Things Worth Fighting For: Collected Writings

The collected articles and columns of Michael Kelly, award-winning reporter, war correspondent, columnist, and editor, whose passion for the good story and whose candor and wit made him one of the foremost journalists of our time.

His career reflected myriad colors: he wrote for a large variety of publications, covering a multitude of topics — political, international, and personal — with singular insight, passion, and wit. This collection of his most memorable magazine and newspaper stories and columns — drawn from the Washington Post, New York Times, The New Yorker, The New Republic, and other publications — puts on full display the dazzling panoply of his gifts: for physical description and scene setting; for telling detail, brilliant simile, and satirical insight; for prose that is at once mathematically precise and lyrical.

Here are the searing portraits of Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, H. Ross Perot, and other seminal political figures of our time that won Kelly national attention. Here are the stunning dispatches from the first Gulf War that earned him the National Magazine Award for reporting and burnished his journalistic legend. Here are the fierce columns and landmark cover stories that raised disturbing questions about Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the deeply incestuous relationship between Washington, D.C.'s political and media cultures. And here are the loving family portraits and hilarious social commentaries.

Things Worth Fighting For represents the body of work of a journalist who demonstrated time and again a surpassing talent for penetrating to the heart of the matter, for advancing far beyond the headlines and surface appearances of people and events to find their true meanings, for getting the story other writers missed and telling it with a verve few other writers could match.

"The book's strength lies in the impact of having Kelly's war essays in one place, in chronological order, giving them a power they didn't have when sprinkled weekly in the press." Publishers Weekly

"[S]plendid....Against [the] highlights, some of Kelly's curmudgeonly, conservative cultural pieces pale. But the highlights are brilliant indeed, showing that American journalism lost much with Kelly's passing." Kirkus Reviews

"[Kelly's] analyses were cogent, trenchant, and, interestingly, conservative....The columns display not only expansive interests...but also a journalistic eye that encompassed telling details usually overlooked by other reporters." Library Journal

Until his tragic death at the age of 46 while covering the war in Iraq, Kellywas widely regarded as the preeminent journalist of his generation. This is apowerful retrospective of his work.

This volume features the collected articles and columns of the late Michael Kelly, award-winning reporter, war correspondent, columnist, and editor, whose passion for the good story and whose candor and wit made him one of the world's foremost journalists.

Until his tragic death at forty-six while covering the war in Iraq, Michael Kelly was widely regarded as one of the preeminent journalists of his generation. This collection of his most memorable stories and columnsĀ—drawn from the Washington Post, New York Times, New Republic, and other publicationsĀ—puts on full display the dazzling panoply of his gifts. From his searing portraits of political figures to his stunning wartime dispatches from the front lines, Things Worth Fighting For represents the work of a journalist who time and again demonstrated a talent for penetrating to the heart of the matterĀ—for getting the story other writers missed and telling it with a verve few writers could match.

Michael Kelly was a war correspondent and presidential campaign reporter, a syndicated columnist, and the editor of three magazines (most recently the award-winning Atlantic Monthly). He was killed in Iraq on April 3, 2003, when the Humvee he was riding in came under fire and plunged into a canal. He is survived by his wife and two sons.

Ted Koppel, the anchor and managing editor for Nightline and a long-time veteran of ABCNEWS, has won every major broadcasting award, including thirty-seven Emmy Awards. Mr. Koppel cowrote the bestseller In the National Interest.