WHEN THE CENTURY WAS YOUNG: A Writer’s...

WHEN THE CENTURY WAS YOUNG: A Writer’s Notebook by Dee Brown (HarperPerennial: $12; 223 pp.). The author of “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” opens his autobiography with the declaration, “The early part of this century was the golden age of print, and I was born into it. . . . Even to this day the electronic devices do not match the authority of print.” Brown’s love affair with words began when he took a job as a printer’s assistant. Deadline pressures forced the newspaper editor to use him to cover last-minute stories, and Brown discovered his vocation. His well-crafted sentences can be savored like old brandy.