Copies of Katharine Graham's "Personal History" available for book club discussion

Copies of Katharine Graham's Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, "Personal History," are now available for check out at the Decorah Public Library.  The library's history book club will meet Thursday, February 19th at 6:30 p.m. on the 2nd floor of the library to discuss the book.  The event is open to the public and newcomers are encouraged to attend.

"Personal History," as its title suggests, is a book composed of both personal memoir and history.  The book not only discusses the history of the "Washington Post," which she and her husband ran, but Phil Graham's plunge into manic-depression and suicide.  Best of all, it is the story of Kay Graham herself, who overcame many struggles to become the head of a great newspaper and a great company, a famous woman in her own right.  Graham's book is populated with a cast of fascinating characters, from fifty years of presidents (and their wives), to Steichen, Brancusi, Felix Frankfurter, Warren Buffett (her great advisor and protector), Robert McNamara, George Schultz (her regular tennis partner), and, of course, the great names from the "Post:" Woodward, Bernstein, and Graham's editor partner, Ben Bradlee. She writes of them, and of the most dramatic moments of her stewardship of the Post (including the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, and the pressmen's strike), with acuity, humor, and good judgment. Her book is about learning by doing, about growing and growing up, about Washington, and about a woman liberated by both circumstance and her own great strengths.
 
Call the library at 382-3717 for more information.