4 min read

NBC News Daily

Audiobook available

Four Book Recs

Toolbox on creativity

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I joined anchor Vicky Nguyen on national TV this week.

This Tuesday, July 7, was the fifty year anniversary when women showed up for the first time as cadets for Reception Day at West Point in 1976. And, it was the moment of a lifetime. The NBC Studio at 30 Rockefeller Plaza was an experience. Security and bag check, elevators, page escort. and the green room, getting miked up, stepping onto the set.

Thank goodness my husband and daughter went with me. I was afraid I’d freeze or stumble. What to wear, what to say?

Before I went on I had to funnel the microphone up through my shirt with French buttons. They’re hidden you know, so I open my pants and pull out my shirt tails to send it up and pull it from the neckline. Meanwhile, I can hear Vicky introducing me before the break on the head set in my ear.

I told myself to BREATHE. As I walked onto the set, a technician said to look at Camera 1 when I first talk then look at Vicky the rest of the time.

Where’s Camera 1?

Oh that one, on the floor. Right. Because there were booms, cameras high and low, technicians and lights.

The producers had asked for bullets and talking points, then of course Vicky went off script. She was skilled and graceful, putting me at ease.

Let’s say I learned a lot and have a lot to learn. The session seemed over as soon as it started.

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To see photos in the NBC Studio, visit TreeHouseLetter site page

The books led me to her.

My cousin had listened to Vicky Nguyen speak earlier this year about her memoir and he met with her after, telling her about my book. Then I wrote to her and sent a copy of Raising Athena. And, she invited me to come on the show.

I had read her memoir, Boat Baby, before I left for vacation. It reads fast, especially as someone who can relate to the escape from Vietnam. She’s younger than I am by a decade and here are a couple of things that stuck with me.

Vicky said her memoir was a love letter to Americans about how a refugee and baby coming out of Vietnam could rise to national news anchor. She hit 10,000 hours early in her hard-won career in journalism, in about four years. She disclosed salary negotiations and I liked what she wrote about using silence. It helps to shut up, in negotiations and in discussion broadly.

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RAISING ATHENA audiobook released on Tuesday, July 7, 2026.

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I took one book with me to Peru and I brought two books home.

What book would you take with you to hike in the Andes and what book would you bring back?

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke is a collection of ten letters received by a military cadet and ‘young poet’ from the great poet. The book is slim and ideal for a wordnerd to study craft. I’ve read it so many times I’ve lost count. A few helpful passages.

• ON WRITING. Pretend you are the very first man and then write what you see and experience, what you love and lose. Rilke’s First letter
• ON CREATIVIVITY AND THE SEXUAL. Actually the creative experience lies so unbelievably close to the sexual, close to its pain and its pleasure, that both phenomena are only different forms of the same longing and bliss. Rilke’s Third letter
• ON NATURE, If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable. Rilke’s Fourth letter

I brought back Michel de Montaigne’s What Do I Know? Essential Essays, a cream-colored paperback with green curlicues across the cover, carefully wrapped in plastic to keep nosy English readers from thumbing the pages. Picked it up in Lima, from the wall of English titles.

Walter Isaacson’s The Greatest Sentence Ever Written was a perfectly timed read for the 250th. I’ll let you guess the sentence — spoiler in the Footnotes below. Thank you Nancy for this lovely gift.

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FOOTNOTES

*NBC News Daily link to full segment with Vicky Nguyen and Mylinh Shattan  https://f.io/BW5QqI-L

FOUR Book Recs

Two I read before I left

*Here’s the link to Walter Isaacson’s The Greatest Sentence Ever. This is a delightful little volume that tells you all about it. The sentence, if you guessed right, came to light on July 4, 1776. Here it is: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. [Full transcription of Declaration of Independence. ]

* Vicky Nguyen’s Boat Baby, 2025. “In a memoir where heroism meets humor, NBC News anchor and correspondent Vicky Nguyen tells the story of her family’s daring escape from communist Vietnam and her unlikely journey from refugee to reporter with laughter and fierce love.”

Two I brought back from Peru

*Rainer Maria Rilke Letters to a Young Poet – edition with English translations of the young poet’s letters! They found them in Germany recently and this is the first time readers can see both sets of letters.

*Montaigne’s What Do I Know? Essential Essays. 2025. Montaigne (1533-1592). “Stunning paperback edition of this fresh translation of Montaigne’s most profound, searching essays, with an introduction from Yiyun Li, author of The Book of Goose.”