Miles Gone By: A Literary Autobiography

From Publishers Weekly
The conservative writer and Firing Line host has published so many millions of words in five decades of polemics and public musing that amassing a sort of autobiography required little more than sandwiching a selection of 50 essays between a brief preface and epilogue. The extracts range in subject from his silver-spoon boyhood and boarding-school days to the lives and deaths of the many prominent people he has known. Fame came early, with Buckley's 1951 God and Man at Yale, excerpted here, which lambasted liberal bias at elite American colleges. (Far superior, though, is the sparkling memoir of his war-veteran class of 1950 at Yale.) An instant darling of conservatives who needed a spirited new voice, Buckley founded the National Review, whose writers became the core of his widening circle of influential acquaintances. While sailing, touring and media punditry take up much of the collection, the most memorable pieces are about such offbeat friends as the tragic Whittaker Chambers. Nevertheless, some portraits are merely laudatory epitaphs. Approaching 80, Buckley notes that his sporting days are about over, but "[s]o to speak, I can still ski on a keyboard." Like skiing, his keyboard has its ups and downs. B&w photos. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description
Here is a unique collection of fifty years of essays by William F. Buckley, Jr. chosen to form an unconventioanl career as the consevative writer par excellence.

From the Publisher
This book includes a free audio CD featuring 48 minutes of excerpts read by William F. Buckley Jr. and each introduced by the legendary voice of Walter Cronkite.

From the Inside Flap
Miles Gone By is a landmark literary event: the autobiography of William F. Buckley Jr., woven from personal pieces composed over the course of a celebrated writing life of more than fifty years. Here is Buckley the boy, growing up in a family of ten rambunctious children, with a saintly mother and spirited father; Buckley the daring young political controversialist and enfant terrible whose debut book, God and Man at Yale, was a shocking New York Times bestseller; Buckley the editor of National Review, widely hailed as the founder of the modern conservative movement; Buckley the politician and mischievous humorist; Buckley the proud father and devoted husband; Buckley the spy and novelist of spies; and Buckley the yachtsman and bon vivant. Along the way, you'll be treated to Buckley's romance with wine, his love of the right word, his intoxication with music, and his joy in skiing and travel. You'll also meet Buckley's friends: Ronald Reagan, "zestfully concerned for the company of others"; Henry Kissinger "amusing, curious, ever-so-lightly irreverent"; Clare Boothe Luce, "a renowned beauty and man of affairs (a feminist, she stoutly resisted the stylistic effronteries of she-speech)"; Tom Wolfe, with "a trace of a Virginia accent, and of course there is the renowned diffidence, the matador taking tea with his mother"; John Kenneth Galbraith, who "consistently writes pleasant tributes to my own books, inevitably advising the reader that my political opinions should be ignored, my fiction or accounts of life at sea appreciated"; David Niven, of whom "my wife suspected that his magic was to induce a whim, so that he could gratify it"; and many others. This unforgettable work paints a wonderful and indelible picture of an extraordinary man and his extraordinary life.

About the Author
William F. Buckley Jr., a syndicated columnist, author, editor, television host, and adventurer, is the founder of National Review and was the host of the Emmy Award-winning Firing Line, the longest-running program in television history with the same host. He is the award-winning author of many bestsellers, starting with God and Man at Yale. He lives in Connecticut.


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The conservative writer and Firing Line host has published so many millions of words in five decades of polemics and public musing that amassing a sort of autobiography required little more than sandwiching a selection of 50 essays between a brief preface and epilogue. The extracts range in subject from his silver-spoon boyhood and boarding-school days to the lives and deaths of the many prominent people he has known. Fame came early, with Buckley's 1951 God and Man at Yale, excerpted here, which lambasted liberal bias at elite American colleges. (Far superior, though, is the sparkling memoir of his war-veteran class of 1950 at Yale.) An instant darling of conservatives who needed a spirited new voice, Buckley founded the National Review, whose writers became the core of his widening circle of influential acquaintances. While sailing, touring and media punditry take up much of the collection, the most memorable pieces are about such offbeat friends as the tragic Whittaker Chambers. Nevertheless, some portraits are merely laudatory epitaphs. Approaching 80, Buckley notes that his sporting days are about over, but "[s]o to speak, I can still ski on a keyboard." Like skiing, his keyboard has its ups and downs. B&w photos. Agent, Lois Wallace. (July) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.


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