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The Halberstam Tribute Tour
Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: Alex Kotlowitz, books, Cynthia Gorney, David Halberstam, events, Frances FitzGerald, Gay Talese, in memoriam, Joan Didion, Neil Sheehan
Martin Schneider writes:
David Halberstam was probably the first serious American nonfiction writer I read, so news of his sudden death in April came as quite a shock to me.
I didn’t become a serious reader until college, but I read Halberstam’s The Breaks of the Game and The Powers That Be as a teenager, and both books had a profound effect on me. I don’t think I’ve ever read a better nonfiction book about professional sports—a subject I cared a lot about at the time—than The Breaks of the Game. The Powers That Be seemed likewise world-changingly important. There are many situations and stories from those books I can still summon at will.
I wasn’t certain whether Halberstam had been published in The New Yorker, but in fact, he was: the archive contains two items by him in the 1990s, one on Michael Jordan and one on Robert McNamara. I don’t know about Jordan, but there probably wasn’t a more qualified person in the world to discuss McNamara.
For all of these reasons, I was glad to see that a group of esteemed writers has volunteered to promote Halberstam’s posthumously published book The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War for Hyperion. The group includes Frances FitzGerald, Alex Kotlowitz, Cynthia Gorney, Neil Sheehan, Joan Didion, and Gay Talese, and the tour kicks off with seven events across the country on a single day. Here’s the schedule:
Halberstam Tribute Tour
9/25/2007
Adam Hochschild and Geoffrey Wolff
Portland, ME
Dexter Filkins, Frances Fitzgerald, Leslie Gelb, Lt. Gen.
(Ret) Harold G. Moore, Don Oberdorfer, and William Stueck.
New York, NY
Cynthia Gorney
San Francisco, CA
Anna Quindlen
Milwaukee, WI
Alex Kotlowitz
Chicago, IL
Bill Walton
San Diego, CA
Ward Just
Martha’s Vineyard, MA
9/26/2007
Neil Sheehan and Jim Wooten
Washington, DC
9/27/2007
Paul Hendrickson
Philadelphia, PA
9/30/2007
Nathaniel Philbrick
Nantucket, MA
10/3/2007
John Seigenthaler and John M. Seigenthaler
Nashville, TN
10/4/2007
Samantha Power
Boston, MA
10/15/2007
Joan Didion, Robert McNeil, Jon Meacham, and Gay Talese
New York, NY
More details at Hyperion and at the Emdashes Google Calendar.
About us
Hello! We're a small band of media enthusiasts, culture addicts, and journalists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, formerly a New Yorker fan site, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, politics, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Writing on theater: reviews (for Time Out Chicago; imperfect but workable search results)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
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