Personal history cover

Personal history

by Vincent Sheean

Entertaining reading, this 'personal history' of a journalist who has specialized, sometimes against his will, in exotic and hairbreadth adventures in news getting. Spain on the verge of revolution, the Riff country in the throes of their fight for independence, China in revolution, Russia under the Soviets, Italy at the beginning of the Black Shirt advance, Persia when there was promise of troubled waters -- always he was shipped off to the scene of action with the demand for personal adventure and local color, rather than political and military information, kept before his eyes. There is something of the frankness of Lockhart in British Agent -- though one does not get so honest a picture of the man himself -- and the book might have decided appeal to the same market. This book formed the basis for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 movie, Foreign Correspondent.

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?