Book News
Obama books will soon abound.
We’ve seen several books on the 2008 election, and soon we’ll be seeing new, broader works on Barack Obama’s life and times.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Remnick has a full-scale biography set for release April 6. “The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama” promises a “deeply reported look at both the life of the 44th president and the complex saga of race in America that led to his historic election,” according to publisher Alfred A. Knopf.
Other Obama books are on the way. In May comes Jonathan Alter’s “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” and one of Remnick’s New Yorker reporters, Ryan Lizza, is working on a book about the early years of the Obama presidency.
The model of early presidential biographies may be David Maraniss’ bio of Bill Clinton, “First in His Class.” Though published in 1995, less than half way through Clinton’s first term, it remains a standard text for Clinton’s early life and political rise.
Robert Draper, who did a superb book on George W. Bush’s presidency, is at work on a long-range project that examines Obama’s rise in the context of the civil rights movement.
And Maraniss himself is working on his own biography of Obama, though that work is a few years away.
First Lines
The Man From Saigon, by Marti Leimbach
The first shots came as they were flying northeast toward Danang. Over the terrific noise of the engine and rotors, she could hear a pinging sound, something like coins being lobbed against the metal where she was sitting. It wasn’t particularly loud and didn’t sound remarkable or worrying. For many minutes she sat stiffly in the nylon seat of the helicopter, the wind rifling across her trouser legs, sending her field jacket back so that she could feel a button pushing against her neck, being aware of many things, but not the pinging sound, the bullets directed at her, at all of them, as they spun above a canopy of jungle.
She had much to distract her from the pinging: the roar of the engine as the chopper skimmed over the tops of trees, the throbbing of the rotors, the explosions of fire from the door gunners, the effort she made to keep from being sick. It was a while before she even thought about it. She only registered the gravity of the sound because she felt a force behind her, a sudden pushing in of metal as though a fist had pressed the fuselage of the chopper inward, feeling mildly uncomfortable and new.
Kids’ picture-book best sellers
1. The Lion and the Mouse, by Jerry Pinkney
2. Fancy Nancy: Heart to Heart, by Jane O’Connor, illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser
3. Happy Valentine’s Day, Mouse, by Laura Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond
4. All the World, by Liz Garton Scanlon, illustrated by Marla Frazee
5. LEGO Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary, by Simon Beecroft
6. Waddle! by Rufus Butler Seder
7. Red Sings From Treetops: A Year in Colors, by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski
8. Listen to the Wind, by Greg Mortenson and Susan L. Roth, illustrated by Roth
9. Roses Are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink, by Diane deGroat
10. My Fuzzy Valentine, by Naomi Kleinberg, illustrated by Louis Womble Publishers Weekly
