Posts Tagged ‘Reading Jackie’

An Uncommon Biography of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

December 2nd, 2011

While Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis never wrote a memoir, she told her life story and revealed herself in intimate ways through the nearly 100 books she brought into print as an editor at Viking and Doubleday. Many Americans regarded Jackie as the paragon of grace, but few knew her as the woman sitting on her office floor laying out illustrations, or flying to California to persuade Michael Jackson to write his autobiography. William Kuhn provides a behind-the-scenes look at Jackie at work: commissioning books and nurturing authors, helping to shape stories that spoke to her. Based on archives and interviews with her authors, colleagues, and friends, Reading Jackie reveals the serious and the mischievous woman underneath the glamorous public image.

Click to read an excerpt from Reading Jackie and to visit William Kuhn’s website, where you’ll find rare photos of Jackie as well as a full list of the books she edited. Plus, watch William Kuhn give a presentation on the book at the Boston Athenaeum.