Volume I, My Life

His traumatic experiences for his personal misadventures and still going straight with his Presidential responsibilities , you really fall in love with Clinton the Great President. Even the Republicans speak very high of his ability to steer the country in the most appropriate manner both in terms of his plans for bringing back prosperity and accumulating unprecedented cash reserves for the subsequent leaderships to squander.

It was very interesting to learn of where and how one of our presidents grew up. Not what I expected. He made a great president leaving things in better order than most other have. Especially the way he was hounded during his presidency. It would be interesting to see him in the position of "First Husband" in the white house. That would be another book.

I can't believe he remembered all those names from his past. and I understood his personality now. He wasn't a sex maniac the press led us to believe but a child of an alcoholic who hadn't faced his inner copping mechanisms yet. He had flaws like me and I could understand his split coping mechanism. But arithmetic was so much better than trickle down.

Ignore the negative reviews of these book. Ignore all of them.

This particular autobiography is genuinely engaging. Clinton vividly unfolds his life for you. It is frank and engrossing but charming throughout from the first page to the very last.
Only a diehard and ultra conservative Republican or "born again" evangelical, or both, will find any fault with this book.

Bill Clinton is one of greatest president in America Modern History.America was completely land of prosperity, free, opportunity and success under his functional and powerful leadership in 1990s.A lot of People still miss that time.Because the American People had a strong government, high growth economy, equality incomes, united congress and politicians who believed in patriotism Yet everything has been completely changed since January 20, 2011.I thought i don't got to describe specifically because we are still living under the awful and terrible situation.I wish the politicians who are still playing politics games in Washington will be fired by all of the voters. Because the block the country's bright way.WE THE PEOPLE should be united for completely carry out the national purposes that created by our country's fathers and ancestors.

As the 2nd NY Times review said: "William Jefferson Clinton's "My Life" is, by a generous measure, the richest American presidential autobiography - no other book tells us as vividly or fully what it is like to be president of the United States for eight years. Clinton had the good sense to couple great smarts with a solid education; he arrived in Washington in 1964 and has been the nation's - or perhaps the world's - No. 1 politics junkie ever since. And he can write - as Reagan, Ford, Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson, to go no farther back, could not."
Unfortunately, this wasn't the review that made it onto the front page. Nevertheless, how can you not read this?

I stopped reading this book after about 100 pages. It was just too too detailed. Really, I didn't need to know every tree species that grew in the garden of his childhood home. He also seems to have mentioned EVERY human he has ever met. And every course he ever took. And every girl he ever kissed (hence the 900 pages ....) Yawn. He should have hired an editor to cut this down by about 50%. Very disappointing. Another door stop for my growing collection.

LATINOS know the difference between Left and Right and we will act on it in November 2004.
As a real independent, I can say this with conviction that no matter what the twisted, FACT FREE right wing NEOCons(Republican) or the Dumb blind farleft (Democrats) say:
Bill Clinton is and will be for Latinos the man who felt the pain of the people just like CHE Guevara did for our Latino people.
Latinos stand side by side with those who understand the pain of our Latino people. You did that and for that we give you credit. Now the real question is who will stand for the right of Latinos in 2005. Kerry? , Bush? Will see.
Mean while the book deserves an audience, a Latino audience.
I have never read anything like it in my life.
Un libro impresionante, lleno de verdad politica, amor y vision.
jC

Clinton describes the nigh the met alone with Dubya on the night of the habdover of the white house. He told Bush the biggest threats to America was Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, Pakistan's instability with India, peace in the middle east, North Korea, and finally Iraq.
Conton describes how he asked Dubya what his priorities will be.
Dubya answered Iraq and Missle Defense.
Another confirmation that Iraq has been in the cross hairs since PNAC's doctrine was drafted in 1998.
Bush said in 2002 he didn't care about Bin Laden or where he was etc.
Amazing isn't it?
Truth sucks.

The book came as discribed and was fast, would recommend this seller. I had orginally ordered from another person starting with P and did not send the book or could even contact. Glad this person came through.

