Loud and Clear

Front Cover
Random House Publishing Group, Mar 29, 2005 - Social Science - 336 pages
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pulitzer Prize–winner Anna Quindlen offers wisdom, opinions, insights, and reflections about current events and modern life in this provocative and inspiring book.

“A tour de force for our time, [Loud and Clear] is equally as compelling as a look at public events as it is a reflection on being a woman and on motherhood.”—The Sunday Oklahoman

With her trademark insight and her special ability to convey the impact public events have on ordinary lives, Anna Quindlen here combines commentary on American society and the world at large with reflections on being a woman, a writer, and a mother.
 
In these pieces, first written for Newsweek and The New York Times, Loud and Clear takes on topics ranging from social change to raising children, from the political and emotional aftermath of September 11 to personal values, from the impact on individuals of global events to the growth that can be gained by spending summer days staring into the middle distance. Grounding the public in the private, connecting people to each other and to the greater world, Quindlen encourages us to develop authentic lives, even as she serves as a catalyst for political and social change.
 

Contents

Goodbye Dr Spock
7
Doing Nothing Is Something
16
In Search of a Grownup
24
Playing Perfect Pattycake
32
Now Its Time for Generation Next
38
Fall from the Nest
45
Schools Out for Summer
52
An Apology to the Graduates
60
Uncle Sam and Aunt Samantha
183
The Lone Pilgrim
187
The Key to Success
204
The Story of Us
211
Off with Their Ties
217
SOUL
223
Life After Death
234
Leg Waxing and Life Everlasting
243

The Right to Be Ordinary
118
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
125
The Call from the Governor
132
The Sounds of Silence
140
BODY
147
The Reasonable Woman Standard
155
Say Farewell to Pin Curls
162
An Era Ends
169
Sexual Assault Film at Eleven
176
Aha Caught You Reading
251
Poetry Emotion
259
Imagining the Hansons
267
HonestlyYou Shouldnt Have
275
Werent We All So Young Then?
283
One Day Now Broken in Two
291
Every Day Angels
298
Copyright

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About the author (2005)

Anna Quindlen is the author of many bestselling books, including the #1 New York Times bestselling novel Rise and Shine, the #1 bestselling memoir Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, and A Short Guide to a Happy Life. Her other novels include Blessings, One True Thing, the Oprah Book Club Selection Black and Blue, and Still Life with Bread Crumbs.

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