Graydon Carter’s amazing memoir

You know when a book comes along exactly at the time when you need to read it? That just happened to me with this one.

When the Going Was Good by Graydon Carter. Subtitle: An editor’s adventures during the last golden age of magazines

It was the perfect moment for me to read this memoir by the great editor of Vanity Fair, because I have recently come to accept that I have retired from journalism – not because I want to, but because the profession doesn’t exist anymore as I understand it.

Mr Carter’s book comes to the same sad conclusion – which, while heartbreaking, was intensely comforting for me – but before we reach that sorry moment, he shares his experiences as the greatest editor of the greatest magazine in the greatest era of that media.

Which was also thrilling for me because I had the privilege to work on magazines – and edit four of them – in that same magical time.

Of course he was at the very apex, but my experiences were at a pretty high level too and it was wonderful to peep …