It was said of Pip in Dickens' last completed novel, "Great Expectations," that "He usually meant well, but sometimes did wrong." In the 42nd President's autobiography, understandably, we see the intentions accented and the wrong muted. But we have a psychological explanation given for the latter, that the Narrator had learned from an early age to live parallel lives, one of love and acceptance and good will, the other of pent up anger and frustrated desires, and that his failure to understand and accept his own anger led to mistakes in (moral) judgement, although only one of these is actually admitted. Clearly we have a case of selective memory at work.
I don't mean this to be as dismissive as may first appear. Any writing, any attempt to look for meaning in a narrative, will be, must be, selective. The present case is made even more extreme by the fact that a 400-page book has been condensed into a 6-hour audio CD set which I listened to in one day (yesterday) on a drive to northern Michigan. It appeared that there were issues or stories implied (or assumed) in the narrative that are missing from the audio, such as the parallel lives theme which explains/implies much more than what is disclosed elsewhere.
The President wrote it in 2004, publishing it about 4 years following the end of his presidency. The Author himself is the reader, and delivers an excellent performance. It is the sort of narrative you might hear over a beer, and make no mistake about it, Bill Clinton is a very appealing man, relaxed, positive, smooth, gifted. I could justify giving this narrative and performance 5 stars. It is blessedly free (mostly) of the whining tone of the loser, because, after all, Bill Clinton was a winner. The man's interest in people comes through in many nuanced, if brief, descriptions of all kinds of people. The description of political contests is of greatest interest to me, but I suspect that many details were edited out to make the abridged audio edition.
One of the uplifting themes of Bill Clinton's life is that of overcoming. He was born posthumously, and like President Ford, took the surname of a man who was not his biological father. Like President Obama, he had grandparents to fall back on while his maternal parent pursued career and love. The author's generous and charitable appraisal of both his grandfather and step-father, as well as of his mother and grandmother, is both characteristic and appealing. Against this backdrop, the family conflict between his grandmother and grandfather, mother and stepfather, mother and grandfather, as well as the stepfather's struggle with alcoholism, are acknowledged intermittently. This is the origin of the "parallel lives" theme where the Narrator lives mostly in an upbeat world where unacknowledged conflicts build and occaisionally upset life. Interestingly, the Narrator finds it easy to forgive the family members who hurt each other, but confesses that he did not know quite how to handle his own anger, sadness, and disillusion. He seems to have developed extraordinary skills in managing the emotions of others, and to have channeled his own energies into what would receive the approval of others (adults)- school work, music, and the field that depends on pleasing most of the adults most of the time- politics.
The 42nd President's generous inclinations toward others includes several of his political opponents, but not all. When the political becomes personal, ironically, it is blamed on a blinding ideology. How else to explain the Newt Gingrich's and Ken Starr's of life? It was characteristic of the Clinton approach to life as to politics to seek out what was generally pleasing or acceptable, ingratiate oneself, and work a deal for mutual benefit. This is both the strength and the weakness of Bill Clinton the Leader. He was able to appeal both to the progressives in his own party as the best they could hope for, and at the same time to the great middle of America, their sense of fair play, their desire to "vote for the person, not the party," their vague sense that things will/should always improve, their resentment/suspicion of dark forces manifest as ideological terror groups, foriegn and domestic, as well as business cronies who manipulate from behind the scenes. The downside of this is the averseness of taking political risks, and of regarding as "mistakes" measures that lead to negative political consequences, such as the raising of drivers' license fees in his first term as governor. In some ways, the Clinton Presidency was like that of Calvin Coolidge, characterized more by economic prosperity than decisive action. The Author seems unable to fathom the possibility that what he himself sees as flexibility, others might see as opportunism, or that what he sees as prejudice might be another's deeply held values or identity. This is particularly so in his understanding, shared more than once in the abridged edition, that southern white men were tempted to blame all their frustrations, and fears of change, on minorities and liberals, and that cynical conservatives would exploit this (a sort of identity politics in reverse). Similarly, that conservatives could actually believe that businesses making money could be good for the nation as a whole is dismissed as a fig leaf to cover greed. No such suspition that lawyers have an interest in laws that generate lawsuits, negotiated regulations, etc., is ever entertained. Self-interest is never characteristic of our side, after all, and the folks we know the least are those we can characterize by their (bad) motives.
Taken for granted, but never explored, are the Narrator's religious views. This may be the result of excission in making the abridged narrative, but in the account of formative events, there is no account of baptism or what led up to it. Being born again is claimed in passing, but religion is spoken of as so intensely private that those who use faith as a litmus test in politics are immediately suspect. The narrative of the decision of law students Bill and Hilary to shack up is mentioned in passing as "must have been troubling to both our families." That religion as a personal matter, and morals as properly beyond public accountability, are themselves a "religious view," by no means universaly acknowledged in American politics, is never acknowledged by our Author.
It is in these matters that the Author's selective memory becomes most apparent. While bemoaning the "politics of personal destruction," when applied to himself, the Author conveniently forgets Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, and his party's responsibility for such precident setting. He bemoans the right's "false accusation" that voting Democrat would force every state to recognize the marriage of homosexuals. It felt unfair at the time to Party Leader Clinton, yet proved prescient. Perhaps one's opponent can see things about your direction and momentum that you can't see, or won't acknowledge.
Selective memory has a lot to do with the tone of this book. It is written for friends, a new geberation, and perhaps those living under rocks who have no awareness, and no opinion of Bill Clinton, as well as those who rely solely on the selective memory of mass media. Therefore, it accentuates the positive, personality comes before politics, and the theme could be summarized as "How I got many of my good intentions implemented in a life I basically enjoyed, two or three bastards notwithstanding." It's a great conversation to have over a beer.

