Front Row at the White House: My Life and Times

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and insightful
Review: As I read this book I felt that Ms. Thomas was sitting in an easy chair across the room from me telling me an interesting story of her life covering the White House. The book gives an indepth, behind the scenes, view of covering the the White House, presidents, first ladies and families. Ms. Thomas explains many of the feelings and emotions that were not necessarily the stories but went along with the events. This is a very enjoyable book to read. I felt as though Ms. Thomas made me part of those exciting times.

Rating:
Summary: Great read! Interesting insights on 8 presidencies.
Review: Helen Thomas tells her story of nearly 40 years at the White House with a great balance of history, personal experiences, and humor.

Ms. Thomas is a fine writer who keeps the reader engaged in wanting to learn more about the office of the presidency from a behind the scenes view, the role of the media, the presidents' family life, and Ms. Thomas' own experience in becoming a Washington institution. It has altered how I view certain presidents, especially LBJ. I have also gained a new perspective on the media's role as a check and balance on our government (well, at least the responsible journalists).

I was surprised at how quickly I finished the book. Well done!!

Rating:
Summary: A Kinder Gentler Side to Her
Review: I have always assumed that this author would write a book that was full of nasty one liners and little back biting comments. I got that impress just because I have always felt her questions were very brash and aggressive (not that I have any problem with that). It turns out that the book had none of this aggressiveness. As a matter of fact I thought she went easy on all of the Presidents and First Ladies that she covered. The book started out with a rather dull, at least for me, run down of her life up to covering the White House. I was only interested in the White House coverage so this Bio bit of the book was mostly skipped by me.

The author laid out her recollections in a nice way. She first covered all the major events within each administration in chronological order. She then did the same for the Press Secretaries, First Ladies and then the Presidents. All of it was interesting with a good number of details about the individual people involved. She had a lot of stories to tell and they filled the book up nicely. Again my only complaint was that it seemed to me that she pulled some of her punches. She really did not give Nixon a lot of trouble for Watergate nor Reagan for Iran-Contra. I thought she was toughest on Clinton, but that could be due to my own likes and dislikes of the Presidents in question. Overall I liked the book and found it easy to read and full of new facts.

Rating:
Summary: Waste of a day
Review: I never really enjoyed her work and this did nothing to change my opinion. Just another annoying liberal with a mediocre book.

Rating:
Summary: It's a joy to read.
Review: The hours that I spent reading Helen Thomas' book have been a joy. If Helen has been re-reading her book, she must have filled in many more stories that have not been told. What a life Helen has had! As I was reading the book, I felt like going into the press room doing the routine of a White House correspondent every day and I could imagine the closeness that the correspondents had with the Presidents in the early years. "Don't lie" - her advice to any President. I hope journalists of today would follow her example of trying to be factual and objective, a quality that has been lost in the quest for circulation. The book has aroused my interest in the life of White House correspondents so much so that I have made a lot of efforts trying to track down "Thank You, Mr President" written in 1946 by Helen's colleague Merriman Smith. I have just started reading "some of the things that were overlooked in the big news of the day" as told by Smitty.

Rating:
Summary: helen, helen, helen...
Review: you have so much to offer yet you recoil when i think you will strike. yes, you have spent your life covering some of the most fascinating people in the world. and yes, you have great stories to tell. but you fail in opening your personal self to the reader when relating your incredible experiences. it seems like you give us the tip of the iceberg about your experiences and leave the rest to the imagination. we get a glimpse of your views as a reporter, but what about helen thomas the person? how did you PERSONALLY feel about the people and incidents that occurred during your tenure? what was your gut instinct as a woman about international crises and happenings during your career? you give us a nibble when we have prepared for a buffett. this book reads like a history book when it should read as a memoir. i leared quite a lot about dozens of issues and people that i was not aware of prior to this publication. unfortunately, i feel that i didn't learn as much about helen thomas, the person, as i wanted to as well.