The Vanity Fair Diaries

1983-1992

By: Tina Brown

Narrated by: Tina Brown

Length: 16 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

This program is read by the author.

Tina Brown kept delicious daily diaries throughout her eight spectacular years as editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair. Today they provide an incendiary portrait of the flash and dash and power brokering of the Excessive Eighties in New York and Hollywood.

The Vanity Fair Diaries is the story of an Englishwoman barely out of her twenties who arrives in New York City with a dream. Summoned from London in hopes that she can save Condé Nast's troubled new flagship Vanity Fair, Tina Brown is immediately plunged into the maelstrom of the competitive New York media world and the backstabbing rivalries at the court of the planet's slickest, most glamour-focused magazine company. She survives the politics, the intrigue, and the attempts to derail her by a simple stratagem: succeeding. In the face of rampant skepticism, she triumphantly reinvents a failing magazine.

Here are the inside stories of Vanity Fair scoops and covers that sold millions—the Reagan kiss, the meltdown of Princess Diana's marriage to Prince Charles, the sensational Annie Leibovitz cover of a gloriously pregnant, naked Demi Moore. In this cinematic audiobook, the drama, the comedy, and the struggle of running an "it" magazine come to life. Brown's Vanity Fair Diaries is also a woman's journey, of making a home in a new country and of the deep bonds with her husband, their prematurely born son, and their daughter.

Astute, open-hearted, often riotously funny, Tina Brown's The Vanity Fair Diaries is a compulsively fascinating and intimate chronicle of a woman's life in a glittering era.

©2017 Tina Brown (P)2017 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

Best Audiobooks of 2017 -BookPage

"Here, in all their glory, are the excessive and extravagant go-go 1980s." -AudioFile

A long visit with a delightful, powerful friend

Tina Brown sounds like a favorite friend sharing her extraordinary personal, professional, creative, and family experiences over nearly a decade. She’s led a fantastic life through hard work, enormous talent, brains, inspiration, luck, charm, wit.

I loved being in NYC with her during this oh so interesting time while she is woman, wife, mommy, boss, friend, cultivator of talent, taste maker, strategist, fingers crossed leaper & more.

Speed Read

Ms. Brown is clearly a woman of many talents, but reading is not one of them. The book would benefit if she did not sound as if she were running from an oncoming train. A slower pace might have allowed for more expression as well. Her story, while interesting, sounds too detached to draw the reader in.

Engaging

Wonderful to travel along with Tina as she builds VF and refreshes the New Yorker

Ok story but frenetic pace

Narration is so frenetic had to slow it down. interesting perspective on a favorite magazine

loved it!

The diary style made it feel so real (dare I say "authentic?") and Tina's beautiful word pictures made her account of events feel almost like they've now become my memories. haha!

Delicious!! Erudite, smart, wonderfully gossipy!

Absolutely yummy--if you lived through the sparkly, over-the-top eighties, where the real cult of personality flourished, the happenings and the names will jump out once again...but in real context. Tina Brown is brilliant
..a combo of high intelligence, great literary style, and spot-on observations.

Loved it ! A Fabulous book!

Tina Brown narrates her Vanity Fair diaries with joy, wit, heart, amazing intelligence and drive !
You will laugh out loud at all the snarky remarks from the society set. She shined as a tough woman in a very tough business. I think Tina Brown had lunch or dinner with every superstar on the planet - Presidents, A - list movie stars, CEO of business, brilliant writers,artists , couture designers , creative directors , billionaires and Royalty! America, London , France,Spain & Germany It s delicious fun to listen to her tell us all about it
Her chapters on her very loving marriage to her brilliant husband Harry Evans and their babies are touching and at times heart wrenching. As well her closeness with her loving, also brilliant parents.
As a woman the same age as Ms Brown I always loved magazines and followed Browns career. I remember every one of the
VF issues and covers. So much fun to hear about the making of them ! Her instincts for what public wanted to read about were genius. Ms Brown is a tough boss but rewarded loyalty and made so many superstars in her watch.
She did an amazing job at VF i applaud her wonderful book!
Ms. Brown does talk very fast on this audio book , but that is her and luckily you can always rewind to hear a fabulous , juicy line again !! Will miss her voice in my car !

Fast Talker

I loved seeing into Tina Brown’s 1980’s world of interesting people. Every time I couldn’t remember or didn’t know who someone was, I looked them up on the www and found them . Tina Brown talks so fast and with a frequent slurring of words (or is it my hearing?) that I listened to the whole book at the slowest speed offered d by the Audible app.

Fantastic pace and wonderful stories

Brown is frank and forthright. Especially loved this as an audiobook and hearing it in her own voice.

Editor-in-Chief Forgot to Cut Words

I liked the book overall but agree with other readers that at time Brown went overboard on enumerating all the NYC 1980s socialites.

The process of turning around VF and editing the different issues was what I enjoyed most about the book. Useful for anyone that needs to edit content for a living.

The Epilogue was great.