About book Between You And Me: A Memoir With 82-Minute DVD (2005)
I thought this book was simultaneously entertaining (for the most part) for the reader and self-serving for Mr. Wallace. It's ok that it was self-serving, because he's earned the right to have his say. However, on occasion I just felt he was a little bit too full of himself. His interview with Barbara Streisand, which he discusses in his book, almost out-raged me. His intent was likely to stir strong feelings in Ms. Streisand and in the people watching the interview, but I felt he crossed a line and asked questions which were way too personal.Mr. Wallace definitely has an ego - you don't do his job for as long as he has without having one. And I would argue that he needs to have a big ego to do the kind of work he has done as well as he had done it for as long as he has. But in this book I found Mr. Wallace's ego just a bit too "front and center" for my taste. I think he could have written this book to me more informative and less self promoting.
Mike Wallace was doing broadcast interviews when I was born, so his recollections were of nostalgic interest and historic significance. This was a book-on-CD and included interview excerpts with Eleanor Roosevelt, JFK’s body guard, Martin Luther King, Jr., LBJ, Malcolm X, Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat, the Shah of Iran, Frank Lloyd Wright, and other deceased giants of previous generations. I’d like to have heard the full interview on several of these guests and others he didn’t mention, like Ayn Rand. There’s an old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.” Wallace did. Strangely, though, we may not fully appreciate just how interesting our own times are until they pass us by.
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I listened to the audio version of the this book, which included actual broadcasting sound clips from some of the interviews Mike Wallace had over the course of 60 years in broadcasting journalism. He interviewed a guilt-laden secret service agent when Kennedy was shot, a member of the mafia, President Nixon and Reagan, Eleanor Roosevelt, Tina Turner, Malcolm X and leaders of other countries. The book was a memoir of his life in journalism and not so much about his personal life outside of the workforce.
—Kelly
This was a delightful book giving inside views of many of the people who were the most important leaders during my lifetime. I always loved 60 Minutes so I enjoyed the behind-the-scenes action. I also found Mike Wallace to be fair and professional which was really reinforced in this book.I also appreciated, as a Jewish person who truly wants to see peace in the Middle East with a two-state solution, that he feels the pro-Israel lobby to be extremely one-sided and to have the ear of too many politicians. I am sorry he had to suffer at the hands of that lobby.I especially enjoyed the short clips on the enclosed DVD. It really brought back memories.
—Georgia Roybal
