Words and Music: Confessions of an Optimist

In an unusually forthright and unrestrained professional memoir, veteran publisher Stephen Rubin scrutinizes his more than five-decade career in journalism, book publishing, and philanthropy. Rubin shares his journey over more than three decades, working with four publishing houses: Bantam, Doubleday, Henry Holt, and Simon & Schuster. In breathtaking detail, he recreates the iconic publication of The Firm by John Grisham, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, Permanent Record by Edward Snowden, Me by Elton John, and Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff. He also takes us behind the scenes of the infamous Da Vinci Code trial in London. And while Rubin is noted for some of publishing's biggest bestsellers, he had an entire career in journalism for two decades, covering culture, classical music, pop singers, and Hollywood movie stars before joining Bantam Books in 1984. He shares his adventures covering giant personalities including Luciano Pavarotti, Leontyne Price, James Levine, Isaac Stern, Pierre Boulez, Birgit Nilsson, Richard Tucker, Erich Leinsdorf, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Dimitri Shostakovich. Also pop singers--Judy Garland, Carly Simon, Dory Previn, and Janis Ian--and Hollywood movie stars--Gregory Peck, Burt Lancaster, Michael Douglas, and Ryan O'Neal. Finally, Rubin reveals another fascinating world in his return to his musical roots when he joined the board of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and established the Stephen and Cynthia Rubin Foundation for the study of classical music criticism.