$12.32 with 56 percent savings

List Price: $27.99

FREE delivery May 20 - 21. Details

Select delivery location

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

$$12.32 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Ships from

YourOnlineBookstore

Ships from

YourOnlineBookstore

Sold by

YourOnlineBookstore

Sold by

YourOnlineBookstore

Returns

Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt

Returns

Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt

This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt. You may receive a partial or no refund on used, damaged or materially different returns.

Read full return policy

Payment

Secure transaction

Payment

Secure transaction

We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more

Details

$11.19

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns

Hardcover, 580 numbered pages with Dust Jacket. DJ shows light edge / corner wear. Binding good, pages have no writing / highlighting. Includes an old newspaper article about the author. Fulfilled by Amazon. Hardcover, 580 numbered pages with Dust Jacket. DJ shows light edge / corner wear. Binding good, pages have no writing / highlighting. Includes an old newspaper article about the author. Fulfilled by Amazon. See less

FREE delivery Tuesday, May 21 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35

Select delivery location

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

$$12.32 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Enhancements you chose aren't available for this seller. Details

${cardName} not available for the seller you chose

${cardName} unavailable for quantities greater than ${maxQuantity}.

Sold by Pippin3428 and Fulfilled by Amazon.

Other sellers on Amazon

New & Used (64) from $0.01 + $3.99 shipping

Follow the author

Harold Evans

+ Follow

More books from this author

My Paper ChaseMerchant Video

Image Unavailable

Image not available for
Color:

To view this video download Flash Player

VIDEO

My Paper Chase: True Stories of Vanished Times Hardcover – November 5, 2009

by Harold Evans (Author)

4.3 158 ratings

See all formats and editions

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$12.32","priceAmount":12.32,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"12","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"32","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"hzpkw70E8y%2Bb%2FgICjyM7tKoj7q258Jet716g%2B0TIW7z8Kg9%2BH1Ji8lkSdd6P12yyLWU2ruj6MB0%2BfTihTWtZ3uTkZiVqKUJpEvIg%2FjMXERkA6rEQge9cb3io8%2FBeZYPQW8fujF%2BrJ4HrTS3r1kC1IV6t8EXLSZk7ZMppHk07GONo0OM9pVlvSAYc7Tdhskjp","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$11.19","priceAmount":11.19,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"11","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"19","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"hzpkw70E8y%2Bb%2FgICjyM7tKoj7q258Jet1AWotXLOGOmUZj1I5r7Wol3rT6Q4Q2%2BSflgQikF599qqD%2BY0HAR0G3khWaZIe1c%2B05P9ChRoutjUdWKXoQzEWPTREN%2BhS%2Fx2ByOo2Iucej2N0bP9EARJxOZJdoW4U5psvXAmuXI14QUw0Z%2F1v1sOsg%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

In My Paper Chase, Harold Evans recounts the wild and wonderful tale of newspapering life. His story stretches from the 1930s to his service in WWII, through towns big and off the map. He discusses his passion for the crusading style of reportage he championed, his clashes with Rupert Murdoch, and his struggle to use journalism to better the lives of those less fortunate. There's a star-studded cast and a tremendously vivid sense of what once was: the lead type, the smell of the presses, eccentrics throughout, and angry editors screaming over the intercoms. My Paper Chase tells the story of Evans's great loves: newspapers and Tina Brown, the bright, young journalist who became his wife.

In an age when newspapers everywhere are under threat, My Paper Chase is not just a glorious recounting of an amazing life, but a nostalgic journey in black and white.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Old-school newspapering comes alive in this scintillating memoir. Anglo-American journalist Evans (The American Century) reminisces about his rise up the ladder of English newspapers to its pinnacle as editor of the Sunday Times and his late-career hop across the ocean to run Condé Nast Traveler and the publisher Random House. The author depicts British journalism as a more rugged affair than the American version; editor Evans dodges British laws that permit prior restraint of news stories by the government, gets sued by the Irish Republican Army and battles a thuggish printers' union that he hates even more than he does his boss, Rupert Murdoch. America presents its own unique hardships, including protracted discussions with Marlon Brando over acquiring his memoirs, during which the blowsy thespian accuses Evans of being a CIA agent. Evans creates a lively, evocative portrait of 20th-century journalism: the mad deadline pressure of the copy-desk, stocked with Dickensian characters; the epic investigative pieces that make reporting a kind of spy craft; the obsessive pull of editorial crusades against official wrongdoing. Written with self-deprecating humor and quiet conviction, this is a fine valedictory for a heroic style of journalism one hopes still has a future. Photos. (Nov. 5)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