I ordered this book and 2 more, The Human Contribution and A Life of Flight: FORTY FLIGHTS AND FORTY NIGHTS ABOARD DC-3S TO B-747S.
But I only got the one of the three so far.

I looked everywhere at the store.com for a way to comunicate this to the store but I did not find it. It's been more than a month and a half since I placed the order.

Can someone help me?

Thank you.

Long boring read. No personal reflections or communications shared between Bill and HiIlary nor Bill and Chelsea and nor between HIllary and Chelsea; reads like he was summarizing his day planner over 8 years in office.

One thing you take a way from the book: NEVER HIRE AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATOR TO INVESTIGATE YOU!!!!!!!! In our every day lives this means never volunteer to be scrutinized personally or at work, you give too much power to the person reviewing you.

I think it'd be fair to say if BIll gave ONE candid regret over his 8 year presidency, he would say that he regrets hiring Ken Starr to investigate him.

Of all the recent leaders in American history, few have generated as much attention and speculation as that of President Bill Clinton. From his days as Governor of Arkansas to his life as a speaker post-Presidency, this man garners attention from all walks of life everywhere he goes. Whether it be right-wing talk show hosts insinuating about his sex life, to Chinese college students asking his opinions of trans-Pacific trade, nothing about Bill remains private for long. And so we have his official autobiography, this huge tome that almost hits the 1000-page mark. Told in chronological order, the book begins before Bill, by tracing the history of both his biological parents from their births to his birth. In quick succession we learn about his childhood, his favorite teachers, his dealings with an alcoholic step-father, an abused brother, lifelong friends and his dive into student politics and volunteering for Senator Fulbright. Soon comes Oxford on a Fulbright Scholarship, and Yale Law School.

Throughout these chapters Bill describes his experiences with the Vietnam War, specifically the draft and how he dealt with it and his guilt at seeing some of his classmates go and die. We also learn about how Bill met Hillary, and how they fell in love and eventually married. We also get well-placed comments on the evolution of his political beliefs on all sorts of subjects. Interestingly, he never quite explores the policies behind the Vietnam War; no mention of war profiteering, the domino theory, and how the Civil Rights movement intersected with the Peace movement. This is quite in contrast to Clinton's reputation as a policy wonk. Maybe he wants to eliminate any words that could indicate he was against the war philosophically so as to avoid the draft dodger issue. We do however get Clinton's interpretations of Arkansas history and how he rated the various executive and legislative leaders of that state, especially with regards to race relations.

