Books About Bo, The First Pooch

Okay, somebody may have found out the Obama family got a Portuguese Water Puppy, eventually Dog, this week. Malia & Sasha settled on Bo, rather than the Frank or Moose that distressed Michelle Obama enough to issue Mommy vetoes. Bo debuted showing he is going to be a bundle of energy, muscular by playfully pulling the president, the first lady and Malia around the South Lawn and now publishing GOLD. Notice Sasha was let nowhere near Bo's leash in front of the cameras. In Doggy years, the two youngest Obamas are almost equivalent.

Bo will learn in White House Puppy school that the late literate Socks wrote a book to answer the onslaught of tiresome fan mail before exile away from Buddy, the now dead Clinton chocolate Lab, and Barbara Bush was Millie's stenographer as outlaw Barney bit reporters and presidential staff. Newcomer Bo already has FOUR books dedicated to a puppy nobody knew anything about until a week ago today. Bo has poverty stricken publishers counting $ signs in hopes of igniting a barking Bo Boom that licks them into publishing's pearly gates. Doggy Breath is the least they will put up with in the search for a market niche.

Bo, the super photo magic celebredog, has to acquire an agent first. But that ain't happening. Michelle Obama has said no celebrity princesses (or princes) in her household. That goes for the newest and youngest Obama, Bo. Look around there's a publisher right now reading a query to do an unauthorized Bo biography... Ugh, just make it stop...

President Obama Signs Another Book Deal

A book deal received the President-elect's signature to do a modified version of Dreams From My Father for the young adult (YA) audience, making that best-selling memoir a franchise itself. Now that Barack Obama is the official 44th Commander-in-Chief, disclosures show that one nonfiction written work is also optioned for his post-presidency. That won't be discussed until near the end and the big green numbers for that book are going to be stratospheric no matter where he lands in the pantheon of presidential rankings. Bill Clinton can hug that $15 million he got for My Life as the record for just a bit longer. It will be interesting to see what Michelle's memoirs and her fashion creds bring in a stripped down, hand me down publishing market.

The craft of writing is masterful from a keyboard or pen wielded by President Obama, that is a bonus. The presidential memoirs touted most as literary works were from a dying and broke Ulysses S Grant who passed away just days after retiring his pen on the project. President Theodore Roosevelt was no slouch in the writing department either. Ronald Reagan wrote charming letters. One of the most unpopular presidents ever is doing his obligatory writing trying to explain some of his inexplicable decision-making. But had he had the gift of time, Abraham Lincoln may have gone down in history as the writer to which all aspire.

Last year's wheelbarrels full of dollars, just from books, for the First Family was a backbreaking $2.5 million. Yesterday, during President Obama's California town hall in one of the wealthiest counties in America, Orange County, he confessed to the fact that he would be raising taxes on himself as he was now part of the welthy class. Interesting for a community organizer guy who had holes in the soles of his shoes from all the walking during the campaign. Reading his take on life in the White House will be at a premium because he is seeing it through such a different lens with a background unlike any of his predecessors.

Ted Kennedy His Life in New Books

Senator Edward Kennedy is a prolific author and writer in his own right.  He wrote a children's book about
his two Portuguese Water dogs, Splash .  His life encompasses everything from cheating on a Spanish test getting him ejected from Harvard to the shameful Chappaquiddick to rising to become a gifted orator worthy of being the everyman Cicero from Massachusetts to the People's Champion on Labor, Health Care and Human Rights as well as passing the Camelot mantle to President Obama. Ted Kennedy comes form a richly storied and well chronicled family with an interesting take as the youngest son.  It occurs to me that, at times, he must have felt a bit like Ron Weasley minus the carrot top. 

At the time of John F. Kennedy's assassination, Robert Kennedy had had enough of their domineering mother and told Ted to go "call your mother and our sisters." Ted was the only Kennedy who seemed to relish his mother's daily notes about his grammar and appearance. He stopped being the baby of the family only when fate intervened. In the span of less than five years, Ted went from being the "other Kennedy" to being heir to the political legacy of his slain brothers, surrogate father to their children and head of the entire Kennedy clan.

Now his twilight years are upon us as he fights a malignant brain tumor, a number of people, including the remaining scribes at the Boston Globe, are writing their version of his story, Last Lion:  The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy.  Lisa Tucker McElroy's version, Ted Kennedy:  A Remarkable Life in the Senate,  is due out in April of 2009.I would love to see in the fullness of time what Caroline Kennedy would state for the record.  

