Ted Turner's life story would make a better movie than many of the old classics he bought the rights to broadcast on his stations. From allegedly giving a sales pitch in the nude (among other things), to wild speeches in hotel lobbies, winning an incredible number of sailing races, and even his own "Alistair Cooke" style film intros, this guy is full of antics.

I was impressed by the depth of research Mr. Bibb brought to this book. I wish their was a little more of Ted quoted in the book, but this is an excellent amount of info on the man's life.

- Julia Wilkinson, author, "My Life at AOL"

This book is masterfully written. Ted Turner's life makes for a great story. The genius of this book lies in how well Porter Bibb researched and wrote this story. I can't imagine how a person could write a better biography. I wish Mr. Bibb would write a novel or, at least, more biographies.

This long, intricately constructed, infinitely documented biography reads like a film script, which is the only appropriate format for a biography of this larger than life subject. Ted Turner has led a life only a Hollywood screenwriter could concoct, but Porter Bibb has packed it all between two covers.

"Clash of the Titans," by entertaining writer Richard Hack is a very impressive read. A lot of reasearch went into the creation of this 'Must Read' 544 page book. Hack gives the reader a look inside the media world of business as well a look inside the personal and professional lives of Ted Turner and Keith Rupert Murdoch. Risk taking, careful planning, and gutsy determination is what it takes to become like these two media moguls...men of position, power, and fame. So now that you know how to do it get out there and go conquer the world! I plan to, smile...

Tim Thompson has created a format that shows us the Americas Cup matches that untill 1983 favoured the United States, and then Australia's failed 1987 defence. Each painting has an explanation of the race and people that participated in them.

The written history of this sporting event would fill a large warehouse but as they say, and is beautifully executed by Tim Thompson's paintings, A Picture Says A Thousand Words.

This format would be re-released as the Americas Cup soon moved back to America, then to New Zealand and now of course, Switzerland.

Whenever I encounter TV news after having read this book, the mechanics and biases behind it appear so obvious.

By exposing the guts of a news machine, and insightfully comparing different coverage of the same event, Me and Ted gives you a level of news literacy that lets you appreciate it more. This level of detail -- clearly coming from someone obsessed with his creation -- is amazing and rarely tedious. Combine it with Randall Rothenberg's advertising expose "Where the Suckers Moon", for a good start at understanding post-70s America.

The one drawback ... But once you get used to filtering it out, Me and Ted becomes a wonderful book.

Schonfeld's unauthorized history of CNN is a no-holds-barred tell-all about the early days. His recounting of Ted's leadership and quirks makes for enjoyable reading.

And he has the courage to expose the roles of CNN execs in the Tailwind cave-in. (alluded to but not well covered in Neil Hickey's CJR review).

It is a must read for anyone in broadcast journalism.

Me and Ted Against the World should be required reading, not just for journalism students and those interested in news and public affairs, it should be on the must-read list for everyone who loves a good tale, well written. It tells two distinct stories: one, how the good guys won; and two, how the not-so-good guys screwed up. The teller of the tales is the world's foremost guerilla journalist, Reese Schonfeld. His background, he had bumped heads with the network news establishment at United Press Movietone News and as founder of the Independent Television News Association, made him the only person on the planet with the capability of implementing the then revolutionary idea of an around the clock television news channel. What he needed was a conspirator, another revolutionary who could come up with the money and sell the concept. Enter Ted Turner. They joined forces and together they changed the world; not just the television world, the entire world. Diplomacy, warfare, commerce and culture are all vastly different entities as a result of CNN and others like it which have come along since. The story of how they succeeded, Turner as Mr. Outside, the deal maker promoter and salesman, and Schonfeld as Mr. Inside, the architect, builder and keeper of the gate, is terrific. After the revolution was won, the two revolutionaries had no more wars to win. Except against each other. That war was one-sided. One guy, Turner, owned all the weapons. The other, Schonfeld, was a great general who had troops but no supplies. Turner called Schonfeld into his office one day and in the same breath declared war and declared himself the victor. Schonfeld was fired. The empire had been built, so the guy who constructed it was no longer needed, or so Turner thought. What he failed to factor in was that Schonfeld was also the chief maintenance man. Without him, even though the money has rolled in, the empire has become tattered and gray. CNN did change the world, but now it has trouble keeping up with the very changes it put into play. Is Schonfeld's version of events entirely objective? No. He has a journalist's insistence on facts, but it's impossible to be entirely objective about something you love - especially when you have loved and lost. Does he use his forum to hand out a few receipts for sins of the past? You bet he does. Is Me and Ted Against the World one helluva book? You bet it is.

this book will only appeal to those seeking an alternative lifestyle. It does not represent modern hunting or hunters. Buddists, yurts, and nude chanting in a spa! Give me a break.I wish I hadn't bought it, and so will you.

I met Ted Kerasote in Katmai, Alaska, while writing Chapter X of Travles with Samantha. Here's what I wrote...

As it happens, I wasn't the only PowerBook addict in camp. Ted Kerasote, a writer for Sports Afield and Outside magazines, was here writing about bear management. We happened to be sitting next to each other around the lodge fireplace and he'd already heard all about me.

"You must be that guy from Boston."

Ted beautifully illustrated the mellowing effect that living in a Wyoming town of 90 for years can have on someone born on the Lower East Side. In a patient soft voice, Ted summarized his new book Bloodties, about animal rights and hunting.

