Last week I finished my restrained first reading of Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing by one of my heroes, Robert Caro.

If you’re familiar with Caro’s work - the doorstopper, 1300 page Power Broker (for which he won his first Pulitizer), or any of The Years of Lyndon Johnson volumes, you know that the 200 or so pages in working represent a restraint bordering on protest.

Caro explains he wanted to publish something, because at 83 years old, he’s acutely aware how much time he doesn’t have left.

I think this book should be required reading for every undergraduate in the country, and I’ll tell you why in a few simple reasons.

First, the quality of writing in this book is outstanding. Caro is clear to the point where you want to turn away. He makes his points so blindingly obvious it feels almost repetitive, and yet is not. For books in the genre ostensibly about writing, this is an achievement. Most books about writing are plainly boring and not helpful. This is neither.

Second, connecting the quality of the prose to the importance of readers reading what he has to say is a point that, upon reflection, seems obvious. But it is far too often the case that in our haste to get something out, we do not pause to labor over the words we choose to employ. That’s to our peril. It means something very important to write well about abstract and complex phenomena. Literary Excellence is essential for journalism/non-fiction/history if it is to be read, absorbed, and transform its’ readers. Otherwise, it simply is noise. How to write so that you cut through all of that, and outlast the noise - this is actually valuable.

Third, all readers can disabuse themselves of myths about Power. Caro has done more for the study of real world power than any writer since Machiavelli. Power reveals, because in order to gain power you must conceal the ends for which you intend to employ it. Power is never given freely, it’s compelled or taken and when you finally have it - that’s the measure of who you always were and what you always actually valued. But more than that; Caro never moves from reporting to veneration. The subjects - Robert Moses, LBJ (and all of the men LBJ cultivates on his rise up) - are never put on to some pedastal. Neither are the people upon whom that power is wielded forgotten or dispensed with by a throwaway line. Do yourself a favor: find “The Sad Irons” chapter in The Path to Power, or the chapter “One Mile” in The Power Broker. These chapters tell the story of what happens when power is wielded (or not), and on whom. So many Americans worship at the idol of our Exceptionalism and our national power, but have no idea what that means or cost. Reading Caro is sobering.

Last, this book in particular underscores just how much effort is required to make things that last. The lengths to which he and Ina, his wife, go to research, interview, and write is staggering, but the results are evident. And to underscore this, why he feels compelled to do so, is to understand what’s always drawn me to his work. Caro wants to know something, how it really works, and can’t force himself to stop until he does.

To recap: every student should be made to read this book because it will make the reader understand and appreciate the importance of excellent writing and the labor it takes to produce it and to disabuse themselves of the myths they’ve internalized about Power.

I’ve been getting more and more in to Data Science and Analytics; it’s just the direction my career has flowed to. In part its because of this innate need to make sense of things - to know something, how it really works.

My family and I went to a different church last Sunday with our friends Josh and Keri. They are regulars there and introduced us around to some of their friends. One woman asked me what I do and I told her and this lead on to a discussion of how I got there. I like to joke that I got lost on the way to Law School - which is sort of true.

She mentioned she is a journalist, an editor for a magazine. This got us talking about undergrad, and in particular, how I made a small mint prepping JSchool students for the infamous Grammar Test.

I have to remember that the first time I meet people, they usually are meeting someone who’s done, you know, 1-2 things, or only connects 1-2 things in their life to what they are doing now. People rarely intuitively grasp the underlying systems that connect what would appear to be disparate things. She asked how that all fit; I responded that the same reason I’m good at data, was good at Grammar Tests, and was attracted to law was this formal system and the techniques associated with really knowing something.

They are all - if you stop to think about them - about asking big questions and getting big answers.

Robert Caro has devoted his life and his wife’s life to asking a set of big questions and getting big answers. Working is a slim volume on the techniques and approaches he and Ina used to getting to know the truth all the way down. As a field manual to your curiousity, you will never find a more useful nor enjoyable read.

Always remember: Turn Every God Damn Page.