Dispatches from the Edge by Anderson Cooper

I confessed my embarrassing celebrity crush to @staxsonstaxs when she did her HILARIOUS stories a while back, but the time has come for me to share it with the world (or at least, the bookstaverse). For as long as I can remember, I've had a crush on Anderson Cooper. My mom broke it to me gently that it was never gonna happen when I was still a girl 🤣 but he remains my favorite journalist! Swipe to see the scene from The Mindy Project that captures my feelings exactly. Now that we've completed the confessional portion of today's program, we can move on to the review. If you've been following my account for any length of time, you know your girl loves a memoir. I read The Rainbow Comes and Goes by Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt a couple years ago and loved it, but didn't know Cooper had published anything else until I stumbled on Dispatches from the Edge at my beloved McKay's. Dispatches is a memoir told in vignettes, tracing Cooper through a year in his journalistic life, whose events mirror those from his past. As Cooper grapples with the horrors he reports on from Baghdad to New Orleans, the line between personal and professional trauma becomes blurred. This one won't be for everyone - it is uncomfortably graphic - please see the list of TWs below and feel free to DM me for more info. Listening to the audio (narrated by the author) in my car meant I had built in breaks whenever things got too heavy, but I found myself taking the long route and not minding if there was traffic. Cooper knows how to tell a story, and this book is no exception. It is compellingly written and thought provoking, grappling with the idea that journalism is callous and exploitative as often as it is helpful. If you've ever wondered how international correspondents do what they do, how they "handle it," then this one is for you.⠀
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Trigger/content warnings: suicide, death of a child, death of a parent, violence toward animals, graphic images