Barbara Walters' Memoir Abridged Audio Book Excludes Sex Details

Time:

A typical abridged audio book runs about six hours. That may sound like an eternity, but it's actually an abbreviation: books take a long time to read aloud, so the audio versions rarely squeeze in more than a third or so of the unabridged book. In many cases, if the edit is skillful, you might not even know what's been left out. In the case of Barbara Walters' heavily hyped Audition, however, it's hard not to notice at least one thing that's missing: the sex.

The five-CD, six-hour audio version of Audition, read with breathless earnestness by Walters herself, does a fast-paced jog through the high points of her hefty, 580-page memoir: her travails as a woman trying to break into the largely male preserve of TV news; her strained behind-the-scenes relations with male co-anchors like Frank McGee and Harry Reasoner; her failed marriages and troubled relationship with her daughter Jackie. But when it comes to Walters' love life, the audio book is strangely chaste. None of her romantic relationships outside of her three marriages -- not even the most-publicized revelation from the book, her secret romance with former Massachusetts Senator (and then married) Edward Brooke -- are anywhere to be found.

Walters' mid-career love life is detailed largely in two chapters in the middle of the book, "Fun and Games in Washington" and "Special Men in My Life." Not all that special, or all that fun, apparently, because the audio book skips the two chapters entirely. Missing is any note of her affair with Brooke, not to mention her flings with future Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, Virginia Senator John Warner and several more.

Read the whole story: Time

Comments

[ROBOT8]

UUUUUUUUUU­UGGGGGGGGG­GGGGGGGHHH­HHHHHHHHHH­HHHHHHH!!!­!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!!!!!! THE ONLY THING WORSE IS JOAN RIVERS!!!!­!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!!!!!!!­!! NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD!!!!!!­!!!!!!!!!!­!!! MUST EAT BRAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Phil123]

Not sure that I want to hear about Baba-Wawa's intimate moments. Best she left it out.

BTW, interesting that the first time I tried to submit this, I used the word s-e-x (as is in the headline of the article, and the HuffPost's "bad word" filter wouldn't accept it. Strange that they don't run their own articles through it.

[larry278]

Ease off. Ms Huffington has seen qualities in Ms Walters which make Ms Walters a desirable Godmother for a child of Ms Huffington. Hold up on the scarlet letter or stoning Ms Walters for an earlier lacuna. No, I won't watch "The View" even if Michelle, Whoppi, Star & Rosie are on the same program. Ms Walters has created a sentimental, mish mash for day time TV in "The View".

[mamacat]

Yes, Virginia, adult women do things that little girls do not.

[Zentomato]

Ms Walters has been a great interviewer over so many years but the way they shilled for this book was just ridiculous. She appeared everywhere for weeks. It ended up being really annoying.

[awenyyds]

would have been good taste not to mention the affair with the MARRIED Man, no need to mention his name. How embarrassing for his family.

[Jeffomil]

She had second thoughts, or she actually could not bring herself to read it. SO WHAT?? She has a lifem let her lead it as she wishes. She's hurting no one by leaving that area of her "experience" out.

[KarateKid]

But with her speech impediment, it would have sounded smarmy. "Oh, baby, make WaWa happy...." you get the drift.....

[newgeneration]

She bores me to death !!

[vocalist]

Who is reading ? If Babs, then she is becoimg more and more difficult to understand.
Nonetheless, but no thanks, do not need to know about her steamy affairs or anyone elses in that matter.

[OpusIsUnderTheBed]

I just posted an innocuous comment on the Barbara piece. Or I didn't. A Big Brother software bot jumped up and said my post was deleted for "bad words" or something akin.

Weren't no bad words. Huff, straighten out your software. I don't appreciate the waste of my time.

[ishok]

"...he was already on the elevator when the doors opened. He was holding an open jar of peanut butter. I had just unwrapped my Hershey bar. I tripped...
We made Reese's Cups for 20 years."

Okay there, I printed it. Can we move on now.

[SmootyBooty]

No one could keep a straight face while she tried to record the "bwo-job" excerpts..­.

[KarateKid]

ROTFLMAO!!!

[DRaymond]

Well I guess it is a lot easier to write about some things than to say them out loud in your own voice.

In general abridgers are a separate trade from the writers, but I cannot imagine an abridger on their own deciding to leave out whole chapters. There is a possibility that the author or publisher might have told the abridger to leave certain whole sections out, but a slim one. More likely when BW got into the sound studio she either refused to read those sections out loud or did so in such a nervous and clumsy manner that they were edited out.

[sharonh]

Baba Waawaa, yuch.

[larry278]

Check out what Whoppi Goldberg said of BaBa's bumping with a former Sen from Ma & others(?). The uncensored version of BaBa's latest work is destined for the remainder bin on its date of publication. Not even Joan Rivers could make BaBa's tale spicy.