Copy Cats

On the cover of Norman Webster’s Newspapering is a red Parker Jotter, the vintage pen with the famous clicker on top. On the front of Robert Fulford’s A Life in Paragraphs is an illustration, by Seth, of a pipe-smoking man who is banging away with two fingers on what looks like an Olympia typewriter. Both covers are evocative of something old school and iconic, and for good reason. These are books by elder statesmen of journalism — two masters of their craft. Both know how to tell a good story through observation, anecdote, intelligence, and humour. From Fulford’s exploration of the “ambitious and spectacularly extensive sex life” of H. G. Wells to Webster’s description of Pope John Paul II as a mix of Churchill, Kennedy, and Muhammad Ali, these books are lively and informative, with much between the covers.

Newspapering is not a memoir but a collection of Webster’s most interesting and important pieces — an assortment that spans fifty-plus...