Jimmy Carter's Latest Book on the Middle East

The day after the federal holiday dedicated to a presidential inauguration, Commander in Chief issue #39, Jimmy Carter, will sign his latest treatise, We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work, on the Middle East at the Carter Center or rather the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library & Museum. The book's release date is no mere accident with its symbolism cresting over due to the current bloody events and human carnage currently exploding in the Holy Land of the three major faiths.

The latest Nobel Peace Prize winning presidential author of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid upset many sensitive to criticism as it bored into the issues stopping the creation of a contiguous two state solution with more of a Palestinian point of view. For my money, it is a great book with the maps showing the intractable issues that lead to such horrific warfare. Israel is pounding the living daylights out of Gaza after flinging leaflets from on high to the People of Palestine that terrible is yet to come. Israel has a need for self protection from a small slice of militants confines to Gaza. Middle East expert, James Earl Carter, Jr., defines a way forward against the conventional wisdom bombs that have marked the path for the last decade. Since Carter is not known for tact, his choice of remedies ought to cause even more lively discussions once people read the new book.

Oprah Should Make 2009 Book Resolution

If your Oprah with bookstores gumming up book jackets with the "Oprah Good Reading Seal Of Approval" slapped on to entice the literate public, 2008 was not the best year. Angel at the Fence: The True Story of a Love That Survived and A Million Little Pieces kind of describe Oprah Winfrey's life, but they are really two Rocky Mountain speed bump books on her literary creds. James Frey wrote a biographical tale that was pseudo and the Rosenblat faux holocaust romance was just psycho. That's just gotta make a busy billionaress cry who already jettisoned books from her TV confab once before. Today, would be a great day for Lady O to make a New Year's resolution on checking the fine print of every single author AND publisher due diligence before putting her name out there. Er, sloppy staff work possibly?

Oprah's had some whoppers when it comes to book issues. Ms. Winfrey put the amazing not in stock very often Kindle on her new favorite things list. Ugh. Then the Frey grilling she gave the author after the lie became public a while ago left him in a million little muscle knots. Then right before taping Oprah to augment the books February release, the bombshell exploded, that oops, we have an octogenarian impostor or rather collaborating impostors. Angel Girl by Laurie Freidman was a published children's story inspired by Herman & Roma Rosenblats' not so true recollections.

Books About Michelle Obama

From everywhere the Obama books are rushing off the presses and onto brightly lit display tables in brick stores and featured as blinking commodities on the click sites. Michelle is in for the Full Monty Obama treatment of being stripped down and taken apart like a classic Model T. For two years, she campaigned, cajoled new voters and chalked up countless air miles all across the US & its territories to make her hubby, America's El Jefe. She of the legal mind, community organizing and social impact world is now a cross between Jackie O with the Martha Washington newbiness of being the Black First "Mrs. That One" with a dash of a heart warming Oprah thrown in to offset her Harriet Tubman laser focus. What makes her tick and tic (her kid's privacy) is explored in the newly released, Michelle: A biography by Liza Mundy. That book jacket photo - it's destroying Michelle's nascent iconic fashion creds. Yikes.

Mundy, a Washington Post Magazine reporter, is sympathetic to the next first lady but does not gush. We get the facts in this unauthorized biography, but we also get context.

We get a pretty good idea of what kind of person the next first lady is, and we get it without the portentous tone of a formal, big-foot biographer. Which is fine, since we're in a hurry, anyway. This book is a quick read, in the style of a long magazine piece so well-written that you barely notice the length as you sprint toward the end.

Mundy also is lucky in her "girl-friendy" subject, as the author calls her. Michelle Obama, no shrinking violet she, fairly leaps from the page. She is warm, funny, smart, passionate, conflicted, irrepressible, grounded, organized, maternal, authoritative, spicy, authentic and normal. (COOL Image from Paris Match)

However America chooses to purchase their latest intelligence about the new First Lady, it is selling. Elizabeth Lightfoot has her just 72 hours old book (12/11) offering with Michelle Obama: First Lady of Hope. Then, David Bergen Brophy presents Michelle Obama: Meet the First Lady is a book version for the Malia aged crowd. With corset held breaths, the fashion world is waiting to see who the designer du jour will be based on her choice for the 44th president's inaugural. The designs from some of America's best have been viewed over 4,000,000 times on WWD.

Happy Birthday Rhonda!

