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Spoken From The Heart
Laura Bush
Simon & Schuster
May 2010
On Sale: May 4, 2010
464 pages ISBN: 1439155208 EAN: 9781439155202 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
In this brave, beautiful, and deeply personal memoir, Laura
Bush, one of our most beloved and private first ladies,
tells her own extraordinary story. Born in the boom-and-bust
oil town of Midland, Texas, Laura Welch grew up as an only
child in a family that lost three babies to miscarriage or
infant death. She vividly evokes Midland's brash, rugged
culture, her close relationship with her father, and the
bonds of early friendships that sustain her to this day. For
the first time, in heart-wrenching detail, she writes about
the devastating high school car accident that left her
friend Mike Douglas dead and about her decades of unspoken
grief. When Laura Welch first left West Texas in 1964, she never
imagined that her journey would lead her to the world stage
and the White House. After graduating from Southern
Methodist University in 1968, in the thick of student
rebellions across the country and at the dawn of the women's
movement, she became an elementary school teacher, working
in inner-city schools, then trained to be a librarian. At
age thirty, she met George W. Bush, whom she had last passed
in the hallway in seventh grade. Three months later, "the
old maid of Midland married Midland's most eligible
bachelor." With rare intimacy and candor, Laura Bush writes
about her early married life as she was thrust into one of
America's most prominent political families, as well as her
deep longing for children and her husband's decision to give
up drinking. By 1993, she found herself in the full glare of
the political spotlight. But just as her husband won the
Texas governorship in a stunning upset victory, her father,
Harold Welch, was dying in Midland. In 2001, after one of the closest elections in American
history, Laura Bush moved into the White House. Here she
captures presidential life in the harrowing days and weeks
after 9/11, when fighter-jet cover echoed through the walls
and security scares sent the family to an underground
shelter. She writes openly about the White House during
wartime, the withering and relentless media spotlight, and
the transformation of her role as she began to understand
the power of the first lady. One of the first U.S. officials
to visit war-torn Afghanistan, she also reached out to
disease-stricken African nations and tirelessly advocated
for women in the Middle East and dissidents in Burma. She
championed programs to get kids out of gangs and to stop
urban violence. And she was a major force in rebuilding Gulf
Coast schools and libraries post-Katrina. Movingly, she
writes of her visits with U.S. troops and their loved ones,
and of her empathy for and immense gratitude to military
families. With deft humor and a sharp eye, Laura Bush lifts the
curtain on what really happens inside the White House, from
presidential finances to the 175-year-old tradition of
separate bedrooms for presidents and their wives to the
antics of some White House guests and even a few members of
Congress. She writes with honesty and eloquence about her
family, her public triumphs, and her personal tribulations.
Laura Bush's compassion, her sense of humor, her grace, and
her uncommon willingness to bare her heart make this story
revelatory, beautifully rendered, and unlike any other first
lady's memoir ever written.
Comments
1 comment posted.
Re: Spoken From The Heart
This book sounds so interesting - I'm looking forward to reading it. (Karen Cherubino 10:52pm April 5, 2011)
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