GREAT PRAISE FOR MY PAPER CHASE:

"[My Paper Chase] is a fight song that revels in the music of times past...It celebrates bygone glories and dwells on the truths of good journalism that still obtain." (New York Times Book Review David Carr)

"Not only is [My Paper Chase] a loving homage to the joys of old-fashioned British newspapering, but it has allowed Mr. Evans to tell at proper length stories that should now be taught as classics in journalism schools worldwide."

(New York Times Simon Winchester)

"Despite the title, Evans's memoir is more than relevant in the age of computer news; good reporting still demands what Evans exemplifies here-honesty, courage and dogged determination." (Kirkus Reviews)

"Old school newspapering comes alive in this scintillating memoir. Evans creates a lively, evocative portrait of 20th-century journalism...Written with self-deprecating humor and quiet conviction, this is a fine valedictory for a heroic style of journalism one hopes still has a future." (Publishers Weekly)

"A refreshing memoir...[Evan's] jettisons hand-wringing over the 'vanished times' of its melancholy subtitle for one man's unquenchable enthusiasm for his life's work... My Paper Chase is the Gospel of Evans, and the gospel makes juicy copy." (Christian Science Monitor Justin Moyer)

"Engaging...In this readable, almost wistful memoir, Sir Harold Evans remains the rare self-made Englishman who changed British journalism." (The Washington Post Leonard Downie Jr.)

"Evocative and enjoyable...Evans has a young man's perennial enthusiasm: he is 81 going on 18. Reading his autobiography, one quickly grasps how he became the most successful editor of his generation. He exudes a combination of boundless enthusiasm, relentless energy and an almost childlike delight in the sheer wonderfulness of newspapers. How can they not survive? ...one feels the warmth of his sunny personality even as the lights seem to be going out in much of print journalism. He saw the best of it - o, lucky man!" (The Times Robert Harris)

[My Paper Chase] is a work of extravagant exuberance. It is tough, optimistic, full of verve and friendship, written with clarity and energy, and goes like a train..." (The Telegraph Melvyn Bragg)

""Inspiring" is an overused word. My Paper Chase truly is. Anyone who feels cynical about public life in general, and journalists in particular, should drink down this wonderful book in a single gulp. Harry Evans was the great crusader of the twentieth century British press. His memoir, which is also jaw-dropping social history, is the best education possible in what true journalism's all about." (BBC Andrew Marr)

"SIR Harold "Harry" Evans remains one of the great figures of modern journalism. For this reason, and because the kind of campaigning, reporting-based work he stood for is threatened as never before, his autobiography, written as he turned 80, is both gripping and timely." (The Economist)

"Like many others I was lucky to have worked with him. His book is illuminating and entertaining on his personal history and it gives a valuable record of what used to be known as English provincial life; more vital then, perhaps than now. But the important reason to read it is that it tells you how good newspapers were once made and why they still matter." (The Guardian Ian Jack)

About the Author

Harold Evans is the author of the New York Times bestseller The American Century. He was the founding editor of Conde Nast Traveler, editorial director of U.S. News & World Report, and president and publisher of Random House, where he published a record number of bestsellers. He was editor of the London Sunday Times and of The Times. He lives in New York.

