Growing Up, Paperback

In this heartfelt memoir by the Masterpiece Theatre host, Pulitzer Prize-winner, and groundbreaking New York Times columnist, Russell Baker traces his youth in the mountains of rural Virginia.

When Baker was only five, his father died. His mother, strong-willed and matriarchal, never looked back. After all, she had three children to raise. These were Depression years, and Mrs. Baker moved her fledgling family to Baltimore. Baker's mother was determined her children would succeed, and we know her regimen worked for Russell. He did everything from delivering papers to hustling subscriptions for the Saturday Evening Post. As is often the case, early hardships made the man.

``Baker has accomplished the memoirists's task: to find shape and meaning in his own life, and to make it interesting and pertinent to the reader. In lovely, haunting prose, he has told a story that is deeply in the American grain.``--Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World