"Hunting in one's bioregion can be ecologically more sound than being a supermarket fossil-fuel vegetarian, i.e., someone who has plugged-into America's factory farm system which has destroyed so many different types of wildlife. Remember that the wheat field used to be a buffalo range, pesticides kill animals, and combines kill all kinds of small animals. Exploration for the oil that powers the combines and makes the pesticides displaces and kills animals."

What about Prudhoe Bay? It is only a 250-square-mile outpost on the Arctic Ocean and produces all of Alaska's oil. With millions of square miles of identical wilderness all around, how could this tiny settlement make a difference?

"Good point, but think about the Dalton Highway that was built to service Prudhoe Bay. That opened up those millions of square miles of wilderness to hunters who go in and kill moose and wolves.

"My book calculates the fossil-fuel cost of different diets. A guy in Wyoming expends 79,000 K-calories to shoot 150 lbs of elk meat. The equivalent amount of Idaho potatoes costs 150,000 K-cals. Rice and beans from Northern California 477,000 K- cals."

That's great, but I hadn't seen too many elk roaming around my Boston suburb, whereas we are well-supplied with supermarkets. Can a significant number of Americans really live off game?

"There are more white-tail deer now than when Columbus landed because the forest has been opened up and they flourish on the edge of timber land."

[Reviews of Ted's book spoke volumes about the difference between East and West Coasts. The New York Times review read much like this synopsis, focusing on his argument and its numerical underpinnings. The Los Angeles Times review started and ended with a discussion of the similarities between hunting and sex.]

This book won't appeal to the hunter who views a succesful day only by the weight in the game bag, nor will it appeal to the anti-hunter who thinks all hunters want to do is kill. It will appeal to those who look for a deeper understanding of why they, and other people, hunt. This book should appeal to those who keep a copy of WALDEN, or A SAND COUNTRY ALMANAC within easy reach on the book shelf.

From the very start, it is plain the Goldbergs lack any primary sources for their book, since there the exploration of Turner's character and personal decisions tend to be more conjecture than anything else. This book seems to do a good job of listing each of the various public decisions and people in Turner's life, but the important decisions and events are glossed over. For instance: The Goldbergs repeatedly note how Turner micromanaged his companies, only promoted from within, and didn't allow his senior managers and board to make major decisions. Yet, by the time CNN was created, Turner was clearly ignoring his billboard company, and TBS seemed to be cranking along fine. What did Turner think of these people, and what were they doing that made the cash flow possible for Turner to lose so much money while CNN was started up?

The book also has a facination with the chronology of his womanizing. While distaining his extramarital sexual adventures, the Goldbergs seem to do little more than count the notches in Turner's bedpost. Sure they do some pop-psychological analysis, but has no discussion of how his womanizing may have affected other parts of his life, family, and businesses -- especially when the affairs became so blatently open in the 70's and 80's.

Read this book if you want to know what happened in Turner's life up until the First Gulf War (the book was written before Turner's empire was bought by Time Warner), but don't expect a whole lot of insight to his personal life and business genius.

The Goldbergs tie Ted Turner into such a tight package that the reader is left with the impression that their impression is one-sided. But his monomorphism seems to naturally follow his fascinating upbringing and the shaping of an incredible domineering father. And then, when one hears post-Citizen Turner interviews and follows the news about Ted, the authors are vindicated. They've got him pegged! Very easily readable

As usual with contemporary letters, these are only useful in spots. Barclay gives good descriptions of the battles of First Manassas, First Winchester and Gettysburg (dispelling once and for all the myth that the Stonewall Brigade was not heavily involved in the latter). His expression is naturally limited by the fact that he's writing to relatives; there aren't a lot of humorous scenes of camp life here. We do find out something about the Liberty Hall Volunteers, Barclay's company, who were apparently something of a prima donna bunch and were often assigned as Jackson's HQ guards. Unfortunately, the letters have several gaps and do not cover the period from Spotsylvania, where Barclay was captured, to the end of the war. He was a prisoner during this period and it would have been interesting to know what his experiences were.

The book dishes out Ted Turner's wisdom, but leaves an important fact neglected: after becoming rich, Ted Turner's mind cracked and slipped away into bipolar disorder, and since then Turner has been running around making boneheaded comments about Christianity, concocting oddly New Age and semi-delusional programs like "Capt. Planet," and using his money to give himself a platform to be a [fool] in front of the United Nations (where he gave a speech about how monotheistic religions should be abandoned because, well, human beings put their pants on one leg at a time) and Brown University (where he extolled the Sept. 11 hijackers as visionaries and courageous men). The true story of Ted Turner ranks with the tragic tales of Howard Hughes and John Nash, once-brilliant men whose lives were ruined by mental illness. It's amazing that Ted Turner has been able to use his wealth to propogate bizarre ideologies that come straight from his diseased, psychotic mind, and no one has had the courage to point out that Turner is afflicted with a psychotic disorder and his New Age, so-called "humanistic" ideas are really just delusions brought on by a chemical imbalance. Of course, Fox News routinely lets us know all the [foolish] things Ted Turner says...

The book about Ted Turner is a very interesting book about how it feels to be rich, famous, and have your dreams come true. If your main goal in life is to become wealthy, then this book is for you! This book will also make you realize that having money and fame isn't everything. In encountering this "man behind the mouth" you get to hear all the criticism and bad things that are said about you and against you without even knowing it because of what you have. I gave this book three stars because of its lack of main points, on the other hand it did have many details and let you know the troubles that come along with the riches. I suggest if you read this book, that you don't follow in Turner's actions.