Working
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Caro gives us a glimpse into his own life and work. He describes what it was like to interview the mighty Robert Moses; what it felt like to begin discovering the extent of the political power Moses wielded; the combination of discouragement and exhilaration he felt confronting the vast holdings of the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Austin, Texas; his encounters with witnesses, including longtime residents wrenchingly displaced by the construction of Moses' Cross-Bronx Expressway and Lady Bird Johnson acknowledging the beauty and influence of one of LBJ's mistresses. He gratefully remembers how, after years of working in solitude, he found a writers' community at the New York Public Library, and details the ways he goes about planning and composing his books. Caro recalls the moments at which he came to understand that he wanted to write not just about the men who wielded power but about the people and the politics that were shaped by that power. And he talks about the importance to him of the writing itself, of how he tries to infuse it with a sense of place and mood to bring characters and situations to life on the page.
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What Hacker News says
- I highly recommend “Working” by Robert Caro, his latest book.
It’s an excellent book to start with if you want to get an exposure to his way of working and his thinking.
- Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing by Robert. A. Caro. He is known for his biographies of Robert Moses (The Power Broker) and of Lyndon Johnson, and for his extensive research of these subjects.
Early in the book, covering his early career when he was working as a journalist, one of his bosses gave him a lesson in investigative reporting in a nutshell: Just remember, turn every page. Never assume anything. Turn every goddamned page. The book contains various subsequent examples of him doing exactly that in various research endeavours, and also going to extreme lengths to put himself in a better mindset for writing whatever he is working on at the time, like moving to the area a subject grew up in to live there for a year to better research his early life.
There are examples of him sifting through many boxes of documents in an archive that would seem to be inconsequential, but then happening on a receipt or memo that is just an allusion to something that gives him the lead he needs to uncover some real information.
- - antifragile, Nassim Nicholas Taleb (the guy is smart, but insufferable)
- a short history of nearly everything, Bill Bryson
- working: researching, interviewing, writing by Robert Caro (I love just about everything he puts out)
- If there were another writer of non-fiction as deeply researched I'd compare McPhee to, it would be Robert Caro. I already knew from Caro's memoir Working that Caro did not use a tape recorder in his interviews with subjects, and from this article about McPhee's method, I learned that McPhee does not either. I'm a bit surprised: I'd have thought for such deep research one would want a recording to refer back to, but both seem to feel that the drawbacks of influencing their subjects outweigh their benefit.
- 51. The Dream Machine - A deep dive into the history of computing.
52. Mindstorms by Seymour Papert - Groundbreaking work on computers in education.
53. Sunburst and Luminary: An Apollo Memoir by Don Eyles - The Apollo Guidance Computer.
54. Build by Tony Fadell - Memoir and innovation lessons.
55. Fall of Carthage by Adrian Goldsworthy - Punic Wars and Carthage's fall.
56. Making PCR - The story of polymerase chain reaction development.
57. Moonwalking with Einstein - Memory training and championship.
58. The Rickover Effect by Theodore Rockwell - First nuclear-powered submarine.
59. The Idea Factory - Bell Labs and American innovation.
60. Hackers by Steven Levy - History of computer hackers.
61. Fire in the Valley - Personal computing revolution.
62. Monk in the Garden - Life of Gregor Mendel.
63. Leadership Moment - Lessons from leaders in crises.
64. The Man Who Discovered Quality - W. Edwards Deming and quality management.
65. Eccentric Orbits - Iridium satellite network's rescue.
66. The Road to Character - Human nature and moral development.
67. The Spy and the Traitor - Soviet spy Oleg Gordievsky's story.
68. Billion Dollar Spy - Cold War espionage.
69. Skunk Works - Lockheed's F-117 and SR-71 programs.
70. Working by Robert Caro - Insights into Caro's research.
71. The Wager by David Grann - 18th-century British maritime disaster.
72. Caro's LBJ Series - Biography of Lyndon B. Johnson.
73. The Prize by Daniel Yergin - Oil industry history.
74. The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf - Alexander von Humboldt's contributions.
75. Bad Blood by John Carreyrou - Theranos scandal.
76. Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson - Memoir and business insights.
77. The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz - Leadership lessons.
78. Billion Dollar Loser by Reeves Wiedeman - WeWork's rise and fall.
79. Tuxedo Park - Invention of radar during WWII.
80. Insisting on the Impossible - Edwin Land and instant photography.
- In an interview, Michael Lewis has said that he wrote 'Liar's Poker' as a cautionary tale, but it was taken as a 'How To' manual. Robert Caro has said (e.g. in 'Working') that he writes to expose how power is acquired and used in the US... which, as you say, also cuts both ways.
