Book excerpt: Neil Hickey was a twenty-four year old job seeker when he heard the editor of a major magazine call journalism the most fun you can have, standing up. The young reporter had already come to that conclusion independently after working his way through college as a Baltimore newspaperman. Hed go on to spend more than a half century meeting movie stars, musicians, and some of the most powerful people in Washington as he honed his craft. Now an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Hickey shares an insiders view of pop culture, war, oppression, and even happenings beyond our solar system. Meeting astronaut Neil Armstrong trumped interviews with presidents of the United States, secretaries of state past and present, and Nobel Prize winners. In Singapore, his assignment was to serve as a judge for the Miss Universe contest. Whether its chatting with President Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter, traveling with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger or investigating the Challenger spacecraft disaster, Hickey shares deep insights into American culture, the nature of war, and the art of journalism in Adventures in the Scribblers Trade.