Another Life

About this book

In his remarkable new memoir, at once frank, audacious, canny, and revealing, Michael Korda, the author of "Charmed Lives and "Queenie, does for the world of books what Moss Hart did for the theater in Act One, and succeeds triumphantly in making publishing seem as exciting (and as full of great characters) as the stage. Here is a memoir that reads like a novel, sweeping the reader into another life on a tide of energy, wit, and a seemingly inexhaustible flow of marvelous anecdotes. Another Life is not just an adventure--the engaging and often hilarious story of a young man making his career--but the insider's story of how a cottage industry metamorphosed into a big business, with sometimes alarming results for all concerned. Korda writes with grace, humor, and a shrewd eye, not only about himself and his rise from a lowly (but not humble) assistant editor reading the "slush pile" of manuscripts to a famous editor in chief of a major publishing house, but also about the celebrities and writers with whom he worked over four decades. Here are portraits--rare, intimate, always keenly observed--of such larger-than-life figures as Ronald Reagan, affable and good-natured but the most re…