Jones gives good blog?

After reading your story, it seems like Caro is a very formal man and would likely use Anus instead.

Really good story. I especially liked the part where you wrote about Andy Hughs- the production guy. Like me, I would bet that most people take for granted the book assembly . I always wondered why some hardcovers stay open and others close on their own. Couldn't help but think that at some point bound books will become a rare commodity. Did the old timers have any opinion of E Books? It does not seem like it would be their cup of tea.

 

I read the transcript aloud to a friend while we were visiting LBJ's ranch in Texas last year. We laughed so hard we almost peed our (non-Haggar) slacks.

 

You didn't get asthma-type symptoms too, did you?

 

No, but my money and my knife fell out of my pocket.

 

your money and your wha??

 

My knife. (Well, not really. LBJ had a problem with his money and his knife falling out of his pocket. Listen to the recording.)

 

That LBJ tape was awesome, thanks for posting.

 

Articles compliment each other well, I think. You win on style, the Times wins on scope (about Moses, at least--although, to be fair, you focus on some broader issues such as the printing of the book). Both had interesting details on topics the other story covered in less depth. I particularly enjoyed your recounting of the story about the hotel employee delivering the paper--the name was a nice touch the Times didn't have--and you adding the tidbit about Moyers working in the same building Moses does.

 

I think after each book is published, Caro promises the next one is almost written and should be done in two to three years. Never happens.

If Jones is here -- in interviews after the last one Caro talked about living a month in both Birmingham and a small Vietnamese village in order to get a feel for things for the presidency book (it was going to be one book at the time). Did he end up doing that?

 

Mr. Hat:

Caro's argument is that he has all the research done, or at least most of it, because this book was supposed to be the last one, and, well, because just about everybody is dead. So he just has to write it, and he has some pretty big chunks written. But I think even three years is optimistic. I'm guessing more like five.

I don't know about Birmingham. He did ask to go to Vietnam—according to Bob Gottlieb, he wanted to go for a year—but Knopf said no. So he did not go, at least not to live. But he definitely wanted to. He asked to.

 

Getting around to reading this now.

Intentional? I like it.

Nice story, as a whole.

 

I wonder if Jones and McGrath went to the same building:

Jones wrote:

"On the twenty-second floor of the Fisk Building in New York — an elegant brick giant built in 1921, stretching an entire block of West Fifty-seventh Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue"

McGrath wrote:

"Caro is the last of the 19th-century biographers, the kind who believe that the life of a great or powerful man deserves not just a slim volume, or even a fat one, but a whole shelf full. He dresses every day in a jacket and tie and reports to a 22nd-floor office in a nondescript building near Columbus Circle, "