Biblio Reviews

Brian Stelter's  Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV  (2013) is a bit of a misnomer. Less of an insider expose into the "cutthroat" world of morning TV, Stelter's book is more of a chronicle of the rivalry between  Good Morning America  (GMA) and  Today  and the events that led to  Today 's eventual downfall to number two in 2012 after sixteen years at number one. Opening up with "Operation Bambi," the name given to the plan to oust Ann Curry from  Today , Stelter then details the key warring executives whose desires for power and dominance fueled the rivalry between the two shows--and some of the "talents," like Ann Curry, Deborah Norville, Lisa McRee, and Kevin Newman, among others, who were victims of their "cutthroat" plans. Top of the Morning  was a rather disappointing read in that it felt more like tabloid fodder than riveting journalism. Much of what was included was not deserving of a whole book. A

When I was about thirteen or fourteen, I told my much older sister that she could look forward to holding in her hands  my own published    book . I spoke with such confidence that she said she believed that I would achieve that goal. Nearly twenty years later, I am no closer to attaining that goal than when I first boldly made my claim. It isn't because I lost the desire to. No, my lack of progress is more of a result of self-realization. To write--realistic fiction, in my case--would require me to do something that I have struggled to do seemingly all my life so far: be emotionally open and accessible. In other words, be willing to share my fears and insecurities, be vulnerable. Despite claims that fiction is created from a writer's imagination, I understand that there is always some personal truth in all writing. As such, there are certain levels of risk involved for the writer in every story s/he writes. Writing is, after all, personal. Like any other creative form, wr