From The Washington Post

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Leonard Downie Jr. Harold Evans, a Manchester-born British newspaper editor who became an American citizen in 1993, is not as well known as he should be in his adopted country. He has written two best-selling books about American history, published a record number of bestsellers by other authors as president of Random House, started Conde Nast Traveler magazine and served as editorial director of U.S. News & World Report. In Britain, however, before he moved to the United States in 1983, Harold Evans was nationally known as the most influential newspaper editor of his time. As the crusading editor of the Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981, he championed investigative journalism that, among other accomplishments, achieved justice for the deformed child victims of the drug thalidomide and exposed the treason of Soviet spy Kim Philby. He repeatedly and successfully challenged heavy-handed British government secrecy and censorship, significantly increasing freedom of the press in a country without a First Amendment. He mentored countless prominent British journalists and filled bookstores with their Sunday Times books. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004. Evans's memoir, aided by prescient personal diaries, is a victory lap, recounting in detail his remarkable climb from teenage cub reporter, raised in a working-class family in England's Midlands, to the top of British journalism, without the usually requisite Oxbridge pedigree. Although his engaging, conversational narrative is sprinkled with wry self-deprecation and generous credit for many people he worked with over the years, its hero is clearly the first-person narrator, to a sometimes cloying degree. At one point, Evans describes his editorship of the Sunday Times as "my power base as a defender of press freedom." As its subtitle implies, his memoir also is an excursion into nostalgia for the pre-computer days of swashbuckling, competitive British newspaper journalism with metal type, multiple editions, crowded newsrooms, constant deadlines, gruff editors, reputation-making scoops, groundbreaking investigative reporting and tense conflicts with unions and the government. Some of the dense detail is too peculiar to British life and newspapering, even for the journalists among American readers. But the story picks up when Evans narrates campaigns he directed as an editor, first at the provincial Northern Star and then at the London-based Sunday Times. His campaigns combined aggressive reporting, editorializing and even lobbying to right wrongs. They included a drive at the Northern Star to exonerate a man who had been wrongly executed for murder and the Sunday Times crusade to win financial compensation for children born with foreshortened or no limbs after their mothers had taken thalidomide for morning sickness between 1958 and 1962. The latter effort included one of Evans's many confrontations with criminal contempt and official secrecy laws that had restricted reporting in Britain. Evans's campaigns and his creation of the pioneering Sunday Times's investigative team paralleled the expansion of investigative reporting in the United States, following the U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing publication of the Pentagon Papers and The Washington Post's Watergate reporting. But there was a difference that Evans does not really address. Most American newspapers keep their news reporting, including investigative reporting, separate from their editorial opinions -- and their editors do not personally lobby for reform of problems revealed by their reporting. Evans does make clear his pride in his campaigns, the hallmark of his career. And he lists rules for them. "The paper had to have investigated the subject thoroughly enough to be sure that there was a genuine grievance, it had to have defined a practical remedy, it had to be ready to commit the resources for a sustained effort, and had to open its columns to counterarguments and corrections of fact," he writes. "No campaign should be ended until it had succeeded -- or was proven wrong." When Rupert Murdoch bought the daily and Sunday Times newspapers, he persuaded Evans to become editor of the daily Times in 1981, only to force him out a year later, apparently because Evans was too independent of his control. That, and Evans's divorce from his first wife and marriage to a much younger British journalist, Tina Brown, were eventually followed by the couple's move to America. "If he hadn't given me a shove," Evans writes about his showdown with Murdoch, "I wouldn't have enjoyed twenty-five exuberant years exploring new frontiers." In addition to Evans's busy second act in American magazine and book publishing, Tina Brown has been editor, in succession, of Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and Talk magazines, and founder of the Daily Beast Web site. They have lived in a two-story apartment on New York's Upper East Side and a beach house in Westhampton, an area that reminds Evans of the English seaside. Yet he races through their quarter-century in America at the tail end of a book that dwells on his life in Britain working at newspapers. In this readable, almost wistful memoir, Sir Harold Evans remains the rare self-made Englishman who changed British journalism. downiel@washpost.com
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0316031429
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Little, Brown and Company; 1st edition (November 5, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 592 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780316031424
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316031424
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.95 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 2 x 9.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,737,446 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,591 in Journalist Biographies

Customer Reviews:
4.3 158 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Harold Evans

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Harold Evans is the author of two critically acclaimed landmark histories of America: the New York Times bestseller "The American Century" and "They Made America: Two Centuries of Innovators," selected by Fortune magazine on its own 75th anniversary as one of the best books of the previous 75 years. WGBH television made four documentaries based on Evans's work.

Evans first came to America in 1956 as a Harkness Fellow at the University of Chicago and Stanford University; he traveled through 40 states and reported for The Manchester Guardian his first-hand experiences of the civil rights battles in the Deep South. On his return, he became assistant editor of the sister paper, the Manchester Evening News, then editor of the leading provincial daily, The Northern Echo, where he succeeded in getting a resistant government to establish a life-saving program for the detection of cervical cancer, and won a royal pardon for a man wrongly executed for murder.

