Anderson Cooper is well known as a CNN anchor and frequent Oprah guest. His book “Dispatches from the Edge” chronicles his year in 2005 from the tsunami to Katrina.While I have a lot of respect for Cooper, I found the book to be slow going. Cooper delves into his past and how the death of his father and brother shaped him, particularly during one tough year of covering some of the worst natural and man-made disasters ever.

I did find the last few chapters on Hurricane Katrina to be particularly interesting, especially when he speaks about how angry he was. We often think of news anchors as having some distant quality that allows them to observe without getting/feeling involved. I sometimes wonder if having that quality is a good thing.

In this book, Cooper reveals that during Katrina at least, he did NOT have that emotional distance. He speaks with frankness about the horror of seeing bodies lying in the streets of American towns. I liked the rawness of those chapters and wished more of the book could’ve included that kind of emotion.