-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
Adventures of an Observer
by Garry Wills
Bookish and retiring, Garry Wills has been an outsider in the academy, in journalism, even in his church. Yet these qualities have, paradoxically, prompted people to share intimate insights with him - perhaps because he is not a rival, a competitor, or a threat. Sometimes this made him the prey of con men like conspiratorialist Mark Lane or civil rights leader James Bevel. At other times it led to close friendship with such people as William F. Buckley, Jr., or singer Beverly Sills. The result is the most personal book Wills has ever written.
With his dazzling style and journalist's eye for detail, Wills brings history to life, whether it's the civil rights movement; the protests against the Vietnam War; the presidential campaigns of Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton; or the set of Oliver Stone's Nixon. Illuminating and provocative, Outside Looking In is a compelling chronicle of an original thinker at work in remarkable times.
"This is an episodic but completely captivating collection by the prolific journalist, historian, political columnist, and practicing Catholic." - Publishers Weekly
"Ultimately, it is Wills himself who shines brightest from these pages—owlish, ethical, skeptical of power, deep of faith and achingly honest." - Kirkus
This information about Outside Looking In was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Garry Wills was born in 1934 in Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from
Campion High School in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin in 1951 and received his PhD
in classics from Yale in 1961. In 1995, he received a L.H.D. from Bates College.
He received an honorary doctorate from the College of the Holy Cross.
A historian and author of more than 20 books including What Jesus Meant,
he is also a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books.
In 1993, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his book Lincoln at Gettysburg: The
Words That Remade America, which describes the background and effect of
Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863. In 1998, he won the
National Medal for the Humanities. He has also won the National Book Critics
Circle Award.
He is an ...
If you liked Outside Looking In, try these:
by Alan Hollinghurst
Published 2025
From the internationally acclaimed winner of the Booker Prize, a piercing novel of modern England through the lens of one man's acutely observed experiences.
by Nell Irvin. Painter
Published 2024
From the New York Times bestselling author of The History of White People and Old in Art School, a finalist for the NBCC Award, comes a comprehensive new collection of essays spanning art, politics, and the legacy of racism that shapes American history as we know it.
by Jon Mooallem
Published 2022
From the discovery of the author's face in a century-old photograph to a triple-amputee hospice director working at the border of life and death, here are thirteen hopeful, heartbreaking, and profound essays from "one of the most intelligent, compassionate, and curious authors working today" (Elizabeth Gilbert).
Education is the period during which you are being instructed by somebody you do not know, about something you do ...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