Battle of the Lady Memoirs: Bush vs Palin

Publishers are going gaga over an opportunity to bid over two republican ladies' memoirs. Laura Bush is loads more popular than the guy with whom she shares a bedroom and a reporter-nipping toy terrier. For 70 days ad 70 nights, Sarah Palin's Fey fame on the media tilt-o-whirl leads to more chugging of moose chili and chips with Alaska's First Dude. Both have some scorching tales to pen (Where does a ghost writer apply?), if they write from the heart for history. Not happening (fully). One may need to protect a shattered brittle legacy and the other, the family empire of built on politics. The whole phoenix effect and how each overcomes the fishbowl environment could be fascinating as long as its not all leaked first. Then again, Laura Bush only suffered through six state dinners in the whole eight years.

Sally McDonough, Mrs. Bush’s spokeswoman, said yesterday that she “has expres sed interest in writing a book after she leaves” the White House and is pursuing the prospect but would not comment as to whether or not the first lady has actually met with any publishers. The AP, however, reports that, “Laura Bush wants to write a memoir and will be meeting with several publishers, according to three publishing executives with knowledge of the proceedings. They asked not to be identified, saying discussions are in the early stages and highly confidential.”

Will Laura Bush rate an equivalent $8 million advance that her predecessor received for her book, Living History. Laura's got a new house to furnish and her husband has been told to wait awhile to let his activities marinate to a more pleasant smell. Sarah, at 44, will be able to talk about being a grandma before Mrs. Bush. Mrs. Bush can talk about public teen age rebellion times two and being a mother of the bride who's dad was head of state. Truthfully, the promise of the books may be worth more than the actual first editions if they focus their memoirs on pablum and bromides.

Ladies, start your publishing engines....because when Michelle Obama even hints at a book it will garner Rowling like numbers.

Obama Supporter Warren Buffett Sells Books

Warren Buffett gave one lone business analyst turned biographer unfettered to study him like a fully feathered $62 billion pheasant under glass.  Buffet is a cottage industry in books as his ideas and advice are sought from the world's elites.  He made all of his files, business contacts and private thoughts transparent before each secret and pearl of Buffet wisdom transformed into the written word.  Years passed as the author, Alice Shroeder, slogged through meetings, listened in as he advised and followed the gold brick labyrinth that is the Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate. The book is The Snowball:  Warren Buffet and the Business of Life.  Interestingly, she left off the name most know him by, The Oracle of Omaha while following his dictum that if another version of a story about him put him in a more unflattering position, use that one.  She did.

This son of a hardcore republican business man became a leading liberal philanthropist with a rapier mind geared towards business and presidential politics.  Being flush with cold hard cash during the economic times, WB, poured at least 8 billion dollars into the US stock market with Goldman Sachs being the beneficiary of at least 5 billion bucks.  On the political front as the premier honcho on business, he squarely came down in supporting future president Barack Obama.  Yesterday, the 78 years young political insider did a fundraiser for Barack Obama in California's chic Century City for the still well-heeled. His advice is straightforward.

Mr Buffett wrote: "A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.

Warren Buffett was at the California Woman's Conference with 14,000 attendees.  In a moment of irony, Buffet was on an all guy panel with Chris Matthews between Buffet the Obama supporter and the McCain supporting governor and husband of the conference organizer, Maria Shriver.  All three have known problems with relating to females.  Michelle Obama was a great hit last year in the hall, but no one knew as California was in the midst of its worst firestorm.

King Family Feud Over Book Deal

The first family of nonviolence is practicing legal judo on each other, hoping for a clear take down of a brother or sister decision. Martin Luther King Jr.'s family have hamstrung and headlocked each other in courtroom combat over control of the King legacy and who has the right to authorize publishing what. The situation keeps boiling over every year. Their mother, Coretta Scott King's death and the sudden demise of oldest sister Yolanda in California, have added yet another breach between two siblings Bernice & Martin Luther King III and their brother Dexter. A very angry Penguin Group paid King Inc, run by Dexter Scott King, $1.2 million for a Coretta Scott King biography to be written by lecturer Reverend Barbara Reynolds, formerly of USA Today. Reynolds is the notorious figure that also shoehorned Reverend Jeremiah Wright into speaking with a surfeit of hubris at the National Press Club which made the Obamas drop him like a hot rock as their pastor.

Bernice, a licensed lawyer, mediator and Baptist preacher, has some of her Mom's private papers she has been shopping around for a separate book deal. About $300,000 of the advance was given to King Inc and split equally while Martin III and Reverend Bernice King say dexter did some wild and crazy stuff with the money that did not include them. Of which Dexter basically called them liars and said here is the evidence to show a split as outlined by Coretta Scott King's last will and testament which left ALL of her papers to King Inc and Bernice doesn't have the authority to get her own deal with items owned by King Inc.

The siblings are feuding over whether the documents should be turned over. Bernice King and Martin Luther King III maintain that their mother no longer wanted to work with Reynolds on the book. They are asking that the documents be distributed among Coretta Scott King's heirs and not given to the publisher.