Appointed editor of the influential London Sunday Times in 1967 and then of The Times in 1981, Evans was voted by British journalists the greatest all-time editor and also awarded the European gold award for the investigations and campaigns he led: his Insight team exposed the spy Kim Philby, tracked the cause of the crash of a DC-10 airliner near Paris (then the world's most deadly crash), and won justice for the children affected by thalidomide.

Settling in America in 1982, after a famous battle with Rupert Murdoch, he was editorial director of US News & World Report, founding editor of Condé Nast Traveler, and president of Random House from 1990 to 1997. He remains a contributing editor of US News, is editor at large at The Week magazine, and is a frequent broadcaster on American affairs for the BBC.

In 2004 he was knighted for his service to journalism. He is now an American citizen who lives in New York with his wife, Tina Brown, and their son and daughter.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

158 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

ashton

Great look at journalism in England in 60's and 70's.

Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2011

Verified Purchase

This is a revealing review of Harold Evans career in journalism. Starting out in the north of England, a working class background, his RAF service, early provincial newspaper work, and eventually landing him in London as the editor of The Sunday Times in what was to become, thanks to Evans, its heyday. The book reads very well, is entertaining, but will be much more enjoyable if you're familiar with the news stories of the time, especially the mid 60's to 70's in England. The Sunday Times coverage of Thalidomide, Bloody Sunday (and the "Troubles" in N. Ireland), Kim Philby, the 7 Day War etc are some of the stories covered in detail in the book. Evans was rigorous in his attention to details, and innovative in his use of graphics and especially photography while at The Sunday Times. It's also amazing how much of his own diaries, notes, etc he still seems to possess after all these years!
His career in the US hasn't been as focused as it was in London, being defined by his work at The Sunday Times, so the US portion of the book including his work at US News and World Report, Conde Naste Traveller, book publishing etc wasn't as interesting to me.
All in all it's amazing to read all his accomplishments as a journalist, a crusading, impatient with the status quo journalist and editor, I should say. His books are equally impressive, from the "Pictures on a Page" (a journalist and picture editors text book from the 1970's), up to his most recently produced, and brilliantly illustrated, "Century" book. He ends this memoir, not on a "sigh" for the good old days, but rather the understanding that people want and need reliable information. That is still important and will be in the future, whether they get this information on a printed sheet, or a tablet computer.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

D. Prescott

The English do english better than we Americans

Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2009

Verified Purchase

If there was ever any doubts that the English have a better vocabulary than we Americans this book should dispel most of them. It told the story of a remarkable man from cradle to present. If you don't have a PHD in English lit be prepared to read quite a few sentences over. All in all, a good read.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Eugenie S. Abrams

A Must-Read for All Journalists

Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2020

Verified Purchase

This is a great book that will be enjoyed by any newspaper people. Evans worked for some of the great papers on both sides of the Atlantic, but it's the amazing path his career took, and how he rose in his profession, that is best part. Raised in a poor family in northern England, he was driven by curiosity and a passion from childhood for pursuing the truth and passing it on to the people. By hard work and good fortune, he produced investigative pieces that resulted in (among other things) improving the environment, saving lives and achieving a more just society. His career included jobs ranging from copy-editor ("sub-editor," as they call it in England) to top management, from the exciting days of hot-type to our sad, digital era. This is a must-read for all journalists.

Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2010

Verified Purchase

From the first page this autobiography captured my attention. Being born about the same time as Harold Evans, in the same area of England and living through the childhood experience of World War II, I also remembered my own childhood very vividly through his writing. I too saw the soldiers returning from Dunkirk and talked with them, experienced bombing and all the other privations of the war. I also was reminded of the spirit of the times, and now, on reflection, the very different spirit of how journalism has changed over the last fifty years. Then there was a purpose of wanting to "set thing right" and fairness in dealings with other. Now it seems to be everyman for himself and if it is not profitable for me, who cares. Needless to say I liked the book very much but felt that the discription of his memories of his early life were much more vivid than those towards the end. But maybe that is true of all of us as we age.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

olingerstories

is a great read through the first forty-five years of Evan's life

Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2017

Verified Purchase

Harold Evan's biography, MY PAPER CHASE, is a great read through the first forty-five years of Evan's life. It is as much about England in the 40s-60s as it is about newspapers in the same era as it is about Evans. Once Evans comes to America and marries Tina Brown, the book dies a slow death. His impressions on America are strong, but misplaced, and his media image more important than any story.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

