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In today’s episode, we enter the world of books, history, journalism, and celebrity! My guest, Landon Jones, is a renowned author and journalist. He served as Managing Editor of both People and Money magazines, and has authored four critically acclaimed books.
Lanny’s most recent book, Celebrity Nation: How America Evolved into a Culture of Fans and Followers is a cautionary tale about our nation’s shift from hero worship to celebrity/influencer worship. Timely and telling!
Lanny shares with us how his early childhood hearing loss fed his love of reading. Libraries were his haven and feature prominently throughout his life and our conversation! He tells us about how observing his younger brothers led to his interest in Baby Boomers (a term he coined I might add!) and led to his writing Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation. And how his midwestern roots fostered his interest in the expeditions of Lewis & Clark. (It sounds like he’s coming back to those roots in his next project!)
We learn what brought Lanny to Princeton University (teachers saying, “Go East young man!”) where (including graduating with honors) he was editor of the Princeton Alumni Weekly and met many of his “big brother and sister” writing mentors including John McPhee, Mike Keeley, Jerry Goodman (Adam Smith) Joyce Carol Oates and Brock Brower. He went on to Time-Life and the creation of People magazine, where the things he learned and famous people he met as Managing Editor certainly informed his research into celebrity culture.
Celebrity Nation: How America Evolved into a Culture of Fans and Followers has (as do all of his books) a grand theme, is meticulously detailed and thoroughly researched.
I hope you’ll enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it! Lanny has great stories to tell and was fun to talk with!
Head to Lanny’s website for more information: www.lannyjones.com
And make sure to check out all ofLanny’s books!
