A. Scott Berg

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Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg

Charles Lindbergh's solo flight from New York to Paris captured the imagination of a postwar generation hungry for heroes, and cemented an exalted spot for the 25-year-old pilot from Minnesota in the collective American imagination. A. Scott Berg's thorough new biography of the aviator suggests that despite the public scrutiny that accompanied his every move until his death in 1974, Lindbergh remained an intensely private man. The son of ill-matched parents who separated when he was 6, he was painfully shy and emotionally guarded. "Aviation created a brotherhood of casual acquaintances ... in which he felt comfortable," writes Berg with characteristic perceptiveness.

Lindbergh's wife, the writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh, gave Berg unrestricted access to her husband's and her own voluminous personal papers--and he made good use of them to assess both the couple's relationship and their activities. Probably the most startling revelation is a brief but candid discussion of Anne's affair in the late 1950s with a New Jersey doctor, which helped assuage her need to vent emotions in a way her buttoned-up husband found insupportable. (During the horrendous days in 1932 when their 20-month-old son was kidnapped and killed, Berg notes, she never once saw Charles cry.) The biography is solid on all aspects of Lindbergh's career, including his notorious urging that America stay out of World War II; Berg rebuts charges that Lindbergh was a Nazi or a traitor, but rightly criticizes the anti-Semitism latent in some of his speeches. With this book, Berg succeeds in surveying Lindbergh's fascinating life and assessing its historic impact.

Max Perkins : Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg

The man who invented the modern profession of book editing finally got his due, 31 years after his death, when this revelatory biography appeared. A. Scott Berg's detailed explication of Maxwell Perkins's work on the manuscripts of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, and a host of other important American writers shows how much the Scribner's editor contributed to their books, all the while maintaining that he only helped his authors find the best in themselves. This 1978 National Book Award winner is a thorough, carefully considered account of a seminal period in American publishing.

Goldwyn : A Biography by A. Scott Berg

Samuel Goldwyn was the premier dream-maker of his era, and in this lavishly-praised biography, the author of Lindbergh and Max Perkins: Editor of Genius offers a life story as rich with drama as anything found on the silver screen...

The biography of legendary producer Samuel Goldwyn--from the National Book Award-winning author of "Lindbergh" and "Max Perkins: Editor of Genius". "Moving, funny, compassionate and richly entertaining . . . The book proves worthy of what would be, in context, the highest praise of all: It has The Goldwyn touch".--"The Washington Post Book World".

About the Author
A. Scott Berg graduated from Princeton University in 1971. He is the author of the bestselling books Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, which won the National Book Award and Goldwyn: A Biography, for which he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in Los Angeles.

Deconstructing Charles Lindbergh:  Berg tells aviator's secrets to Princeton audience

By Aimee E. Pereda
Princeton Packet Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 17, 1998

A. Scott Berg returned to Princeton University Friday to tell what he called "the greatest untold story in history."

Mr. Berg, Princeton University class of '71, spoke to about 200 people gathered in McCosh Hall to hear him discuss the secrets of Charles A. Lindbergh - the subject of Mr. Berg's most recent biography.

"His is the greatest untold story because he became the greatest of heroes, the greatest of victims and one of the greatest villains in history," Mr. Berg said.

Mr. Berg is the winner of the National Book Award and has written biographies of legendary editor Maxwell Perkins and movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn. His first book, "Max Perkins, Editor of Genius," began as his senior thesis.

He was the first writer to be granted unrestricted access to Mr. Lindbergh's massive collection of personal papers. His book, "Lindbergh," published in September, is currently number five on the New York Times bestseller list, and film rights to the book have been acquired by Steven Spielberg...

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