Description: Ted Koppel kept a journal in 1999 because century's end seemed a good time for him to look back at his life and reflect a bit, and to look at the shape of the world as he sees it. Koppel is a thinking man's journalist, as "Nightline" reflects, but his role on that show has been as an interviewer, a fact- and opinion-gatherer. Now is his turn to have his say: He calls on his almost 40 years in journalism, and a fascinating life, to give us an insider's view of the most important people and events of the recent past -- and to offer us as well a view inside the man who, with "Nightline", revolutionized the way America gets its information.

The remarkable events of 1999 -- the Lewinsky affair, JFK Jr.'s death, the thuggery Milosevic and the Kosovo, Michael Jordan's Farewell -- trigger Kippel's recollections and commentary. He share his thoughts on his German Jewish parents, forced to flee their native land; his childhood in England; his deep attachment to family and friends; the misery he observed in Vietnam and Bosnia; the conundrum of race in America.

Here are his observations on the power of the media (including ABC's failures and his own); on the transformation of the American presidency; on Americans' ignorance of the rest of the world; on the frightening violation of privacy in the Internet age; on violence; on celebrity -- and on those damn misleading ads in the Sunday papers.

Candid and thought-provoking, opinionated and witty, touching and angry, and always intelligent, here is the news celebrity's book that is the exception to the rule.

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