Klein, Alec 1967–

PERSONAL:

Born February 25, 1967, in Sleepy Hollow, NY; son of a journalist and an artist; married; wife's name Julie-Ann. Education: Graduated from Brown University.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Washington, DC.

CAREER:

Journalist. Reporter for Virginian-Pilot, Baltimore Sun, and Wall Street Journal; Washington Post, Washington, DC, journalist, 2000—. Guest lecturer at American University, Georgetown University, University of California, Berkeley, and New York University. University of Wisconsin, Madison, business writer-in-residence; television guest on Cable News Network and CNBC; radio guest on British Broadcasting Corporation and National Public Radio.

MEMBER:

Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Front Page Award, Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, and Emily P. Bissell Award, American Lung Association, Maryland Chapter, both 1998; Society of American Business Editors and Writers award for project reporting, Virginia Press Association award for news writing, and Gerald Loeb Award, University of California, Los Angeles, Anderson School of Management, all 2003.

WRITINGS:

Stealing Time: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Collapse of AOL Time Warner, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2003.

Beast of Love, James A. Rock & Co. (Rockville, MD), 2005.

A Class Apart: Prodigies, Pressure, and Passion inside One of America's Best High Schools, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Author Alec Klein has spent much of his career as a journalist, writing for newspapers including the Virginian-Pilot, Baltimore Sun, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. He also has lectured and served as a consultant for a variety of universities and television networks. His investigative work as a reporter has often led to the development of larger stories that he has addressed in book format.

This was the case in 2003, when Klein published Stealing Time: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Collapse of AOL Time Warner. The basis of the book came about the previous year, when Klein wrote a series of articles for the Washington Post about the business practices at AOL and AOL Time Warner, which eventually led to the government investigating the two companies. AOL purchased Time Warner in 2000 for 183 billion dollars in stock, the largest corporate acquisition ever and considered by many to be a questionable business deal. The author's recounting of the history of these two companies begins in 1980, with the backstory of how AOL came to be. Klein details the people who made AOL the powerful company it became, and how they developed and directed the corporate culture and important deals that were brokered. Critics lauded Klein's work on the book overall, noting that the book provides a vivid look inside these companies and the people who ran them. The author "draws a visceral and chilling portrait," wrote New York Times contributor Michiko Kakutani. Others appreciated Klein's thorough recounting of this chapter in business history. Stealing Time "offers a full but uncluttered history," noted Matthew Creamer in a review for PR Week.

In 2007, Klein published A Class Apart: Prodigies, Pressure, and Passion inside One of America's Best High Schools. The author, a 1985 graduate of Stuyvesant High School, takes readers inside Stuyvesant, one of the most competitive high schools in the country. This public high school, located in New York City, requires its students to pass an entrance exam, and what follows is four years of intense academics. Klein again tells his story through portraits of the people who live within the institution, including students, teachers, and staff members. These include ten-year-old Milo, who is taking advanced math courses at the school; Romeo, star of the high school football team; Eric Grossman, English Department chair and mentor of trouble students; and Jan Siwanowicz, a gifted mathematician who is working in the cafeteria because he hasn't completed his college degree. Readers again praised Klein's work, citing his ability to draw out these real characters in order to tell the larger story of a specific place and time. He "writes with pleasant whimsy," observed Melvin Jules Bukiet in a review for the New York Observer. Other critics thought the book was a welcome addition to the genre of narrative nonfiction. A Class Apart is an "often-charming love letter to a storied institution," wrote one Kirkus Reviews contributor.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, July 1, 2003, David Siegfried, review of Stealing Time: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Collapse of AOL Time Warner, p. 1843.

Business Week, July 14, 2003, Catherine Yang, review of Stealing Time, p. 20.

Christian Science Monitor, October 30, 2007, Caitlin Carpenter, review of A Class Apart: Prodigies, Pressure, and Passion inside One of America's Best High Schools, p. 14.

Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2007, review of A Class Apart.

Mechanical Engineering—CIME, February 1, 2008, review of A Class Apart, p. 56.

Newsweek, September 3, 2007, Peg Tyre, review of A Class Apart, p. 44.

New York Observer, August 21, 2007, Melvin Jules Bukiet, review of A Class Apart.

New York Times, July 1, 2003, Michiko Kakutani, review of Stealing Time.

New York Times Book Review, June 22, 2003, David D. Kirkpatrick, review of Stealing Time.

PR Week, August 25, 2003, Matthew Creamer, review of Stealing Time, p. 24.

Publishers Weekly, June 9, 2003, review of Stealing Time, p. 48.

U.S. News & World Report, August 13, 2007, Jackie Mantey, "At the Head of the Class," p. 26.

Washingtonian, April 1, 2006, McLean Robbins, review of Beast of Love.

Washington Post Book World, September 2, 2007, Ben Wildavsky, review of A Class Apart.

ONLINE

Arizona State University National Center for Business Journalism,http://www.businessjournalism.org/(May 21, 2007), Kanupriya Vashisht, interview with Alec Klein.

Bookreporter.com,http://www.bookreporter.com/ (June 9, 2008), Colleen Quinn, review of Stealing Time.

Brown Alumni Magazine,http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/ (June 9, 2008), David L. Marcus, review of A Class Apart.

CNN.com,http://transcripts.cnn.com/ (July 5, 2003), interview with Alec Klein.

MathNotations,http://mathnotations.blogspot.com/ (October, 2007), interview with Alec Klein.

New York Times Online,http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/ (October 17, 2007), interview with Alec Klein.

Stuyvesant Spectator,http://stuyspectator.com/ (September 4, 2007), Ivana Ng, review of A Class Apart.

Washingtonpost.com,http://www.washingtonpost.com/ (October 3, 2007), interview with Alec Klein.