Reviewed
by: BigAl
Genre:
Memoir
Approximate
word count: 95-100,000
words
Availability
Click
on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes &
Noble, or Smashwords store
Author:
Now
retired, for 40 years Bob Fuss was a news correspondent for a series
of national radio networks.
“He
covered Congress for 23 years and traveled with half a dozen
presidential campaigns.
He
loves to travel and for work and pleasure has visited all 50 states
and more than 70 other countries.
He was
honored in 2015 with the Career Achievement Award for distinguished
reporting on Congress from the Radio and Television Correspondents
Association in Washington DC.”
Description:
“Taking
readers on a journey over the last four decades of news from
Hollywood to Washington and around the world from Andorra to
Zimbabwe. Ride the campaign plane with Ronald Reagan, get the inside
story of why Congress is such a disaster and share adventure travel
stories from a globetrotting correspondent. Retired CBS News
Correspondent Bob Fuss has traveled with half a dozen Presidents,
covered Congress for more than 20 years and includes travelogues from
his adventures around the world.
One
unique aspect of his story is that while millions of radio listeners
heard his reports every day, none knew he was disabled and has always
walked on crutches.”
Appraisal:
On the
radio, no one knows you're disabled. Born with “a whole range of
birth defects,” Bob Foss was never able to walk without crutches.
Yet from a young age he showed the talent to figure out how to
accomplish his goals, refusing to let his physical challenges hold
him back. After a stint at the college station at Stanford, Foss
started freelancing for the UPI radio network with one of his first
stories being the Patty Hearst kidnapping. He was hired by the
network based on that work before they realized he was disabled.
Kidnapped
by Nuns and Other Stories of a Life in Radio
tells a series of stories from Foss' life, most of which fall into
three groups, although some stories could be categorized in multiple
groups.
The
first kind of story is the “life in radio” part of the title.
These focus on his duties and assignments as they changed over time,
starting in the San Francisco area and moving back and forth across
the country to Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, and DC.
The
second kind of story is Foss' take on particular stories he covered.
As he explains early in the book, as a journalist he was required to
be non-biased in his reporting. Now that he's retired, Foss can
express his personal opinion, which he does, letting his thoughts
creep in at times. Yet his explanations of stories and discussions of
politicians from both major parties still felt non-partisan and
balanced. His opinions were both good and bad about the stances of
both parties and the people he dealt with, depending on the person
and situation. It never felt like he had an ax to grind which made me
feel his opinions could be trusted.
The
last type of story were about his travels, sometimes for work, but
often not. Foss has been to all fifty states and numerous countries,
both for work and on his own. I'm a fan of travel stories, but it was
this group of stories I found the least entertaining. He chose
interesting places to highlight, many that I wasn't familiar with and
enjoyed learning about, but for me, something was missing from some
of them. What that is, I'm still trying to figure out, but think it
might be that they sometimes felt like too much of a recitation of
the itinerary and failed to look at the bigger picture of how the
experiences helped Foss grow.
Format/Typo
Issues:
An
insignificant number of typos.
Rating:
**** Four Stars
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