conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about Canada's, Neil, Cypress with the genre: Biographies & Memoirs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'A Writer's Life'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide a description for a book titled A Writer's Life about Reed, According, Writing with the genre: History, Americas.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: According to the author, "Writing is often like driving a truck at night without headlights, losing your way along the road, and spending a decade in a ditch." Reading his first substantially new publication since 1992's <I>Unto the Sons </I>is like being in the passenger seat of that truck while it's in motion. the author begins with a World Cup women's match between China and the United States; the game gives him a story idea, which he then abandons for roughly 300 pages for elegant digressions on, among other things, the civil rights demonstrations in Selma, the Lorena Bobbitt controversy and a string of flopped restaurants in an Upper East Side building. Somehow, he also works in a memoir of his early life, including perfectly etched memories of the <I>New York Times </I>newsroom (without directly reflecting on his prominence as one of the first New Journalists). This sort of thing can drag for long stretches unless you're willing to simply follow along as the author pursues his impulses wherever they lead him. No matter how frustrating it is as memoir, though, this is a near-perfect expression of the author's inquisitive personality, an inquisitiveness that has led to some of the outstanding journalism of the past few decades. <I>150,000 first printing. (Apr. 25) </I> <BR>Copyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first two paragraphs for this book.. End with the sentence '"'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A Writer's Life
  We who were not in his favor rarely reacted with inner feelings of gratitude on those occasions when we were called before him to receive an assignment; far more frequently than otherwise, we commiserated with one another in the back of the newsroom before dispersing ourselves to our appointed destinations, being collectively convinced that each of us had been assigned to cover a story that was uninteresting, inconsequential, and ultimately destined to be cut to shreds by the copydesk, if not killed entirely by Bernstein. When we were proved wrong—that is, when our assignments ended up as page-one stories, drawing letters of approval from readers—then, of course, we took full credit. It had been our writing skills and creative approaches to these assignments that had transformed what had been ordinary to something extraordinary. On the other hand, if our assignments had proved to be as pointless and unpublishable as we had predicted, then all the blame belonged to our superiors. How could any reporter write about something so bereft of substance, so ill-conceived and banal?
  Catledge was assigned to the New York staff for a while and was then sent overseas on special assignments. Near the end of World War II, as a passenger in an overcrowded military transport flying bumpily through a storm in the Burma-India theater, Catledge saw his life careening toward a disastrous conclusion, and, having been the last man aboard, he stood against the door, feeling nauseous and nervous, anticipating his having to leap from a burning wreckage after the plane had crashed into the desert. The pilot, however, did manage to land the plane safely; and, as the aircraft was brought to a halt, a British officer opened the door from the outside and announced, "Gentlemen, you are in New Delhi, the capital of India. You will please leave the plane by rank."
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide two more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: When it came time for the cross-examination of Michael Dibblee, Ebert got up from his chair slowly, smoothed out the wrinkles from the back of his dark suit with his big hands, and ambled over to the witness stand.
  The procession of defense witnesses who followed Dibblee to the stand were more successful than he had been in voicing their support for Lorena and emphasizing to the jury that her marriage to John Bobbitt had depressed her, had dehumanized her, and had brought her much physical suffering. Lynn Acquiviva, a customer at the nail salon that employed Lorena, recalled seeing her at work "with extensive bruising" on the top and sides of her head. Another customer, Roma Anastasi, described Lorena as characteristically "tense, nervous, and very sad." A onetime neighbor of Lorena's, Mary Jo Willoughby, had remembered her at times as "... hysterical... crying, just shaking." The assistant manager at the Bobbitt couple's apartment building, Beth Ann Wilson, told the jury that "Lorena seemed to be intimidated by John, had a hard time looking towards him." One of Erma Castro's daughters not only denounced John Bobbitt to the jury but presented them with some of the Polaroid pictures that she had taken of Lorena's bruised body in 1991 after Lorena had quarreled with her husband and had sought refuge in the Castro household. These photos were offered in evidence by Lorena's attorneys.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last four paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A few days later, I flew from Sydney to Beijing, seeing Liu Ying on three or four occasions during the month I remained there. She was disappointed but not pessimistic, believing that the team would reclaim its stature by increasing its commitment, and that she herself, on regaining full strength, would contribute much as a member of the starting lineup. The Chinese press, however, was now saying that the team was getting old and was injury-prone, and what was needed were younger players and a new coach.
  I had planned to return to China in September 2003 to attend the World Cup matches scheduled to be hosted by the city of Shanghai, but the event was quickly relocated to the United States due to China's springtime SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic. Neither Liu Ying nor her teammates were taken ill, because they were insulated from the public. But in a warm-up match months prior to the World Cup, Liu Ying was again seriously injured. This time she dislocated her left knee, requiring surgery. She did eventually accompany the team to the United States, but her playing time was limited because she lacked her usual speed and agility. After the team had been eliminated in early-round competition by Canada, the new Chinese coach (who had taken over the team the year before and would, in turn, be fired a year later) informed Liu Ying that she was no longer a member of the national team. A youth movement was in progress, he said, with only four players from the twenty-two-member 1999 roster representing China in the 2004 Olympics in Athens. The youthful team would not represent progress, however, being overwhelmed by Germany, 8-0, followed by a 1-1 tie with Mexico, leading to China's early-round elimination. The Gold Medal went to the United States team that defeated Brazil, 2-1, in overtime.
  With the assistance of translators, I thereafter remained in touch with Liu Ying via E-mail or fax, or telephone calls placed from my home in New York, with an interpreter listening on an extension. During a recent conversation, she told me that she was planning to return to school, a college in Beijing. She said that her present ambition was to become, like her father before her, a physical education instructor.
  I am not now, nor have I ever been, fond of the game of soccer. Part of the reason is probably attributable to my age and the fact that when I was growing up along the southern shore of New Jersey a half century ago, the sport was virtually unknown to Americans, except to those of foreign birth. And even though my father was foreign-born—he was a dandified but dour custom tailor from a Calabrian village in southern Italy who became a United States citizen in the mid-1920s—his references to me about soccer were associated with his boyhood conflicts over the game, and his desire to play it in the afternoons with his school friends in an Italian courtyard instead of merely watching it being played as he sat sewing at the rear window of the nearby shop to which he was apprenticed....