The chapters on Bill's time in the governor's office are probably the quickest portion of the book to get through. Public disclosures later on by both private and public figures indicate that it is during this time that his philandering started, along with his collection of friends and allies to protect him from embarrassment. Yet all of this is only alluded to in a couple of sentences with no details, just generic statements to the form of "I did things to hurt my wife"... Also kept at a distance is Hillary's involvement with Walmart, which is only mentioned but never explored. Is it surprising that the rise of Walmart to international prominence coincided with the Clinton's tenure in the Arkansas governorship and then the White House?

Finally we get to the meat of the book; his 1992 campaign and the two terms as President. Here the author covers all the official bases, with descriptions of Dole, Gingrich, the Gores, Tony Blair, Yeltsin, Jesse Jackson and a host of other leaders. Surprisingly we get barely any mention of his opponents in the media, such as Rush Limbaugh. Maybe Clinton here is denigrating them by ignoring them? The author states many times his support for free trade in general, including low/zero tariffs. And so much of his foreign policy work explained here is on his trade negotiations, sometimes supported by his base, but often opposed by his base. And so we get Bill the centrist, working across the aisle with Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole. For all the education accomplished by Mr. Clinton, both formally in school and informally through his work in government, I wished he had gone into further details explaining how he came to the opinion that free trade is good for all. Free trade is good for Walmart, but what of the black urban class, or pink collar workers? But alas, the details come in when Clinton talks about his foreign policy ordeals, whether it be in Northern Ireland, Israel, Bosnia, Kosovo, or South Africa.

Then comes the Lewinsky scandal, which came out of Whitewater. The details of both were well known before this book was released. We do however get Bill's version of events, which seem truthful on Whitewater (they never made any money) but spotty on Lewinsky (how many times, where, was Hillary in the other room). Then we get chapters on the 2000 election, which Bill bravely blames Gore's loss on the Florida and then US Supreme Courts. Unfortunately, he fails to name the Republican kingpins who did the dirty work, such as James Baker. Overall, the book is not boring, especially to those who like biographies. However, if you have read much about the Clintons already, either through the Whitewater / Lewinsky scandals, or seen their speeches at numerous commencements, conventions, etc..., then nothing here will shock you.

Bill Clinton served as the forty-second President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Prior to that, he was Governor of Arkansas. This book is his detailed autobiography, the entire story of his life from his birth in Hope to his last day as president.

As a biography, this is a very detailed account of his life. He starts out with his formative years growing up in Arkansas before heading off to college and then law school. He had an early interest in politics and made a run for Congress in 1974, but lost the election. However, his ambition could not be stopped. He was elected Attorney General of Arkansas in 1976 and then governor in 1978. He would lose reelection in 1980 due to some unpopular policies, but made a comeback and returned to office in 1982.

He made a run for the presidency in 1992 and won defeating incumbent president George H. W. Bush and billionaire businessman Ross Perot. His presidency was mostly dominated by post-Cold War America. He saw the previous twelve years of Reagan and Bush as policies that were bad for America and worked to pass numerous reforms. This included a family leave law, welfare reform, and balancing the budget which he would eventually accomplish in 1998. On foreign policy, Clinton worked with Yeltsin's Russia and attempted to broker a peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There were many frustrations and ultimately peace in the Middle East would evade him as president.

Controversy is something that came up a lot even before his election as president. The most notable of this was the Whitewater investigation that consumed years during his time as president. He was not happy with independent counsel Kenneth Starr's conduct during the investigation and Clinton felt that Starr went after innocent people and wasted taxpayers' money on a lost cause. These controversies would culminate in his impeachment in 1998, but the Senate acquitted him. Partisanship became worse during his presidency especially after Republicans took control of Congress after the 1994 elections. He clashed with the Republicans over what he saw were proposals that would be bad for America. He would eventually leave office proud of the accomplishments of his administration, but with some regrets.

