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William J. Clinton's Biography

Texsox

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Will you be reading William J. Clinton's Autobiography?  

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  1. 1. Will you be reading William J. Clinton's Autobiography?

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Texsox Grand Master

Texsox

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Clinton's Memoirs to Be Released in June

NEW YORK - The suspense is over, almost. Former President Clinton (news - web sites)'s memoirs will be published in late June, and promotion will begin a few weeks earlier with a speech at BookExpo America, the industry's annual convention.

 

 

 

"It is the fullest and most nuanced account of a presidency ever written, and one of the most revealing and remarkable memoirs I have ever had the honor of publishing," Sonny Mehta, president and editor-in-chief of Alfred A. Knopf, said in a statement Monday.

 

 

"He talks with candor about his successes, as well as his setbacks, looking at both his career in public service and his life."

 

 

The book, for which Clinton received a reported $10 million to $12 million, will be called "My Life." Knopf is planning a first printing of 1.5 million, a realistic number given the success of "Living History," the memoirs of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (news - web sites).

 

 

Nearly 1.7 million copies of the hardcover of "Living History" are in print and a 525,000 first printing was announced for the paperback, which just came out.

 

 

If the former president should fail to sell more books than the first lady, he won't be alone. Memoirs by Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) both proved less popular than those written by their wives.

 

 

No precise date has been set for the book, which Clinton is still completing. Details on the book's length, cover and promotional tour are also being worked out. One event has been scheduled: Clinton will speak at BookExpo America, which takes place in Chicago from June 3-6. Then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke at BookExpo in 1995.

 

 

Like Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack" and Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies," Clinton's book will likely make its way into the presidential campaign, especially if the former president defends his record on fighting terrorism.

 

 

The book was edited by Robert Gottlieb, who has worked with such Pulitzer Prize winners as Robert Caro, Toni Morrison and Katharine Graham (news - web sites).

 

 

But it will be an admittedly hurried production, with Knopf having just two months to convert the manuscript into a finished book, a process that often takes several months.

 

 

If Bill Clinton (news - web sites) turns out a first-rate memoir, especially about his presidential years, he will be a true path breaker. The only highly regarded presidential memoir is by Ulysses Grant, who devoted the vast majority of the book to his triumphant Civil War military leadership and wrote virtually nothing about his often disastrous presidency.

 

 

Most presidential works have the dull, self-serving tone of a prepared speech. They suffer from the impersonal hand of a ghost writer or from the impersonal tastes of the president. The memoirs of Herbert Hoover, for example, include balance sheets on food assistance to Armenia and Lithuania and estimated totals of dried fruit exports.

 

 

Timing and luck have kept some of the more eloquent leaders from telling their stories. Four early, literary presidents — Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John and John Quincy Adams — never published full-length memoirs largely because it was considered in poor taste to dwell on one's accomplishments.

 

 

Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy were assassinated; Franklin Roosevelt also died in office and Woodrow Wilson finished his presidency in such poor health he never got past the preface of an intended book.

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Texsox Grand Master

Texsox

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Bill Clinton Launches Book Tour for 'My Life'

 

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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Former President Bill Clinton (news - web sites) launched his book tour on Thursday, describing his soon-to-be published memoir as being tough on himself rather than on his enemies.

 

 

"My Life" is scheduled to arrive in bookstores on June 22 with an expected price tag of $35 for its nearly 1,000 pages.

 

 

"A lot of presidential memoirs, they say, are dull and self-serving," the two-term president told a booksellers convention.

 

 

"I hope mine is interesting and self-serving. But I don't try to settle a lot of scores here. I don't spare myself in this book.

 

 

"I take on a lot of water for not just the personal ... but the political errors I made and how they came to be," he said.

 

 

Clinton, whose presidency was bracketed by George H.W. Bush the father and George W. Bush the son, said he liked Bush senior although they had their disagreements.

 

 

He offered muted criticism of his successor.

 

 

"If you go back and read what (Bush) said in the campaign, he's just doing what he'd said he'd do. You've got to give him credit for that... No one has the whole truth," Clinton said.

 

 

Clinton said writing the book had been "therapeutic," stirring up memories and feelings.

 

 

He never suffered writer's block but said he stopped for a few hours due to a rush of renewed anger at special prosecutor Kenneth Starr's treatment of his Arkansas friends.

 

 

"Things I thought I wasn't mad at, I got mad about all over again," he said.

 

 

Clinton was paid a reported $10 million to $12 million by publisher Alfred A. Knopf, the flagship imprint of the Knopf Publishing Group, which is a division of Random House Inc., whose parent company is Bertelsmann AG (news - web sites) .

 

 

Clinton made no mention in his speech of Monica Lewinsky, the White House intern at the center of the sex scandal that dominated much of his second term.

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