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| Audition: A Memoir | 
 enlarge | Author: Barbara Walters
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy Used: $8.79
You Save: $21.16 (71%)
New (63) Used (69) Collectible (14) from $8.79
Avg. Customer Rating:  233 reviews
Sales Rank: 585
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 624
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.2
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.2 x 2.2
ISBN: 030726646X
Dewey Decimal Number: 070.92
EAN: 9780307266460
ASIN: 030726646X
Publication Date: May 6, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Lightly used; excellent cond.
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| Customer Reviews:
 No sugar coating here May 8, 2008
13 out of 17 found this review helpful
Barbara Walters doesn't sugar coat her life. Good for her! If you're going to tell your life story you need to tell the good, bad, and the ugly. And she does just that. I have even more respect for the woman now. She admits her mistakes in her affair and her broken marriages. She also admits the guilt she feels for her relationship with her disabled sister. The book was a little longwinded but an interesting read about an interesting and influential woman.
"Is Barbara A Journalist Or Is She Cher?" asks WalterCronkite May 22, 2008
13 out of 24 found this review helpful
"Walters nonetheless takes care to report on the very public drubbing she received at the hands of her male peers during the summer between her departure from "Today" and the start of her tenure at ABC. "I am trying to have an open mind about it," was the less-than-supportive statement her future co-anchor Harry Reasoner made to the papers. CBS News president Richard Salant asked, "Is Barbara a journalist or is she Cher?" while Walter Cronkite announced that Walters' move gave him "the sickening sensation that we're all going under." Rebecca Traister
By now Barbara Walters has been on every TV, radio and media event to publicize her new book, 'Audition'. There is very little we do not know about her. Barbara is an icon to many, as she was the first woman to co-star on NBC's 'Today'. She went on to appear on ABC's nightly news with Harry Reasoner. Her unfortunate experiences colored the feeling so many women had towards Barbara's male colleagues. She certainly tried to break the barriers.
Barbara's early childhood was difficult but it gave her a certain confidence on how to relate with almost anyone. Her father, Lou Walters, was rarely home and at one point wanted a divorce from his wife. Barbara's mother cajoled her into going to her father and begging him not to leave his family. From that moment on what interview could be more difficult than that? As we are learn the interviews came one after another and Barbara became the competitive woman she is today. She tells us in this book, that she is through auditioning, but if, someone were to call her and say that Osama Ben Laden was willing to grant an interview, she would be ready. Barbara tells us of the difficulty she had with her young daughter, Jackie. Jackie became a drug addict and left home. Barbara assisted Jackie in putting her life together and today they have a wonderful relationship. Jackie was named after Barbara's sister Jackie. She was disabled and Barbara spent much if her childhood alone. She did not want to bring anyone home. Though Barbara was very attentive to her sister and to her familyh. At a certain point in her life, she was the breadwinner for the entire family.
Barbara has been married three times. Many wonder if Barbara has been looking for her father. Why do we care and why do we wonder? Barbara reveals the loves and lives of some of the men she met along the way. The most shocking to many people, was her affair with Sen. Edward Brooks. With these revelations, Barbara has attempted to show us that she is a regular person who has had a life of ups and downs, miseries and happiness . She has experienced a life that most of us would envy but she wonders if she had the time to appreciate all that her life afforded. She has interviewed most of the famous people in her world. But did she have fun during this time?
"Surely the finest and most revealing moment in "Audition" comes near the end, when Walters describes being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey, for O magazine, on the occasion of her retirement from "20/20." Oprah asks her what it "means" to be Barbara Walters, a question that may exceed even the high Walters-ian bar for pop-psych pseudo-depth. Walters responds that she's not sure. "I realize how blessed I have been but sometimes I still feel inadequate," she tells Oprah. "I don't cook. I can't drive. Most of the time, when I look back on what I've done, I think: Did I do that? Why didn't I enjoy it more? Was I working too hard to see?" As Walters reports in her book, "I looked up at Oprah and saw that she had tears in her eyes." And there it is, the meaning of Barbara Walters. She can even make her interviewer cry." Nicholas Lemann
'Audition' has been likened to Katharine Graham's autobiography, 'Personal History'. There is a slight resemblance, but what is missing from Barbara Walter's book is the frankness of Katharine Graham. The inner revelation of the woman, and the one story after another of the public people she has interviewed. There are not enough stories interwoven to bring this storyline continuity. However, this book is highly entertaining and even at its great length, 579 pages.
Recommended. prisrob 05-22-08
How to Talk with Practically Anybody about Practically Anything
 finally she shows herself to be what she has always been. May 24, 2008
11 out of 23 found this review helpful
Um.. let me get this straight: A "journalist" who has to tell us who she slept with (and why), who for decades has been a fan of dictators with blood on their hands (Castro comes to mind) has now written a "controversial book" about it all? I'm sorry I was given this trash as a present... and even more sorry I read some of it (I couldn't bring myself to finish it). Purchase at your own peril.
Affirmative Sex May 23, 2008
10 out of 26 found this review helpful
Wow! Why is the most interesting thing in Barbara's life her sex life with a black man. Who else did she sleep with to get ahead? Why did she not reveal this? What role did affirmative action play? According to my book "The Angry Black Man's Guide to Success" that is exactly why white women get ahead of black men, because they always have the option of affirmative sex, sleeping with the boss and his friends. What doors did this affair open for her? What a waste of a book.
The Angry Black Man's Guide to Success: And the Women that Help Them
Pretentious, but what did you expect? May 24, 2008
10 out of 17 found this review helpful
I did expect to enjoy this book; I paid full price! Alas, I did not. Barbara Walters should have been a politician. The careful way she says one thing, but infers other things, is a study in political correctness combined with mud slinging. I was bored beyond belief after only a few chapters, so I skipped to look at the pictures, then to read her take on THE VIEW. And in my honest opinion, she lies throughout the chapter. But more than that, for all her living, Barbara Walters has never really learned to see what is going on with other people. If it didn't happen to her, she cannot understand it. And even things that DID happen to her seem beyond her comprehension. I recommend anyone who is interested in just one or two chapters of this book not think they then might like it all -- but go to a bookstore, stand and read those chapters, and spare reading the rest. To add insult to injury, the book has a "rough cut" which means you can't even flip through it. Hmm, maybe Barbara DOES know something of human nature!
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