The most interesting part of this book is an inside look at what a president has to contend with. This includes working with, or sometimes against, Congress and negotiating with foreign leaders. Not surprisingly, Clinton often highlights his accomplishments. There is not much doubt that America improved during his years as president, including a good economy and peace abroad. Despite that, terrorism started becoming an issue with attacks such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the African embassy bombings in 1998. Clinton does note some of his failures. He lost reelection in 1980 as governor mainly over raising the fee for car tags. He thought the state needed the extra money for road projects, but admitted the fee hike hurt poorer Arkansans the most. He also notes that his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky was inappropriate, was a foolish thing to do, and that he regretted misleading people about it.

The only criticism I have of this book is its great length which can make it difficult to get through. His first term as president does not begin until about halfway through. Clinton put in a lot of detail regarding a lot of people he met, even including people that lived across the street from him when he was a child. A lot of these extra details did not really seem to add much to the book.

Overall, this was an interesting book that I would recommend to those interested in presidential history.

President Bill Clinton left no detail out of his autobiography. This 957 page volume covered everything people want to know, plus tons of things people probably couldn't care less about. I enjoyed reading a great deal of the book, especially the parts that covered campaigns and time in office, but there was so much I wish he would have left out.

I am a Republican, but Clinton did a good job of helping me see his human side, particularly when addressing the Monica Lewinsky affair and how it affected his family. He admits to hurting Hillary and spending many nights sleeping on the couch.

As most Presidential autobiographies do, this one made Clinton look right on every policy issue, and every negative event was somehow a Republican's fault (including the Lewinsky affair, which he frequently reminded the reader it took place during the government shutdown, which was Newt Gingrich's fault). Unfortunately, that has become expected in these types of books.

There were also several words used that I wish were not in there, but when a book is just shy of a thousand pages, that is bound to happen. This is still a must-have book for Presidential buffs, and was overall a good book.

My Life is the Bill Clinton autobiography. It is told with exceptional detail from a man (like his politics or not) of great intellect. The Presidency has always fascinated me, and the glimpses leading up to, and then, inside The Office this book provides do not disappoint. 42 is a great mind and an exceptional politician and orator. Reading a first person narrative of the trials, the stories and the issues of the 1990's from the viewpoint of The President of the United States was great. Decisions which range from the economy, to the Middle East, to the scandals are all covered. It is a fascinating read if politics or history interests you.

Bill Clinton in his own autobiography, MY LIFE, tells his story in a very straight forward way. I appreciate his honestly.

Carefully, he details his childhood and the experiences that shaped his life. From his mother he learned never to give up. When the chips are down, you use them for stepping stones. His grandfather in his little country store in Arkansas, taught him the value of every human being regardless of position or color.

All through his political career, his major concerns were the betterment of the disadvantaged, the outcasts of society. The power of his presidency he used to benefit others whether individuals or nations. He was a consumate peacemaker, who lived the golden rule. In spite of this, he was the target of those who used power indiscriminately, simply because they could. But the venom and lies his enemies battered him with he chose to forgive and look always for the best in others.

Yes, he slipped and fell from grace, but I believe he truly repented. It's apparent that his wife and daughter accept his repentence. It seems to me that too many people love to capitolize on the evil in others lives. What a gross focus! Do they blow out another's candle to make their own glow brighter?

Bill Clinton's accomplishments produced a refreshing breeze after the disasters created by the previous administrations!

After reading MY LIFE, I have a deeper appreciation of the factors that impact the individuals who accept the presidency of our country. Bill's positive attitude, his devotional prayer life, and his perserverance in spite of seeming failure are an inspiration to me personally. May God give our nation more statesmen like him!

Betty L. Sheldon, author of OMNIPIECE

I read and was thrilled by Bill Clinton's autobiography. I learnt a lot about the USA political system as well as that hard work and dedication can capapult anyone to great heights, as it did to Bill Clinton. The American democracy is also a good example for most people and countries in the world that are struggling to set up their own democracies suited to their peculiar situations.

As an African, it is largely Bill Clinton's foreign policy that was of major interest. I have given some of the highlights of his foreign policy that I found interesting. Clinton deployed US troops several times during his presidency. In 1993, U.S. troops were deployed and fought in Mogadishu, Somalia where they were attempting to capture local warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. The Clinton administration withdrew the troops after suffering 19 deaths and 73 wounded at the hands of Somalia militiaman. In 1994, Clinton sent U.S. troops into Haiti to restore Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president, ending a period of intense violence. The elected Aristide, had been ousted in a coup just seven months into his term in 1991.

Clinton also committed troops twice in the former Yugoslavia to stop ethnic violence, most notably in Kosovo. In addition, Clinton launched military strikes on Iraq several times to punish violations of United Nations sanctions and other perceived misdeeds. In 1994, Clinton negotiated and signed the Nuclear Accords with North Korea. The main concern was that North Korea was developing nuclear weapons technology under the guise of a nuclear power for civilian use. In exchange for assistance with energy needs, North Korea agreed to abandon all ambitions for acquiring nuclear weapons. However, North Korea appear to have violated both the Nuclear Accords and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. North Korea announced publicly in 2005 that they possessed nuclear weapons.

In 1998, Clinton signalled the danger of rogue nations providing weapons of mass destruction to terrorist organizations. Clinton specifically pointed to Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq. During his tenure, Al Qaeda began to emerge as a major terrorist threat. In 1993, Al Qaeda bombed the World Trade centre. In 1998, the group bombed the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. In retaliation, Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes on terrorist camps in Kandahar, Afghanistan and a suspected chemical weapons facility in Khartoum, Sudan, that was believed to be tied to Bin Laden. At the end of his term, in late 2000, the terrorists bombed the USS COLE. In his book, Clinton said he regarded Al-Qaeda as the foremost threat to national security.

However, some of the US troop deployments clearly violated international law. These included attacks in Somalia, Bosnia, Sudan, and Afghanistan.

Clinton failed to intervene militarily to end the Rwanda genocide in 1994. Clinton identified this as his major foreign policy failure. Along with the United Nations, the Clinton administration initially did not publicly acknowledge that genocide was occurring. This delayed the mandatory response to the crisis and nearly one million people died.

The book is interesting reading and is highly recommended.

Bill Clinton has an interesting life and an interesting story to tell. He was born to his recently- widowed mother in the 1940's and never knew his biological father. The male figure in this young life was his step father, Roger Clinton- a man who was an alcoholic and often prone to emotional outbursts. His roots were lower- middle class, yet he still achieved success in spite of the tremendous obstacles thrown into his path.

Clinton tells all about his life in this book, and parts of it are fascinating to read. Most people know the Bill Clinton who became president and was embroiled in numerous political and personal scandals. But few know about Clinton's early days, growing up in the state of Arkansas; attending Georgetown University; Going to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship; Running unsuccessfully for state rep from Arkansas; and winning election as governor of his home state. These, and many other stories are detailed in this book, with some facts that will raise your eyebrows on more than one occasion.

Clinton's presidency was overrun with scandal, and this area of his life is given much coverage in the book. On thing that I didn't like about Clinton's approach to these scandals is that he basically declares himself completely innocent of everything. Granted, I expected this when I started to read the last part of the book. But I was still hoping that maybe, just maybe, Clinton would tell the book reading world something shocking and admit to responsibility for some of these widely- publicized events. He never does, maintaining that it was his many enemies who set him up, tried to intimidate those close to him, and ultimately tried to bring him down.

Clinton's presidency was marked with some successes, and Clinton highlights these in his writing. I found it interesting how obsessed he seems to be with the terrorist issue. On page after page, he keeps coming back to the problem of terrorism and he quickly points out the progress he thinks he made on stopping these people and organizations whose intent is to threaten and kill innocent people and force their narrow agenda on the world. When I counted the number of times he mentioned terrorists, it made me a little suspicious. Could it be that Clinton feels a little bit guilty and a little bit responsible for not doing more to stop the people who were ultimately responsible for the attacks on September 11, 2001? I started to wonder about this as I turned the pages. An occasional mention here and there would be normal, but it seems like Clinton touches on this issue too many times to be an accident. It seems like he had other motives when he decided to refer back to this problem so many times as he writes.

If you like your books short and simple, then you might want to pass on reading "My Life". This is the longest autobiography I have ever read, and it took me about one and a half months to finish it. The first part of the book was the most enjoyable, mainly because it included facts about Bill Clinton that I had never heard of before. The last one- third of the book (the parts that cover the presidency) are more predictable and less interesting because they say exactly what everyone already knows and they state exactly what you expect the former president to profess. Clinton doesn't offer any real surprises here. He blames others for all the problems and all the distractions he experienced while in the oval office.

In spite of some flaws, I still recommend reading this book. Many people resent Bill Clinton for his policies and for his personal actions and they wouldn't be caught dead reading his autobiography. But I still think this is a book worth reading. Clinton is respectful toward everyone he writes about, including people who are known to be his political enemies. He gets a little long- winded from time to time and he goes overboard with his efforts to show that he did what he could to stop terrorism. But the book is still a pretty good read, albeit a long one. I doubt it will change the way you feel about Bill Clinton, but it will succeed at helping readers find some new facts about the former president and it will explain his point of view regarding the multitude of scandals that took place when he served as president.

I don't particularly like Bill Clinton on many levels. I have read many Presidential biographies and autobiographies and so I felt I should read this one, and suspend judgement.

I'm glad I did.

Whether you like Bill Clinton politically or personally is beside the point. He was President of the United States for 8 years. He has left a mark on History and what he has to say about it and the information he provides is worth the time to digest.

Unfortunately, today's commercial market demands instant gratification and so, in responding to that demand the most obvious criticism I can offer is that this book was written too soon. It takes time to digest the events and thinking of a presidency, and if anything, I believe this book would have benefited from some time passing and Clinton himself being able to digest and think through the events and policy of his presidency.

As it is, not suprisingly, Clinton spends a great deal of time and effort in this work defending himself and attacking his detractors. In that regard it reads like a current political campaign work, rather than a Statesman reflecting on his time in power. There could have been a lot more accomplished in this work had he avoided the temptation to use this platform to form a response to his contemporary political foes. I don't doubt that 50 years from now as people removed from the events read this work, they will be less concerned with Clinton's major investment of time and space to paint Ken Starr's investigation of himself as a witch-hunt and will want to know a little more about his actual thoughts and actions while working with policy and foreign relations.

Regardless of what you think about Bill Clinton, if you are able to set aside the need to attack him or extol him, you have to objectively admit that he is a remarkably intelligent and politically savvy person. While it is probably too soon to write a final assessment on the impact of his Presidency and policies upon History, he presided over a time of tremendous economic growth, technological change and a change in political climate and tactics. Whether his leadership was causitive or reactive to these factors, he will no doubt command attention in the years ahead as all that happened to and around him is digested and no doubt, over time additional information, yet unknown will come to light and factor in as well.

The book is long. It is thorough. It uses a consistent formula of presentation that seeks to take the issue or event addressed and put a human face. In that regard it reads like a summary of a State of the Union address and not a deeply reflective biography.

There is a ton of factual information, but it becomes somewhat shallow in tying that information together into a cohesive explanation as to the rationale for actions taken, positions espoused.

Nevertheless, regardless of what passions you may hold or not hold with regard to Clinton himself, the book is a reasonably well written work that the committed reader can work their way through it and hopefully come out with a better understanding of the life and times of this important contemporary and soon to be historical figure. I hope time is kind enough to President Clinton that he will take the time to suppliment this work and preserve some more of his thinking as times passes and he is able to better assimilate much of which remains to be addressed within his presidency.

'My Life' is a long and detailed autobiography of William Jefferson Clinton, the forty-second president of the United States of America. Though this book is very long, approximately one thousand pages, it was entertaining enough to read the whole thing. It is obvious that he kept a detailed diary his whole life.

