I had never heard of Irene Corbally Kuhn before getting this book. I loved reading about all of her adventures, the peoole she met, the countries she traveled to. she was an amzing journalist and i will definitely do more reading into her. ( )

This is a companion piece to "You can't wrap fire in paper" by Kuhn's granddaughter Heather Corbally Bryant. Although the Bryant book is fiction, this is a memoir, previously published, by Kuhn and her early life, ending in 1937. It covers the beginning of her journalistic career and the time in China including her early marriage to Burt Kuhn.
It took me quite a while to read this book, not because I struggled, but because I wanted to savor it. Her writing style, the language and turn of phrase, her incredible memory for details made this a book to enjoy slowly. Luxuriate in the words.
But understand this is not a tell-all book in the celebrity style. Although she discusses her marriage to Burt and the birth of her child, these are nearly incidental to her life and career. It only sets up the circumstances of her returning to the US from China. But I don't fault her because I believe her purpose in writing this book is to discuss her career which was extremely interesting and a product of her own initiative. Pass on the fictionalized version and stick to these facts. It makes me want to read her newspaper articles. ( )

Dr. Corbally Bryant: Sorry I couldn't get this done sooner - I'm pretty much an old slacker. On the other hand, I'm sorry I didn't finish this wonderful book sooner. Your grandmother, Irene Corbally Kuhn, led a marvelously entertaining life, and reported on it in a remarkably interesting way. I'm a Boomer, so my parents grew up in the tail end of your grandmother's adventure. I thought this was great. Please print the second part, "You Can't Wrap Fire in Paper'. ( )

If Irene Corbally Khun has been the character of a novel, around 1922, which manuscript would have been found much later at the bottom of a famous Parisian's hotel basement, split in two old steamer trunks, long forgotten, then she would belong to Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast". This is because the memoirs of this female reporter narrating her journey to the Far-East start in Paris, France where she describes the life of an American expat in search of herself. She overcomes material difficulties to enter the profession of journalist.

If Irene Corbally Khun had been the main character of a comic book then as a fictional character, she could have been drawn by Herge, as he drew Tintin, also a reporter, travelling to the Far-East by boat through Port-Said in Egypt and the Canal of Suez on his way to the international concession in Shanghai, as narrated in "The Cigars of the Pharaoh" and the "Blue Lotus".

The difference is that Tintin remains a fiction while Irene really existed.

A Gertrude Bell of the East, her description of the still mysterious China is compelling. But unlike Tintin, Mrs. Khun makes the reader enter vividly the Shanghai of the times of playwright John Colton, as filmed by Director Josef Von Sternberg.
She does not hesitate to cross the lines between the organized international settlement to confront herself and report about the real China and its challenges. Along the way, she meets her husband, also a reporter, and many celebrities pepper this book, from Charles Chaplin, Harry Pilser, Douglas Fairbanks, Russian exiles from the Revolution, Admirals, Atamans,Aviators, Colonels, Generals, Warlords and, most strikingly, ordinary Chinese people from the No.1 of her expat household to the street beggar. With the axiom that "the longer you stay in China, the less you understand it" her depiction and vignettes are always interesting.

Excellent period memoirs with many first time events narrated with humor and a lots of insights on how the USA and Japan, members of the Entente at the end of World War I, maintained cordial relations to contain the spread of Communism. Ominously, the author notices the rising Chinese nationalism against Japan and the first revolutionary incidents. At the same time the somber masses of the American dreadnoughts anchored at large portend a rising a world conflict at one of its flashpoints. ( )

Before receiving "Assigned to Adventure" as an early reviewer copy, I'd never heard of Irene Corbally Kuhn. However, reading this book (which is essentially a journal of her travels as a reporter in the 20's-30's), she's someone I respect and have a newfound interest in. The style of this book/journal is reminiscent of the time in which it was written; it flows very fast and is action-packed. It's like reading something that would have been on serialized on television with new adventures every week.

Her travels through various countries and experiences with the people and cultures there are handled with a level of whimsy that is both incredibly entertaining and also why I removed one star. While it is written in the style of the time, I'd like a more personal take on her life; I'd like a take where it was like we were good friends talking and I wasn't someone she was selling an article to.

Still, this is a very fun read and she sounds like an incredible woman. For anyone with an interest in journalism, travel, or even the old-way either of those professions ran, this is definitely a book to read. ( )