A Long Way from Home: Growing Up in the American Heartland (Tom Brokaw)
List Price:
Our Price: $14.93
You Save: $7.02 (32%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 3 weeks
Buy Used: from $7.36 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Reader: Tom BrokawEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
Published: 2002-11-05
ISBN: 055375677X
Publisher: Random House Audio Voices
Book Reviews of A Long Way from Home: Growing Up in the American Heartland (Tom Brokaw)
Book Review: BORING STORIES FROM BROKAW'S YOUTH DIMINISH HIS REPUTATION
Summary: 2 Stars
Tom Brokaw must think that people care about every facet of his dull life--because he has elaborated on it in so much boring detail in this book that even Brokaw fans will throw their hands up after hearing another insignificant story and say "who cares."
Sadly, he comes across as a person who considered himself better than others and was incredibly insensitive when it came to class status. He often mentions in the book whether someone is "working class" and he claims that in high school "I was a member of the ruling class...it was a white man's and white boy's world" and writes about racism issues that deal with his going to school with Native Americans. If he thinks he is getting sympathy from the reader because he somehow grew beyond his bigotry it is hard to come to that conclusion through this book.
Brokaw is trying to build on his past "Greatest Generation" reputation by painting a picture of his childhood on the South Dakota prairie. But the problem is that it was a pretty boring childhood. Camp, summer jobs, trips to Minneapolis, fitting in at school--almost nothing happened to him that was anything unusual.
There are two exceptions that are worth hearing about. First, as a teenager he headed to New York City to appear on a game show with the South Dakota governor and ended up cheating on the show. Yes, he was part of the quiz shows scandals. This is something he probably should not have revealed.
Second, the only good thing about the book is that it tells the story of how this partying college kid was "counseled" to leave school by a caring professor who told him, "Get all the wine, women and song out of your system." Though this should embarrass the future anchorman, his professor used it to turn Brokaw's life around. Tom dropped out of college then begged the professor to let him back in as a serious student.
The book is also deceptive in length. It may look like a long book of over a couple hundred pages, but the types is double spaced and there are about 30 pages of picture-only pages mixed in the middle of chapters, so the actual length of the book would be about 100 pages in a normal book.
After reading this book any favorable opinion people have of Brokaw should decrease because he comes across as a smug, arrogant, rich guy who thinks his lowly upbringing was something special. It wasn't--he was raised the same way most other people were in the Midwest and nothing really changed for him until that college professor gave him a verbal kick in the pants to change his life.
Summary of A Long Way from Home: Growing Up in the American Heartland (Tom Brokaw)
Reflections on America and the American experience as he has lived and observed it, by the bestselling author of The Greatest Generation.In this beautiful memoir, Tom Brokaw writes of America and of the American experience. From his parents? life in theThirties, on to his boyhood along the Missouri River and on the prairies of South Dakota in the Forties, into his early journalism career in the Fifties and the tumultuous Sixties, up to the present, this personal story is a reflection on America in our time. Tom Brokaw writes about growing up and coming of age in the heartland, and of the family, the people, the culture and the values that shaped him then and still do today. His father, Red Brokaw, a genius with machines, followed the instincts of Tom's mother Jean, and took the risk of moving his small family from an Army base to Pickstown, South Dakota, where Red got a job as a heavy equipment operator in the Army Corps of Engineers' project building the Ft. Randall dam along the Missouri River. Tom Brokaw describes how this move became the pivotal decision in their lives, as the Brokaw family, along with others after World War II, began to live out the American Dream: community, relative prosperity, middle class pleasures and good educations for their children. "Along the river and in the surrounding hills, I had a Tom Sawyer boyhood," Brokaw writes; and as he describes his own pilgrimage as it unfolded?from childhood to love, marriage, the early days in broadcast journalism, and beyond?he also reflects on what brought him and so many Americans of his generation to lead lives a long way from home, yet forever affected by it.
In his earlier books, TV news anchor Tom Brokaw has leaned heavily on the experiences of others to remember and define what he calls "the Greatest Generation"--those who came of age during World War II and its aftermath. In A Long Way Home Brokaw turns inward to focus on his own experiences growing up in South Dakota, his early years a broadcaster working in a then-novel medium, and his still-deep connection to the Midwestern people, places, and values that shaped him. In this bluntly effective and homespun memoir, Brokaw argues that, no matter how far one may travel--say, to New York and through five decades of a successful broadcast journalism career--it's possible to remain a true creature of the heartlands. It's a message that is likely to resonate most emphatically with those of Brokaw's generation, though its basic premise can be applied more universally as well. --David Bombeck
Biographies & Memoirs Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Biographies & Memoirs Books
Voices of Our Time: Five Decades of Studs Terkel Interviewsby Studs Terkel
Highbridge Audio; Published: 2005-06-16; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $23.07
Price in other shops:
Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the Worldby Vicki Myron
Hachette Audio; Published: 2008-09-24; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $13.39
Price in other shops:
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White Houseby Jon Meacham
Random House Audio; Published: 2008-11-11; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $23.80
Price in other shops:
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Lifeby Alice Schroeder
Random House Audio; Published: 2008-09-29; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $20.80
Price in other shops:
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincolnby Doris Kearns Goodwin
Simon & Schuster Audio; Published: 2005-10-25; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $17.14
Price in other shops:
The Essential Barack Obama: The Grammy Award-Winning RecordingsRandom House Audio; Published: 2008-03-10; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $20.59
Price in other shops:
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and InheritanceRandom House Audio; Published: 2005-05-03; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $13.65
Price in other shops:
Too Fat to FishRandom House Audio; Published: 2008-11-11; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $19.77
Price in other shops:
A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity: A Memoirby Bill O'Reilly
Random House Audio; Published: 2008-09-23; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $18.95
Price in other shops:
The Last Lecture CDby Randy Pausch
Hyperion Audio; Published: 2008-04-01; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $9.50
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Audition: A Memoirby Barbara Walters
Knopf; Published: 2008-05-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.50
Price in other shops:
The Last Lectureby Randy Pausch, Jeffrey Zaslow
Hyperion; Published: 2008-04-08; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.00
Price in other shops:
Out of My Mindby Andy Rooney
PublicAffairs; Published: 2007-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.57
Price in other shops:
A Reporter's Lifeby Walter Cronkite
Ballantine Books; Published: 1997-10-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.80
Price in other shops:
The Greatest Generation Speaks: Letters and Reflectionsby Tom Brokaw
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2005-10-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.00
Price in other shops:
An Album of Memories: Personal Histories from the Greatest Generationby Tom Brokaw
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2002-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.74
Price in other shops:
The Greatest Generationby Tom Brokaw
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2001-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.90
Price in other shops:
Boom!: Talking About the Sixties: What Happened, How It Shaped Today, Lessons for Tomorrowby Tom Brokaw
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2008-10-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.47
Price in other shops:
Big Russ and Me: Father and Son: Lessons of Lifeby Tim Russert
Miramax; Published: 2005-05-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.62
Price in other shops:
Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sonsby Tim Russert
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2007-05-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.76
Price in other shops: