"From Pulitzer-prize winning Wall Street Journal columnist and New York Times bestselling author Peggy Noonan, a masterclass in how to see and love America.
For a quarter century, Peggy Noonan has been thinking aloud about America in her much-loved Wall Street Journal column. In this new collection of her essential recent work, Noonan demonstrates the erudition, wisdom and humor that have made her one of America's most admired writers.
She calls balls and strikes on the political shenanigans of recent leaders and she honors the integrity of great Americans, ranging from Billy Graham to the heroes of 9/11. A thinker who never allows her tenderness to slip into sentimentality, she writes with clear-eyed urgency about the internal and external dangers facing our republic. She sometimes writes with indignation, but above all she writes with love- and an enduring faith that America can be its best self, that its ideals are worth protecting, and that beauty and heroism can be found in our neighbors, in our history, and in ourselves. This book is a celebration of what America has been, is, and can be."
"The 2017 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Commentary and conservative icon Peggy Noonan offers her most insightful work, including her Wall Street Journal columns about the 2016 Election.
New York Times bestseller The Time of Our Lives travels the path of Peggy Noonan's remarkable and influential career, beginning with a revealing essay about her motivations as a writer and thinker. It's followed by an address to students at Harvard University on the drafting of President Reagan's speech the day the space shuttle Challenger exploded. Then comes one surprising chapter after the next including:
'People I Miss' -- memorable salutes to the likes of Tim Russert, Joan Rivers, Margaret Thatcher, and others.
'Making Trouble' -- Peggy's sharpest, funniest and most critical columns about Democrats and Republicans, the idiocracy of government, and Beltway disconnect.
'I Just Called to Say I Love You' -- Peggy's most poignant writing capturing the country's grief and recovery in the wake of 9-11, and clear-eyed foresight on what lay ahead in terms of war and sacrifice.
'The Loneliest President Since Nixon' -- tracking hope and change as it became disillusionment and disappointment with President Obama.
And other sections where Peggy discerns the mood of the country ('State of the Union'), the melodrama of the historic 2008 election ('My Beautiful Election'), her battles with the Catholic Church ('What I Told the Bishops') and lighter meditations on baseball, a snowy afternoon in Brooklyn, and motherhood ('Having Fun').
Annotated throughout, The Time of Our Lives articulates Peggy's conservative vision, demonstrating why she has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, journalism's highest honor."
"Peggy Noonan's Wall Street Journal column has been must reading for thoughtful liberals and conservatives alike. Now she issues an urgent, heartfelt call for all Americans to support the next President. Because it is not the threats and challenges we face, but how we face them that defines us as a nation.
The terrible events of 9/11 brought us together in a way not seen since World War II. But the stresses and divisions of the Bush years have driven us apart to a point that is unhealthy and dangerous. Today, Noonan argues, the national mood has swung the other way and it is well past time for politicians to catch up. We long for leaders who can summon us to greatness and sacrifice, as they did in the long struggles against fascism and communism.
In this timely essay, written in the pamphleteering tradition of Tom Paine's Common Sense, Noonan reminds us that we must face our common challenges together—not by rising above partisanship, but by reaffirming what it means to be American."
"Ronald Reagan carried a conservative vision of America to the White House, where his administration gave it life. Peggy Noonan followed Reagan to Washington as his speechwriter— and gave his vision voice. As speech writer for George Bush during his Presidential campaign, Noonan dispelled her candidate's 'wimpy' image and replaced it with one of quiet strength by coining such eloquent phrases as 'a thousand points of light' and 'a kinder, gentler nation.'
In this memoir, Noonan shows us the world behind the words with sharp, vivid portraits of President Reagan and a host of Washington' s movers and shakers. Rendered in the same vivid, eloquent style that earned Ronald Reagan the designation 'the Great Communicator,' Noonan delivers a candid portrait of the Reagan White House in this stylish, sensitive memoir that pursues the question, 'Who's running things here anyway?'"