"He signed the contract, but that's his job," Frankel said. "No one questioned when they got their share of the sale from the King papers whether Dexter had the authority to sign a contract. Nobody complained when they got their millions."

This follows years of feuding from even before Coretta Scott King's death. Word up publishing idiots, wrong book, the better book is about how the King family degenerated to this point and why the legacy is being tarnished by King's children in this way. I even have the title for you as a freebie, The Content of Their Character. Pulitzer Prize winning historian and the seminal biographer of MLK has a few things he would want to say, sure enough about how the King legacy is being handled and that includes Coretta's contribution to this family Armageddon.

Heather Mills More Fiction Tour

Heather Mills is an ex-everything. Now the ex-wife of one of the Beatles is setting her clutches on a keyboard to turn herself into a celebrity novelist. I can't wait for the official ex- on that chapter of her life either as her first try was her now hopelessly out of date memoir.

Once upon a time, Heather Mills, a former semi-working model was married to a knighted multi-millionaire songwriter chap named Paul McCartney after the tragic loss of his first wife and soul mate. That cantankerous coupling sank to the bottom of a spittoon of vitriol as accusations and courtroom theatrics supplied by the ex-Dancing With the Stars on one prosthetic leg contestant used publicity-seeking crocodile tears to weave a fantasy tale of being an abused and neglected wife. Her McCartney excited to get rid of the drama queen settlement of £24.3 million or almost $45 million dollars will not fill the hole in her 10 sizes to small heart. Heather Mills bragged, claimed, boasted that she would finally earn her philanthropic cred by donating most of her ill gotten marriage gains to Adopt-A-Minefield. She's an ex-donor promise keeper now.

Now The Sun has uncovered Mills hasn't handed over a penny, since receiving the windfall six months ago.

A source revealed to the paper, 'They have waited in vain for their millions. She's had plenty of time but sadly it's yet another untruth by the queen of lies.'

Heather Mills ex-PR flack suffered suffered a long delayed attack of the Revenge of the Rented Publicity Flacks conscience, stating Heather made the stuff up about Sir Paul to get on American TV. Mills untruths hawked by Michele Elyzabeth proved so cha-ching tempting to Heather that the gray ethical line imprisoning her from speaking of her ex-mate magically disappeared with her agreement to imagine a fictional treatment of her ex-wonderful life that supposedly will just wow us huddled masses into paying for book tripe masquerading as truthful fiction from a really rich hanger on who lied to a charity and was basically called a liar by a British judge.

John McCain Was A POW - Who Knew?

These heady campaign days, John McCain answers any potentially critical, embarrassing or unflattering inquiry with same answer. He was kept for five and a half years as an American prisoner of war in what was called the Hanoi Hilton. It answers why he's clueless about how many houses he has, why he picked the beauty queen gov as his running mate, why he offered his current wife up as Ms. Buffalo Chips in South Dakota at a hardcore biker nudity rally and informs his faith as stated after he was removed from Rick Warren's faith-based Cone of Silence. I mean, exactly how many times do you use it verbally to the lazy press, who at least know that already (it didn't involve the hard work of an investigation) when he's written and had it written about extensively. Good gracious! McPOW even said it on the Tonight show when Jay Leno offered him a million bucks to come up with the answer how many houses he owns. Then, it came up again when it was pointed out about the number of homeless veterans made worse by the odious Bush adventures in presidenting. Next week, it will be repeated over, and over, and over, and over, and over again, that John McCain was a POW, leaving him remote and an untouchable in his own rendering of a George Washington like apotheosis. Seriously, can he just repeat it once more for clarity, John McCain was a POW.

John McCain has his name as author on at least five books. One was actually really ghostwritten good entitled Faith of My Fathers and yep, being a P.O.W. is mentioned in a more honorable fashion there too. Another is the seminal book by Robert Timberg, The Nightengale's Song, that just lays out 5 naval academy grads histories with a discerning eye towards truthtelling humbled by the personal and the bedeviling of their individual experiences. But then Robert Timberg decided to write about it again and again and again because we so didn't understand John McCain was a POW.

But now, he was a POW is the ready republican whine to every little criticism, its getting forty years old as an excuse for bad behavior, rotten decisions and his snappishness. His 72nd birthday was yesterday along with the 3rd anniversary of this nation's worst disaster, Katrina, where he was slurping frosting from his fingers celebrating with the Pretender-in-Chief while others drowned. Now he is having ANOTHER republican celebration as New Orleans prepares to go down for the second time as Gustav homes in on the Gulf Coast. Of course we know the answer when asked what would he do differently, for goodness sakes, didn't you know he was a POW...

