About the author
Bob Greene
Award-winning journalist Bob Greene is a CNN contributor and a New York
Times bestselling author who originally set out to write "Once Upon a Town"
because, as he says on the book's first page, he was looking for "the best
America there ever was." He found it in North Platte, Nebraska, on the site
of the old Canteen down by the railroad tracks.
In addition to "Once Upon a Town," Greene's twenty-five books include
"Late Edition: A Love Story"; "When We Get to Surf City: A Journey
Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreams";
"And You Know You Should Be Glad: A True Story of Lifelong Friendship";
"Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War"; "Hang Time: Days
and Dreams with Michael Jordan"; "Be True to Your School: A Diary of
1964"; "Chevrolet Summers, Dairy Queen Nights"; the novel "All Summer
Long"; and, with his sister, D.G. Fulford, "To Our Children's Children:
Preserving Family Histories for Generations to Come."
As a magazine writer he has been lead columnist for Life and Esquire;
as a broadcast journalist he has served as contributing correspondent
for "ABC News Nightline." For thirty-one years he wrote a syndicated
newspaper column based in Chicago, first for the Sun-Times and later for
the Tribune. His essays and reporting have been featured on the op-ed
pages of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and on National
Public Radio's "All Things Considered." His work is included in both
volumes of the century-spanning anthologies "Deadline Artists: America's
Greatest Newspaper Columns."
During four decades of reporting stories around the world, his
travels have taken him from the Oval Office of the White House to cattle
drives on the desert of New Mexico; from big-city murder trials to Super
Bowls and NBA Finals; from the stages of rock-and-roll arenas (for
fifteen years he sang backup vocals on tour with Jan and Dean) to royal
weddings; from the clamor of national political conventions to the
quiet streets of small-town America.
Of Greene's work, Tom Wolfe has written: "Bob Greene is a virtuoso of
the things that bring journalism alive." Jeff Zaslow, co-author of the
international No. 1 bestseller "The Last Lecture," commented: "There is
something absolutely magical about Bob Greene's voice." Sportswriting
legend Dan Jenkins wrote: "I would go almost anywhere to read a Bob
Greene column, and I would jump over a six-foot-high pile of
chicken-fried steaks and cream gravy to read a book filled with them."
And, about Greene's journalism, Playboy magazine declared: "Water covers
two-thirds of the earth, and Bob Greene covers the rest."
His CNN columns and commentaries can be read
here.