100 books like Mail Men

When I left university, I wanted to know why journalists bother working in jobs where they are frequently abused, badly paid, and work long hours. I never considered journalism a career until I saw an advert for a post in the Chatham News.

I wanted to know more, so I found a second-hand copy of Journey Into Journalism by Arnold Wesker. He'd been allowed to spend a year at the Sunday Times, then edited by the legendary Harold Evans, to help him write his play The Journalists. He had so much leftover that he wrote this book, which answered the question I had: "Why do journalists do it?" He answered it correctly, but you must read it to know why.

As a foreign correspondent based in Vienna, I'm often asked to arrange interviews for reporters flying in from London. I remember a journalist from the Sun newspaper who flew in and wanted a translator. I found a local book author, but he canceled when he found out it was for the Sun. The journalist asked him why, and he said, "You wouldn't understand."

But that journalist had a first-class honors degree in literature from Oxford. Of all the types of journalism, tabloid is reviled, yet it attracts the best journalists. It starts the ball rolling on the best stories, and in its purest form, it is never about fake news; it's about taking on the biggest bully in the playground. I love it, and this book is pure tabloid.

I worked in local papers at the start of my career and was always amazed at why a network that had so many talented writers produced so few books about the hilarious things and the tragic things we experienced. I think it's partly because local newspapers are often seen as a stepping stone, we focus on the famous at the pinnacle of their career, editing a national newspaper for example, when in fact local news careers could and should be an end in themselves.

Roger Lytollis is not only a brilliant writer, but his book is remarkably personal in the way he faces his own demons and how journalism helped him cope with extreme shyness and depression. Coupled with hilarious stories, I couldn't put it down.

At the end of a busy day, which is always almost 12 hours long, it is often difficult to wind down, and a David Gemmell book with its inspirational lessons was always perfect until the books ran out. Rereading them can only be done so many times, and reluctantly, I decided to try one of the two books he wrote in a genre I am never usually interested in.

Many people forget that he used to be a journalist and wrote two books that draw on that experience, but this one is by far my favorite. The PR blurb fails to mention that at the heart of this story, it is about propaganda in the media, and Gemmell is a master storyteller. His journalism experience makes it highly authentic in his portrayal of local journalism struggling to survive, and if you are a Gemmell sword and sorcery fan, you will… show more.

If fictional journalists are your thing, then this book will almost certainly introduce you to some you’ve never heard of as well as those you (really should) have. Lonsdale insightfully identifies and dissects themes that crop up time after time in creative writing about journalists, from swashbuckling rogues to unethical scumbags. In the process, she has plenty to say about the craft of journalism itself and its enduring value to society. There is humour too, as when she quotes the immortal line of Stella Gibbons (author of Cold Comfort Farm): "The life of the journalist is poor, nasty, brutish and short. So is his style." Lovely.

Some books center on an argument, some focus on narrative, and some revolve around characters. What impressed me about this book is that it does all three remarkably well.

I was amazed to learn how some of the most powerful publishers in the U.S. and U.K. either dismissed the Nazi threat or (like Lord Rothermere and the Daily Mail) openly cheered for Hitler.

It also helps that the five men and one woman included in this “axis” all had fascinating backgrounds and quirky personalities, which Olmsted presents in wonderfully concise sketches.

One of the things I like about this type of book is that the main characters often have a secret identity.

To their classmates or teachers or parents, they’re just an ordinary kid—but when they’re not being watched, they’re doing something important and impactful. I love the tension of worrying that their secret identity might get found out. In this series, the main character’s secret identity is that she’s an accomplished and influential restaurant critic and no one knows, not even her parents. 

Before Life there was the Saturday Evening Post, a roaring success capturing the spirit of Middle America at a time when Middle America defined the cultural ethos of the nation. But by the late 1950s the potent reach of television advertising undermined the general-interest magazine business model, and the Post slipped into an inexorable spiral of decline that its top executives could never quite handle or even understand. There’s plenty of pathos and human drama as they struggle with forces beyond their control. 

The book Out on Assignment examines the careers of overlooked women who wrote for major metropolitan newspapers at the beginning of the twentieth century. Using archival materials, Alice Fahs describes a community of female journalists from numerous American cities. These newspaper women were part of a wave of women seeking a journalism career although their options were often limited. Although a few female journalists found hard-news reporting jobs in stunt work and undercover assignments, most found work in the women’s pages.

In these sections, they interviewed celebrities, advice columns, and suffrage news. Very little research has been done on women’s page journalism; this book provides an excellent foundation.

First published in 1990 – based on a series of articles originally written for The New Yorker, this book is a warning to true crime authors the world over about the morality of reaching out and writing with and about murderers. 

The journalist in question is Joe McGinniss and the murderer is the former Special Forces Captain Dr Jeffrey MacDonald who became the subject of McGinniss’s 1983 book Fatal Vision. Is it ethical to collaborate with someone who has been accused of murder? What are the pitfalls that need to be managed? And, at the end of the day, who is conning who – the journalist or the murderer?