All Things at Once
As the co-host of MSNBC’s popular show Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski has established herself as a leading political news journalist and beloved television personality.\ But success hasn’t always come easy for Mika. Growing up the only daughter of former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, she struggled to find an identity in a family of overachievers. She worked her way up the ranks of network television to surpass even her own ambitions, reaching the very top of the ladder, only to...
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The New York Times bestseller and media sensation, now in paperback, is a candid and inspiring book that helps women confront personal and professional challenges in the key moments of their lives—from the popular television and radio co-host. Publishers Weekly In her second year as cohost of MSNBC's Morning Joe, TV news veteran Brzezinski is on fire, after enduring her share of professional setbacks and personal hardships. In this straightforward, frank account of her career trajectory, Brzezinski, the daughter of President Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, does not bother to disguise her hard-fought ambition to secure a top news anchor position or hide the fact that she is not satisfied (nor very good at) being a stay-at-home mom of two daughters. From the beginning of her TV career, working her way up at local affiliates in Hartford, to her big break, getting hired in 1997 for an overnight CBS network anchor program in New York, Up to the Minute, the author resolved to make the frantic pace work, despite the increasing toll the late hours and absences from her family were taking. Distracted, pressured to return too early to work after the birth of her second child and exhausted, she took a bad fall down the stairs of her Yonkers home while holding her infant. The trauma scared her into slowing down, but not for long. Opportunity has seasoned Brzezinski but not hardened her, and having found her venue and voice with Morning Joe, she shares a refreshingly pragmatic approach for the professional woman: don't wait to have children and don't let your job treat you like a bad boyfriend. (Jan.)
Cold Open: October 30, 1998-Yonkers, New York xiii\ Intro: Sometimes You Have to Take a Step Back 1\ 1 The Secret Shapes of Trees 13\ 2 Adventures in Television 45\ 3 Up to the Minute 65\ 4 Falling 93\ 5 Turning the Page 117\ 6 Blink of an Eye 143\ 7 Lost...and Found 177\ 8 The Biggest Step Back of All 197\ 9 Finding My Voice 217
\ Publishers WeeklyIn her second year as cohost of MSNBC's Morning Joe, TV news veteran Brzezinski is on fire, after enduring her share of professional setbacks and personal hardships. In this straightforward, frank account of her career trajectory, Brzezinski, the daughter of President Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, does not bother to disguise her hard-fought ambition to secure a top news anchor position or hide the fact that she is not satisfied (nor very good at) being a stay-at-home mom of two daughters. From the beginning of her TV career, working her way up at local affiliates in Hartford, to her big break, getting hired in 1997 for an overnight CBS network anchor program in New York, Up to the Minute, the author resolved to make the frantic pace work, despite the increasing toll the late hours and absences from her family were taking. Distracted, pressured to return too early to work after the birth of her second child and exhausted, she took a bad fall down the stairs of her Yonkers home while holding her infant. The trauma scared her into slowing down, but not for long. Opportunity has seasoned Brzezinski but not hardened her, and having found her venue and voice with Morning Joe, she shares a refreshingly pragmatic approach for the professional woman: don't wait to have children and don't let your job treat you like a bad boyfriend. (Jan.)\ \ \ \ \ Kirkus ReviewsThe MSNBC personality writes about her roller-coaster career in TV news. Since 2007, Brzezinski has gained notoriety as Joe Scarborough's moderate sidekick on Morning Joe, but her defining moment as a journalist came, ironically, during June that year, when Paris Hilton was released from jail. Asked repeatedly to deliver that bit of infotainment as the lead headline, Brzezinski refused and promptly hopped off her anchor's chair and shredded the story. How she reached the point of such gutsy on-air defiance is the main subject of her memoir. "My one abiding thought," she writes, "was, Look, I'm forty years old, and I've been doing this a long time, and I can't pretend that this is news . . . I thought, You know what? Fire me. Go ahead. Like I'm scared of that happening again. And underneath that thought was another: This feels good." The youngest of three siblings, Brzezinski grew up in the charmed shadow of her famous parents, Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to Jimmy Carter, and Emilie Benes Brzezinski, an accomplished sculptor. Though the author says that her familial role was often that of "keeping the conversation going," an important early lesson she learned from her mother and grandmother was that she could accomplish anything. Her ambition set her on the road to a major anchoring job, finding the right husband and raising children. Along the way, when she rose to the top at CBS News only to be fired and end up unemployed for more than a year, Brzezinski says the lesson she has gleaned is "pace yourself." While the author seeks to advise women on negotiating the charged family-career divide, the most memorable moments are those in which Brzezinski simply tells herstory, displaying her struggles and achievements as a journalist, wife and mother. An intriguing account sure to interest working women and news junkies alike. Confirmed appearance on the Today Show. Agent: Mel Berger/William Morris Endeavor\ \
