"For the happiest life, days should be rigorously planned, nights left open to chance," says the writer Mignon McLaughlin from the calendar "Fabulous Broads."

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In spite of sounding like Oprah, saying, "Read this book!" I do want to urge you to read two tomes that I am recommending. One of them, I am still right in the middle of its attenuated history.

The first is Harry Evans’s autobiographical My Paper Chase: True Stories of Vanished Times from Little, Brown. This famous husband of the dynamic Tina Brown tells us all about how journalism of the old-fashioned kind really worked in the past, from the ground up. I think Harry’s story of how he rose up out of the Manchester working class to become the editor of The Times of London may be the best story ever written about "the art" of newspapering.

And don’t worry, you youngsters who couldn’t care less about the old days. Harry knows that times and things have changed (The Times of London indeed has changed also!) and he realizes that it is his wife – and websites like this one – that are remaking the fourth estate in America. 

But nothing beats Harry’s firsthand experiences and there are lessons here for anyone trying to create meaningful content and accurate reporting, whether they use a quill pen, a typewriter or a keyboard. Don’t miss this fabulous work on how cream rises to the top. It will inspire you.

Here are a couple of Harry Evans quotes, the first from his early hard-won education: "I absorbed the notion of the sanctity of property from John Locke, of free opinion from John Stuart Mill, of free will and the immorality of treating others as a means to one’s selfish ends from Immanuel Kant. I recoiled from the mob-rule totalitarianism, as I saw it, of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and found myself at one with Burke again in loathing the mob in the French terror – my favorite Dickens was A Tale of Two Cities – while sympathizing with the revolutionaries in America. It was thrilling to read how the abstractions of Enlightenment philosophies became muscle in the American Declaration of Independence."

Here’s the second, a peek at Harry’s historical and anecdotal sense of humor: "The celebrated critic (John Ruskin) had said that Whistler’s ‘Nocturne in Black and Gold’ was nothing more than a pot of paint flung in the face of the public. Whistler sued him. Asked in cross examination by Ruskin’s attorney how long it had taken him to paint it, Whistler famously replied, ‘All my life.’" Harry felt this story resembled his career in the newspaper business … Add to this Harry’s remembrance of his colleague Nick Tomalin’s quote: "The only qualities essential for real success in journalism are ratlike cunning, a plausible manner and a little literary ability.

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Here in New York, on November 10, I will have the chance to laud Harry Evans because he is being honored by the Martha Stewart Center for Living at the Mount Sinai Medical Center gala. I just happen to be the host of this shindig. The names on this invite are top drawer from Martha Stewart to Richard Gere and Carey Lowell to Charles Koppelman, David Murdock, Marla Schaefer and Steven Weishoff and Steve Schwartz. If you’re in New York, call (914) 579-1000. We’d love to see you and your money!