Disney's Eisner reports to camp
By Julie Schlosser

(FORTUNE Magazine) – Michael Eisner could be forgiven for avoiding bookstores this year. After all, lurking inside are stacks and stacks of DisneyWar, James B. Stewart's exposé of Eisner's long, loud, lucrative reign as CEO of the media company. But now Eisner has a book of his own reaching stores--not an act of corporate revenge but a tome of childhood memories. Camp is Eisner's 182-page memoir about Camp Keewaydin, an all-boys canoe retreat in Salisbury, Vt., where several generations of Eisner boys spent their summers. It won't win any awards for prose, but it is a surprisingly moving look at the early life of a man who--love him or hate him--has been a force in the media world for 20-plus years.

Though Eisner can't help but suggest his critics "could have used a few summers at camp earlier in their lives," the book mostly deals with boyhood stories (trying to impress his future wife when a bear wandered into camp) and musings on the father-son dynamic. Eisner's main insight: "The world is not camp--and that's too bad." His anecdotes extolling teamwork, however, may ring hollow to anyone who has read DisneyWar. -- Julie Schlosser

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