My Life by Bill Clinton

So... My Life by Bill Clinton is one of those books that I moved around in my to-be-read pile for years. Yes, you read that right, years. I long wanted to read it in an attempt to better understand what happened when his presidency because his presidency changed the way I view both Democrats and Republicans, but I kept putting it off for a multitude of reasons. I wanted to read it to understand his point of view, particularly about his presidency. Clinton's telling of his life before his presidency is more interesting and more detailed than I expected.  As verbose as he is by his own admission, I often felt like what he shared walked a fine line between emotional detachment and overly emotional. I felt like I got some insight into his presidency as well as his life leading up to his presidency, but the details seemed to obscure the person behind the persona. Some of the paragraphs just listing things that happened during a month felt a bit mundane. His descriptions of his relationship with Hillary, his wife, often showed a restraint that felt like a reluctance to share that part of his life, which I can understand. His love and pride for Chelsea, his daughter, though, screams through every time he mentions her. The references to his religious beliefs felt a bit overdone. It's also interesting to read it now, more than a decade after the paperback was released and more than two decades after his presidency ended because what he got right and what he got wrong seem all the more evident now. Some of his best intentions had circumstances he didn't seem to foresee. Reading My Life made me want to go back and research some events, laws, bills, etc., especially those that seemed to have had short term benefits that somehow didn't last. At times, he seemed to have quite a good grasp on how best to navigate situations while at other times he seemed to have a severe misunderstanding of the people involved creating problems in being the bridge he wanted to be. Clinton, in telling his story from his point of view, acknowledges his flaws and mistakes more than I expected while also showing great pride in his accomplishments.  

(I have not included a link to this book because all the ones I could find appeared to be used books and used books tend to disappear leaving broken links.)


Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including:

Writing the Other: A Practical Approach by Nisi Shawl & Cynthia Ward
Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark
We Should All Be Feminists: A Guided Journal by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Collected Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning


Reviews will be posted as I finish these books.



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