Growing Up

by Russell Baker Narrated by Corey M. Snow

Overview

In this heartfelt memoir by the Masterpiece Theatre host, Pulitzer Prize winner, and groundbreaking New York Times columnist, Russell Baker traces his youth in the mountains of rural Virginia.



When Baker was only five, his father died. His mother, strong-willed and matriarchal, never looked back. After all, she had three children to raise. These were Depression years, and Mrs. Baker moved her fledgling family to Baltimore. Baker's mother was determined her children would succeed, and we know her regimen worked for Russell. He did everything from delivering papers to hustling subscriptions for the Saturday Evening Post. As is often the case, early hardships made the man.

Editorial Reviews

Richard Lingeman

''Growing Up'' is touching and funny, a hopeless muddle of sadness and laughter that bears a suspicious resemblance to real life....Like all the best humor, Mr. Baker's is grounded in truth and mellowed by a sense of the sadness in things.... His laughs are distilled from the juices of life. He draws from a time and a world very much in the American grain: memories of listening to grown-ups rocking on the porch and sonorously reciting cliches or of Depression evenings in Baltimore spent around the kitchen table with endless talk and cups of coffee. -- New York Times

From the Publisher

Praise for Growing Up and Russell Baker

“A wondrous book, funny, sad, and strong…[with scenes] as funny and touching as Mark Twain's.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review 

“Lovely haunting prose....[Baker] moves beyond the boundaries of his newspaper column to establish a place for this book among the most enduring recollections of American boyhoods—those of Thurber and Mencken, Aldrich and Twain.”—The Washington Post Book World

“One of the most heart-warming, inspiring, nostalgic, funniest, best-written books I have ever read.”—Ann Landers
 
"[Baker is] a precious national resource."—Neil Postman

“The saddest, funniest, most tragical yet comical picture of coming of age in the U.S.A. in the Depression years and World War II that has ever been written.”—Harrison Salisbury

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170522019
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	11/14/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

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