journalist Kidnapped in Iraq, Rescued by an Italian Secret Service Agent, and Shot by U.S. Forces by Giuliana Sgrena
  • From Botswana to the Bering Sea: My Thirty Years with National Geographic by Thomas B. Canby
  • Front Row at the White House: My Life and Times by Helen Thomas
  • Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports by Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada
  • The General and the Journalists: Ulysses S. Grant, Horace Greeley, and Charles Dana by Harry J. Maihafer
  • A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures by Ben Bradlee
  • The Good Times by Russell Baker
  • The Great American Magazine: An Inside History of Life by Loudon Wainwright
  • Growing Up by Russell Baker
  • Gutenberg: How One Man Remade the World with Words by John Man
  • Hate Mail from Cheerleaders: And Other Adventures from the Life of Reilly by Rick Reilly
  • Helen Steiner Rice: Ambassador of Sunshine by Ronald Pollitt and Virginia Wiltse
  • Henry and Clare: An Intimate Portrait of the Luces by Ralph G. Martin
  • Hiroshima by John Hersey
  • Henry R. Luce: A Political Portrait of the Man Who Created the American Century by Robert E. Herzstein
  • Hold On, Mr. President by Sam Donaldson
  • A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League by Ron Suskind
  • I’ll Always Have Paris: A Memoir by Art Buchwald
  • In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences by Truman Capote
  • In Search of History: A Personal Adventure by Theodore H. White
  • Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt.Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer
  • Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
  • The Invisible Child: On Reading and Writing Books for Children by Katherine Paterson
  • Jim Murray: An Autobiography by Jim Murray
  • Legacy: A Biography of Moses and Walter Annenberg by Christopher Ogden
  • A Life on the Road by Charles Kuralt
  • Lincoln’s Journalist: John Hay’s Anonymous Writings for the Press, 1860-1864 by Michael Burlingame (ed.)
  • Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World’s War Zones by Peter Arnett
  • Luce and His Empire by W.A. Swanberg
  • A Man from Maine by Edward William Bok
  • The Man Who was Vogue: The Life and Times of Condé Nast by Caroline Seebohm
  • A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband, Danny Pearl by Mariane Pearl
  • The Model Man: A Life of Edward William Bok by Hans Krabbendam
  • Muckraking!: The Journalism that Changed America by Judith and William Serrin (editors)
  • Murrow: His Life and Times by A.M. Sperber
  • Naked in Baghdad: The Iraq War and the Aftermath as Seen by NPR’s Correspondent Anne Garrels by Anne Garrels
  • Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist by Brooke Kroeger
  • Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
  • Old Friends by Tracy Kidder
  • The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 by Ron Suskind
  • The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, a Death, and America’s Dilemma by Alex Kotlowitz
  • Personal History by Katharine Graham
  • A Place in the News: From the Women’s Pages to the Front Page by Kay Mills
  • The Pulitzer Diaries: Inside America’s Greatest Prize by John Hohenberg
  • The Pulitzer Prize: The Inside Story of America’s Most Prestigious Award by J. Douglas Bates
  • The Radioactive Boy Scout: The True Story of a Boy and His Backyard Nuclear Reactor by Ken Silverstein
  • A Reporter’s Life by Walter Cronkite
  • Reporting Iraq: An Oral History of the War by the Journalists Who Covered It by Mike Hoyt, John Palattella and Columbia Journalism Review
  • The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
  • Rupert Murdoch by Jerome Tuccille
  • School of Dreams: Making the Grade at a TopAmericanHigh School by Edward Humes
  • A Season on the Brink: A Year with Bobby Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers by John Feinstein
  • Sincerely, Andy Rooney by Andrew A. Rooney
  • Tell Them I Didn’t Cry: A Young Journalist’s Story of Joy, Loss, and Survival in Iraq by Jackie Spinner and Jenny Spinner
  • Ten Days that Shook the World by John Reed
  • Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt
  • Tell Them I Didn’t Cry: A Young Journalist’s Story of Joy, Loss, and Survival in Iraq by Jackie Spinner
  • This Just In: What I Couldn’t Tell You on TV by Bob Schieffer
  • Time: D-Day, 24 Hours that Saved the World by the editors of Time Magazine
  • Transition Game: How Hoosiers Went Hip-Hop by L.Jon Wertheim
  • Treason: How a Russian Spy Led an American Journalist to a U.S. Double Agent by Bill Powell
  • Uphill Walkers: Memoir of a Family by Madeleine Blais
  • Who Killed CBS?: The Undoing of America’s Number One News Network by Peter J. Boyer
  • Winning Pulitzers: The Stories Behind Some of the Best News Coverage of Our Time by Karen Rothmyer
  • Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean
  • Any titles by Molly Ivins

Fiction

  • The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer
  • The Fabulist: A Novel by Stephen Glass
  • Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson
  • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
  • The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams by Darcy Frey
  • A River Runs Through It, and Other Stories by Norman Maclean

Articles

  • “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” by Gay Talese (Esquire, April 1966)
  • “The Silent Season of the Hero” by Guy Talese (Esquire, July 1966)