Olympic Sized Book Deals

Michael Phelps will get 1.6 million dollars to chronicle his 23 years on the planet in a memoir on becoming the world's best swimmer.ever.with 7 world records. This is his second book after an Olympic showing and he still has the 2012 London Olympiad to go before he's done collecting all his hardware and royalties. Several times in Beijing, his quest to earn eight gold medals almost died a premature death. One, one hundredth of a second slower and he would still have tied the still cocky Mark Spitz, which is a feat in itself.

Dara Torres on the other hand completed her fifth Olympics in her fifth decade at 41, earning three sliver medals against teenyboppers and twenty something sprint racers. After winning medals twenty years ago, Dara returned to swimming to keep fit during and after her pregnancy. The serious speed racers is where she she planted her fins to return. That first book has the potential to have a meatier look and heftier advance from Random House for both books at $3,000,000 US acknowledging the changes in Olympic swimming over twenty years, her battle against being accused of doping and her fight for the sport.

Not sure about his or a potential Simon & Schuster ghost writer's skills, but Phelps leaves no doubt about the damage he can do eating or racing in an Olympic sized pool.

The One Time Only Tell All Tall Tales

For goodness sakes, since time immemorial the wannabe parasites have sold bits or anything that wasn't nailed down of others lives to interested third parties since the invention of people.  For the person being done up like a cherry-topped Christmas ham on paper, that doesn't make it easier to swallow.  It goes to who do/did you trust for all the good, bad ugly and indifferent reasons.  Filthy lucre beckons maiden and maven alike.  It spends the same.  That certainly isn't going to make the four time married Salmon Rushdie quiver with excitement or Madonna to name a children's hospital after her trash talking brother or get Princess Di's butler off the cooking sherry.  The tell all you can while you can book can only be written once, so avaricious publishers hype the hell out of them when they score one.

Not sure if the best selling Satanic Verses author would rather have a fatwa or give one on his ex-bodyguard once removed.  Said bodyguard may have been around for the Salmon Rushdie breakup with wife # 4, Top Chef Palate Princess, Padma.  Or maybe, Madonna just forgot to give a handsigned A-Rod baseball to her brother before he decided dishing on Life with Madonna paper was his path to the Ritchie riches.  The butler to Princess Diana lied at her inquest and wrote two fawning books to honor her as the world never imagined during her royally twisted ménage à trois marriage that everybody knew about because Andrew Morton got her version down on tape.  Can't imagine the Queen staying up late reading that one in bed with a flashlight.  But Her Majesty might note this:

The book, On Her Majesty's Service, published this week, claims the was locked in a cupboard while the officers went to a pub for a drink because they were "so fed up with his attitude".

It also claims that Rushdie was nicknamed "Scruffy" because of his unkempt appearance and that the author billed the police force £40 a night for putting up officers in his home. "We were paying, or rather the taxpayer was paying, Rushdie to protect him," the book says.

Some times the vipers are family or faux friends or household help.  But in today's book market, there is some sort of obsession with the inside scoop about the lives of people who garner some level of success.  Call this book genre what it is: payback gossip.

Swimming in Lincoln Books

Soon there will be some sort of list made into a book of the Top 1000 Lincoln Books of All Time with just the early years. Abraham Lincoln is one of the most written about people in American literary history. Honest Abe is some sort of keyboard catnip to historians, civil war buffs and general readers that compels aficionados to add to the collection of material, now probably comprising its own Lincolnesque vault in the Library of Congress.

Not even sure needing to write about Lincoln is treatable with a four score plan after folks pour years into buffing and polishing their works on everything from his migraines to his now publishing acceptable BFF, Frederick Douglass. See, even I am doing it here. The recent rediscovery of Frederick Douglass and his interaction with Lincoln is in time for a bicentennial that may herald a new presidency born of all that came after the Dred Scott decision. Senator Obama is aiming to be the third memorable Illinois connected politician to reside at the White House. Barack Obama shares much in common with Lincoln & Douglass.

There are many a book on Lincoln that are worth the time and expense. It doesn't mean everybody that writes about Lincoln gains entry into some mythical pantheon with verbal roses and golden pens strewn before them. Some of the best books in recent years about Lincoln are Doris Kearns Goodwin's take in Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln or David Herbert Donald's Lincoln. It would take years to write about the numerous and ponderous odes that have totally butchered Lincoln's biography for their own ends. Frankly, who wants to give more PR to the at best mediocre Lincolnphiles. Those who are without willpower or writing skill should review Douglass's words first.