From the Janet Maslin review of Barbara Walters' 612-page memoir Audition, out tomorrow.

Walters "has spent more than five decades shattering glass ceilings in the world of television news, using social skills and ladylike persistence just as handily as she has used on-the-air reportorial acumen."

What emerges is the portrait of a deftly calculating woman with an impeccable sense of timing, which is why she has largely retreated from the battle for big-name interviews. When ABC had to decide whether Ms. Walters's last piece on "20/20" would be with President Bush or with a teacher who went to prison for her sexual relationship with an under-age boy, the child molester won out. 'I rest my case,' Ms. Walters writes."

• Related: USA Today's Review of Audition...

• Earlier: An Affair To Write About...