JOC

The Importance Of Investigative Journalism

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2019

Verified Purchase

If you're tired of hearing and reading about fake news, this book is a welcome respite. It recounts fascinating stories of hard-working journalists taking on big business, the government, and even the paper's owner to reveal the truth. The evils of thalidomide, the exposure of Kim Philby as a long-standing Soviet agent, and a miscarriage of justice involving the serial murders at 10 Rillington Place (which led to the end of capital punishment in the UK) are just a few of the stories covered. British journalists voted the author the greatest British newspaper editor of all time in 2001. Queen Elizabeth II knighted him in 2004 for his services to journalism.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Richard R. Merrell

Memories of Forgotten Times

Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2011

Verified Purchase

From the opening sentences I realized that I would be experiencing a man who loves words, loves a good confrontation, and stays engaged in life in ways that we have forgotten how to do. The reading dredged up memories for me (70 years worth) long pushed to the back of the shelves. Wonderful read.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

B LONDON

An absolutely great read.

Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2022

Verified Purchase

A brilliant man.

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Julia Schneider

The fascinating story of a great journalist/editor

Reviewed in Canada on August 17, 2017

Verified Purchase

A great book. A must for serious believers in the free press and its recent history.

Gs-trentham

A Man with a Mission. Mission Accomplished?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 8, 2010

Verified Purchase

The challenge of running a major publishing empire came late in life to (Sir) Harold Evans but he has tackled it with the same bravura, the same principles and the same sure-footed instincts that carried him from his upbringing as the son of a Manchester railwayman to become one of the most brilliant newspaper editors of his generation. My Paper Chase tells that story with the clarity and intelligence of his best editorials.

Evans missed out on grammar school but still made his way to university. Determined on a career in journalism, he took the classic route through provincial sub-editing of flower show copy to the editor's chair at the Sunday Times during fourteen years of fearless reporting and trail-blazing campaigning. Moving on to the editorship of The Times itself, he crossed principles with Rupert Murdoch, resigned on live television and moved to a new career in the United States. Just as there seems not to have been an uneventful day in his life, so there is barely a dull page in this riveting memoir. The anecdotes are absorbing but no more than the perceptions of the moral obligations that devolve upon the aspiring journalist, from humble sub to editor in chief.

Now aged eighty-two, having lived through - and helped shape - a golden age of newspapers, now merging and seeking accommodation with the electronic world, Harold Evans might be expected to free-wheeling through retirement on Long Island with his second wife, Tina Brown. That impression will not be uppermost in the reader's mind after five hundred hugely enjoyable pages.

8 people found this helpful

g60

Harold Evans influence and presence in Journalism was significant

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 21, 2018

Verified Purchase

"My Paper Chase" by Harold Evans - his autobiography. He was a bit of a hero of mine when he was editor of the Sunday Times and he co-wrote a very outstanding book on skiing. There is a long chapter on the Thalidomide scandal which should be read by everyone - it is still relevant as it demonstrates what a multinational company very nearly got away with along with little political support for proper remedy and only came right with the intervention of the Court of Human Rights much of which was a result of the ST doggedness and investigatory journalism. Harold Evans influence and presence in journalism was significant.

2 people found this helpful

STEVE MARRON

No illustrations in the eBook

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 21, 2021

Verified Purchase

The narrative of this book is wonderful, but I bought the eBook as a replacement for the printed copy which I gave to a friend. I was disappointed to find that the eBook doesn't contain the illustrations or photgraphs which are in the print edition.

Santa Claws

Very well written, naturally!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2021

Verified Purchase

Harold Evans was one of the greatest editors and all aspiring reporters should read this and his brilliant Essential English for Journalists, Editors and Writers. I was lucky to have spent my journalistic career at the times he writes about and it was full of magic!

One person found this helpful

See more reviews

Return this item for free

Follow the author

Image Unavailable

My Paper Chase: True Stories of Vanished Times Hardcover – November 5, 2009

Purchase options and add-ons

Customers who bought this item also bought

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Review

About the Author

From The Washington Post

Product details

Videos for this product

My Paper Chase

About the author

Harold Evans

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries