"[THE TIME OF OUR LIVES] is an examination of the soul of a politics and a culture...This book helps, by teaching, encouraging, challenging, chronicling - by giving thanks and raising grave concerns, too, but always laced with hope illuminated by faith."—The National Review
"Noonan's new book shines...[Her] prose is marked by a democratic straightforwardness...She demonstrates a profound understanding of the ambitions that drive politicians."—RealClear Politics
"Noonan's eye for poetry in the mundane allows her to articulate the time of our lives, even as she appreciates each individual person's life and actions."—The Weekly Standard
"Bravo, Peggy Noonan. The English historian J. H. Plumb once said that what we need is more 'heart-wise' historians. Heart-wise Noonan certainly is."—David McCullough
"No one writes more beautifully about America than Peggy Noonan-our politics, our culture, our lives. She's the best friend every nation should have, the one who will tell you everything that's wrong with you, but say it with so much love, and such wry honesty that you can't help but nod your head in agreement."—Megan McArdle, columnist, Bloomberg View
"Peggy Noonan is a national treasure. Her words and essays have swept through decades, capturing events and moments. With grace and optimism, Noonan confides in the reader as she would a dear friend. And in a world that is clicking too fast, she reminds us how the best of life is found in the details: of where we have been, and of what we are now."—Matt Drudge
"Peggy Noonan's columns and essays are exquisitely written and perceptively argued. I am a devoted reader. Her writings illuminate the issues and provide a vision of our future."—Henry Kissinger
"Some people think politics is all about money and power. Others imagine it is all about philosophy and the power of ideas. Peggy Noonan knows, and teaches us all, that politics is about human beings living together. That means that understanding politics requires more than cynicism and more even than idealism — it requires sensitivity, experience, wisdom and insight. Noonan does more than tell us that: she shows us, because she possesses all of these in droves. She approaches the most pressing questions of American life with an appreciation for the highs and lows that make us all human, and a knack for seeing exactly what her subjects want to hide. A collection like this one helps us appreciate the enduring value of such insight: Noonan's writing is always about current events, yet also always full of timeless lessons on how to look at politics and really see it."—Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs
"The only predictable thing about Noonan's column is its unpredictability."—Tim Russert
"Superb...[Noonan's] insights are acute, sharply stated, and extremely moving...The lasting message of this powerful collection is that the bubble that today's politicians live in, insulated from the people they govern, uniquely threatens the American commonwealth."—Publisher's Weekly
Conventional wisdom assigns most ambitious women to a place on the political left. So how, then, has Noonan carved out a remarkably successful career as a journalist, presidential speechwriter, and author on the political right? In this impressive collection of speeches and journalistic commentaries, readers hear the convention-defying voice that has made Noonan a national presence as an exponent of conservatism. Readers hear that distinctive voice in, for instance, an elegiac reflection on the exceptional normalcy and fair-mindedness of fellow journalist Tim Russert, in an acerbic indictment of President Obama for not joining with other world leaders in a show of solidarity after the Charlie Hebdo killings, and in a hopeful prediction of the difference Pope Francis will make for Catholicism. Addressing other topics-including 9/11, the Iraq War, Obamacare, illegal immigration, the machinations of both Clintons, and internecine war in the Republican Party-that voice varies considerably in tone yet develops a coherent perspective of sober concern about the trajectory of American culture and politics. But readers may value most the exceptionally candid and capacious introduction, in which Noonan reflects on her childhood, her maturation as a journalist, and her philosophy as a professional writer. A refreshingly spontaneous and engaging collection.—Booklist, Starred Review
"Thoroughly enjoyable and intellectually compelling... Noonan captures her subjects—people and society, moments and eras—with an excellence and durability to which I, as a writer, must aspire but know, deep down, I will rarely achieve."—Ross Kaminsky, The American Specatator
"THE TIME OF OUR LIVES is terrific...it's just great thinking turned to print."—The Buffalo News
2015-09-21
A former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and weekly columnist for the Wall Street Journal assembles pieces from her long career as a conservative political voice. Noonan (Patriotic Grace: What It Is and Why We Need It Now, 2008, etc.) never allows her political preferences to slip far beneath the flowing surface of her skillful prose. Although some of the pieces are from the early 1980s, most are fairly recent—or have some recent resonance. There will be some surprises for those who have not read her often. She loves The Sopranos, admires Jackie Kennedy and Tennessee Williams, praises President Barack Obama for a sensitive comment, and even zaps George W. Bush occasionally. She also chides the GOP for seeming to fall apart in the lead-up to the 2008 presidential election. But she continually celebrates an American past whose virtues she highlights while ignoring the social failures of segregation, the denial of equal rights for women, and the vile biases experienced by people who were not fortunate to live their lives in Ozzie and Harriet's neighborhood. In one piece, Noonan discusses the GOP's taking the South from Democrats without mentioning much about the civil rights issues that triggered that transformation. The author writes in praise of men like John Wayne (we need more men like him, in all walks of life), calls Reagan a great president (and slams Edmund Morris' unconventional Reagan biography, Dutch, 1999), and blasts the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church for failures in the recent sex scandals. There are sharp words for Bill and Hillary Clinton and Obama, whose health care initiatives she calls a "blunder" and a "miscalculation." Her eloquence soars in her pieces about 9/11, and she disdains frequent polling and bemoans the loss of privacy. Noonan is quick to generalize, to soak sentences in nostalgia, and to ignore contradictory or uncomfortable evidence, but she does provide moments that pierce and sentences that linger.
