The Vanity Fair Diaries non è ancora stato pubblicato in Italia. Tina Brown fu l’editore che negli anni 80 riportò in vita Vanity Fair e nei suoi diari racconta dei suoi successi, delle sue battaglie, ma anche della sua vita personale, del suo matrimonio, e della nascita dei suoi due figli.
I love biographies, especially of people working in media and publishing, and I love Vanity Fair to which I subscribed for two years and I still occasionally buy, so I was really eager to read the autobiography (or better, journal) of one of the best editors Vanity Fair ever had.
Tina Brown was the young editor of Tatler magazine, but in 1983, Tina, then in her late twenties, left London to move to New York and become the editor of the just reborn Vanity Fair. Surrounded by a staff of talented editors, photographers, designers, and artist, Tina Brown tries to bring Vanity Fair back to its glory of the 1920s.
The journals are detailed. She recounts her working day, the problems she had at work, the power struggle to make sure she can publish a successful magazine. She talks about the successes, her pride when the magazine finally comes out. She meets many famous people, actors, musicians, photographers, politicians, presidents, and royals, and – the ones I was most interested in – many writers, from Nora Ephron to Martin Amis, from Tom Wolfe to Norman Mailer.
Although the Vanity Fair Diaries focuses mostly on her career and her job as editor, the reader gets also a glimpse to her personal life: her marriage to former Times editor Harry Evans, the premature birth of their son, the birth of her daughter, her struggle as a mother and a successful working woman, adapting to life in the United States, her relationship with her parents, the loss of friends, and more.
An insightful and well-written book, I found myself captivated by Tina’s recollections: I laughed, I felt sad, but mostly I couldn’t put it down.
