The Vanity Fair Diaries: 1983–1992
‘Indiscreet, brilliantly observed, frequently hilarious’ Evening Standard
‘Hang on – it’s a wild ride’ Meryl Streep
It’s 1983. A young Englishwoman arrives in Manhattan on a mission. Summoned in the hope that she can save Condé Nast’s troubled new flagship Vanity Fair, Tina Brown is plunged into the maelstrom of competitive New York media. She survives the politics and the intrigue by a simple stratagem: succeeding.
Here are the inside stories of the scoops and covers that sold millions: the Reagan kiss, the meltdown of Princess Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles, the sensational Annie Leibovitz cover of a gloriously pregnant, naked Demi Moore. Written with dash and verve, the diary is also a sharply observed account of New York and London society. In its cinematic pages the drama, comedy and struggle of raising a family and running an ‘it’ magazine come to life.
‘Hang on – it’s a wild ride’ Meryl Streep
It’s 1983. A young Englishwoman arrives in Manhattan on a mission. Summoned in the hope that she can save Condé Nast’s troubled new flagship Vanity Fair, Tina Brown is plunged into the maelstrom of competitive New York media. She survives the politics and the intrigue by a simple stratagem: succeeding.
Here are the inside stories of the scoops and covers that sold millions: the Reagan kiss, the meltdown of Princess Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles, the sensational Annie Leibovitz cover of a gloriously pregnant, naked Demi Moore. Written with dash and verve, the diary is also a sharply observed account of New York and London society. In its cinematic pages the drama, comedy and struggle of raising a family and running an ‘it’ magazine come to life.
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Reviews
Fun and often funny
One is left with huge admiration for Brown's wit, talent and determination
A great deal of fun . . . a perfect primer to the gaudy excesses of 1980s culture. It is her joy in her job, her delight at being ringside in this moment, and, most of all, her sheet chutzpah, which keeps you turning the pages
Enthralling - and terrifying
A mile-a-minute memoir I read like a parrot with my nails embedded in Pirate Tina's shoulder, yelling 'What??!!' 'What!?!!' 'WOWZA!' as she swashbuckles through the eighties, her sword slicing up the staid shibboleths of New York. I remembered why I was afraid of her in those days. And why that energy and imagination, turned to making the world better, has galvanized so many of us now. A cultural catalyst, she makes things happen. Thank god she wrote it all down. Hang on - it's a wild ride
I read them in one six-hour sprint of pure pleasure and joy . . . indiscreet, brilliantly observed, frequently hilarious. It's all here: the Demi Moore naked and pregnant front cover, Claus von Bulow photographed in black leather, Donald and Ivana Trump, the whole sweep of Eighties Manhattan reported at first hand in Tina's fresh, beady, borderline-paranoid style
A brilliant portrait of New York in an age of shoulder-padded excess by a British editor who can pass as American, but never lost her merciless gift for a great story
[A] fascinating memoir from a publishing legend
The perfect stocking filler for any social x-ray who yearns to wallow in nostalgia. But even students of our own time with find the prescience of Brown's observations a source of amusement.
High, low, smart, sexy, Tina Brown's The Vanity Fair Diaries is like the magazine she reinvented, a must-read for anyone interested in Hollywood, high society, and the movers and shakers of pop culture
Brown is brilliant at these gleeful little character descriptions . . . She has the knack of making people instantly interesting . . . a fast-paced and head-spinningly hectic read
Addictive
The juiciest [book] of the year
Gripping, funny . . . [Brown's] enthusiasm for New York, and magazines, is infectious
A journalism masterclass
A great portrait of the greed, the glitter, the fatal superficiality of that decade . . . her witty skewerings are first-class
Heaven
Within a couple of years she had turned it into the house magazine of a resurgent celebrity beau monde and gained an untouchable star quality of her own. Her diaries recount this will to power with caustic drollery and dash
She makes you glad that someone was taking notes
Her pen portraits of the denizens of the Manhattan zoo are invariably sharp, and sometimes caustic . . . compulsive reading
The Vanity Fair Diaries has a Gone with the Wind-like feel: it's a chronicle of a lost age, before the internet, when 'to be the editor of Time or Newsweek was to be a demigod'. Yeah, and to be Tina Brown was very heaven
Such a juicy read. She's honest about every interaction, no matter how big the star: every success and every mistake
[A] terrifying, breakneck, hothouse, backstage tour of how magazines, news and views, and reputations are made and destroyed. [It] made me crave an anti-anxiety pill!
Brown [is] a fabulous diarist. It's not just that she's a wonderful writer (although she is: fluent, funny, fierce). It's more that, even after taking her seat at America's top table, she never stops noticing. Amid the narcotic stupefaction of great wealth, Brown is invariably alert and on the money
Addictive . . . features encounters with every influential name under the sun (political, literary and Hollywood stars) as well as an insight into Brown's publishing power, which changed magazine journalism for ever
Brilliant, concretely realised social history as much as a fabulous odyssey, and I read it in a mad frenzy
The party-by-party, cover-by-cover story of how a Brit conquered New York publishing
Tina Brown, editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair during the 1980s, covers her time in Manhattan with wit and wisdom, as she unwraps the stories behind the famous covers and tells of how she fought her corner, raised a family and strove to make the magazine a success
Full of creative glee, passion and wild-ride excitement, The Vanity Fair Diaries features a cast of characters like Mad Men (and women) on speed; an epic of a legendary magazine's dazzling re-creation; moments of laugh-out-loud comic asides, juicy gossip and sketches of Austen-like sharpness, all put together by an editor of high-octane genius who pauses only to reflect that however good she might be, it's never quite good enough. Oh yes it is. Read the diaries and feel better about everything
As delightful as eating a whole box of chocolates, without a trace of weight gain . . . irresistible
Anyone who was anyone in Eighties New York can be found in Brown's polished account of her time editing US magazine Vanity Fair. The result is a page-turning hymn to a vanished media age