I honestly don't understand why anyone wants to read Sarah Palin's book.
Now, this is not a political blog, and I'm not making a political statement, although my sensibility is surely somewhat to the left of Ms. Palin, and that's all I'll volunteer right now. What I'm saying here is, why does anybody want to read that book?
If Joe Biden wrote a book (which he did), I wouldn't want to read it. President Obama has written TWO books, both of which were bestsellers BEFORE he became president, and I haven't read either one. Someone gave me a copy of Bill Clinton's foot-thick memoir (which covered everything up to 10 years ago), and I think I cracked the cover once. Read about three pages. I don't remember any of it.
I just don't get the fascination. What is the politician going to tell you that you couldn't have figured out if you read the newspaper while they were doing the stuff they're writing about. The inside story? Seriously? You think you're going to get that from anyone who thinks they might have any kind of a future in Washington?
Frankly, I don't care that much for autobiographies. Most of the ones I've read have suffered from the fact that the writer might have been just a tad biased toward the subject's point of view, and certain thorny details might have been, let's say, smoothed over a bit.
The only autobiography I recall really enjoying is Harpo Speaks, and that's mostly because 1. the subject really didn't write his own book and 2. no one ever believed a story the Marx Brothers told, as they were given to... embellishment. Highly entertaining.
The idea that Sarah Palin's memoir shot to the top of the bestseller lists baffles me. Yeah, I have my issues with her aside from the book, but I honestly can't fathom exactly what kind of reading experience the public thinks it's going to get. A sterling, stirring, poetic work of letters? I don't know who the ghostwriter was, but it hardly seems likely. A candid, insightful viewpoint of last year's campaign? From someone who hasn't stopped giving interviews for a 20-minute stretch since the campaign ended? What's left to find out?
The problem with political memoirs is that all the stories are the same: the subject starts out in the most abject of circumstances (absent/dead parent, crippling poverty, living in Idaho), finds some inspiration from a beloved political figure of the past (John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Louis XVI), turns his/her life around for a lifestyle of service (military, community, fast food) and then gets the Big Break that catapults him/her to political stardom (like the party elders decided to appeal to a new demographic).
What does this all tell us, really? Anything we haven't already heard, didn't already know?
Besides, they're politicians! If there's one thing we should have learned by now it's not to believe a single word one of these weasels tells us!
Frankly, if I want to be lied to, I'd rather read a work of fiction. At least each chapter will end on a cliffhanger.
