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Loading... My Lifeby Bill Clinton
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. I really enjoyed this autobiography. I learned a lot about Bill Clinton's presidency and all the things that were going on in the world during those eight years. My favorite parts of the book were the stories of his growing up in Arkansas and the things he did while in school. The book weighs a ton, and it is 957 pages long, but I did not get tired of it at all. (  ) Pferdina | Nov 21, 2009 |  One of the top 10 books people don't finish. I did. Loved it. Helped me remember, and understand, many of the events and personalities of my life. Taught me that work and politics are separate from the important things in life. And he writes well too. ( ) EricPMagnuson | Nov 11, 2009 | This is an interesting review of his life and his personal struggles. I particularly like the personal stories of his political battles while he was President and the inside stories during that time. It is an eye opener of how and why things happen the way they do in Washington, D.C. ( ) briansf | Apr 24, 2009 | It's Bill... (  ) bfertig | Jan 30, 2009 | Yayyy! I finally finished this book! It's huge and full of detail. It's good but in some places (the excruciating detail of the various peace talks for example) I found my eyes crossing and had to lay it down for a while. I have to say that one of three things must be true of Bill Clinton. Either a) he kept copious journals from about the age of 2 year onward, b) he has a photographic memory, or c) he was making this up as he went along. He included the most minute details of his formative years, every campaign he ever ran, nearly every hand he ever shook. But for all that, he left out details of certain episodes we all know took place in the Oval Office with a certain intern. Actually, he did refer to that and even devoted about half a chapter to it, but even with all his words, he didn't really tell us anything we didn't already know in lurid detail from the Starr report that went to Congress and got posted on the Internet. The insights he did give into the whys and wherefores of the Starr investigation into the most private details of his (and many others as well) life were interesting. I enjoyed this book because it gave me another point of view for a lot of things and explained the odd relationship between Clinton and Newt Gingrinch, Clinton's love for his family and his home state of Arkansas, a little behind the scenes explanations for some of the mistakes Gore made in the 2000 campaign and a myriad of other things. If you enjoy biographies and politics, you'll enjoy this book. Clinton has a very friendly writing style and tells the stories of his life well. I do think, though, that he would have benefited from some editing. There were a lot of details that seemed to drag on and on forever. So it is for that reason that I will give the book a 4, though it should have been a 5 with better editing. ( ) madamejeanie | Sep 16, 2008 | 
 The book, which weighs in at more than 950 pages, is sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull -- the sound of one man prattling away, not for the reader, but for himself and some distant recording angel of history.
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Clinton approaches the story of his youth with gusto, sharing tales of giant watermelons, nine-pound tumors, a charging ram, famous mobsters and jazz musicians, and a BB gun standoff. He offers an equally energetic portrait of American history, pop culture, and the evolving political landscape, covering the historical events that shaped his early years (namely the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and JFK) and the events that shaped his presidency (Waco, Bosnia, Somalia). What makes My Life remarkable as a political memoir is how thoroughly it is infused with Clinton's unassuming, charmingly pithy voice:
I learned a lot from the stories my uncle, aunts, and grandparents told me: that no one is perfect but most people are good; that people can't be judged only by their worst or weakest moments; that harsh judgments can make hypocrites of us all; that a lot of life is just showing up and hanging on; that laughter is often the best, and sometimes the only, response to pain.
However, that same voice might tire readers as Clinton applies his penchant for minute details to a distractible laundry list of events, from his youth through the years of his presidency. Not wanting to forget a single detail that might help account for his actions, Clinton overdoes it--do we really need to know the name of his childhood barber? But when Clinton sticks to the meat of his story--recollections about Mother, his abusive stepfather, Hillary, the campaign trail, and Kenneth Starr--the veracity of emotion and Kitchen Confidential-type revelations about "what it is like to be President" make My Life impossible to put down.
To Clinton, "politics is a contact sport," and while he claims that My Life is not intended to make excuses or assign blame, it does portray him as a fighter whose strategy is to "take the first hit, then counterpunch as hard as I could." While My Life is primarily a stroll through Clinton's memories, it is also a scathing rebuke--a retaliation against his detractors, including Kenneth Starr, whose "mindless search for scandal" protected the guilty while "persecuting the innocent" and distracted his Administration from pressing international matters (including strikes on al Qaeda). Counterpunch indeed.
At its core, My Life is a charming and intriguing if flawed book by an equally intriguing and flawed man who had his worst failures and humiliations made public. Ultimately, the man who left office in the shadow of scandal offers an honest and open account of his life, allowing readers to witness his struggle to "drain the most out of every moment" while maintaining the character with which he was raised. It is a remarkably intimate, persuasive look at the boy he was, the President he became, and man he is today. --Daphne Durham
(retrieved from Amazon Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:17:54 -0500)
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