Pres. Clinton's book is not the normal biography. It is written in chronological order starting with his boyhood. Though as you read it you will find yourself jumping all over time. He does this whenever he feels he has to defend his actions. And I felt the whole book is about trying to defend his legacy and set the record straight. The book seems very self-serving and he seems more concerned about what we think of him, instead of just writing what transpired.

Though I did find his book very easy to read. I did feel as if he I was sitting on a covered front porch with a class of ice tea and listening as Pres. Clinton spins an interesting tale. I had no problem reading the entire book and did find it enjoyable despite his agenda. He does share some of his shortcomings and how he overcame them. This is also a story of a boy making good in America. He comes from rural state and used every opportunity America offers each and every one of us. And that message is worth sharing.

Do not pick up this book looking for dark details of his life. You will not find it. But I did learn much about how he saw himself and his view on affairs that affected or touched his life. I do recommend reading this book.

Four stars. The first half was excellent, worthy of 5+ stars. The second half, though, dragged. At first I thought it was because the second half moved into the areas of history I'd experienced personally, and thus I didn't find it as interesting. Then I thought no, the writing was better in the first half. Perhaps it is because when we look back on our earliest memories, they are more vivid and powerfully remembered. The strength of this book was you could hear Clinton's voice as you read, it was as if he was right there in the room talking. For those who like Clinton of course, this is a definite plus. One thing that definitely came through was the easy-going, likeable, and nonjudgmental personality. I enjoyed his description of the women in his life, particularly his mother and Hillary. Such memorable quips as how his mother came to like Hillary better when she stopped caring so much about how Hillary looked, and Hillary started caring more about how she looked made the book feel warm and alive.

This book is like Bill Clinton himself -- large, full of life and more than a little long winded. President Clinton literally remembers EVERYONE he ever met -- and that's not an exaggeration. Nearly 300 pages into the book, Clinton is only up to the year 1976. By page 600, he is barely into his first term as President. By the time we reach the end -- page 957 -- we have been innundated with thousands upon thousands of names of people from Clinton's life. The effect is overwhelming and just a bit mind numbing. Not that it's surprising. Being verbally effusive is a negative part of Clinton's character, like his womanizing and his penchant for junk food, that even his most dedicated supporters can't help but acknowledge.

However, the thing that the book conveys more than anything else is Clinton's sheer enjoyment of both being President and interacting with the American people. Cynics may see his recitation of volumes of names as just another master politician's skill, but I don't think so. I truly believe that if you have disdain for people in general, no amount of political schmoozing can conceal that. Conversely, if you truly care about people, they will sense that quality and be drawn to you. With this book, Clinton impressed me as a person who values loyalty and friendship, placing those values above any other. My Life is just like the man who wrote it -- long winded, but ultimately compelling.

Politics aside, I look at all biographical material as a opportunity to learn and gain a glimmer of understanding about the historical events that helped make the person about whom the biography speaks. An auto-biography is expectedly written as the author desires and so I spend no time evaluating said person's lens there .. for whom am I?

I found the book very detailed; in fact .. more detail than I expected regarding conversations, people names, events, etc. And I interpreted some of the wording to be obviously "legalese" or "soft" such that is didn't commit one way or the other. Again, so be it. An auto-biography.

I learned about Bill Clinton's childhood which included divorce, alcoholism, job scares, quality of life changes, moving around, struggles to define personal identity, etc. I learned about a person who evolved through time and eventually became a President of a sovereign state. The auto-biography is what I expect to read for in an auto-biography .. a person's view of their past in their own words .. through the lens of major events that impacted them, thereby crafting a world view. I have a better understanding of Bill Clinton the person .. who went to office with ideals and goals with a desire to do good works.

If your goal is to learn about a man, through his own words, who was first a child and later adult, with mistakes along the way, then this is a good biography that you may learn.

I've never read about a perfect man who became President of the United States.

As anyone who has been breathing for the past couple of months knows, William Jefferson Clinton's MY LIFE is more than a book. It is a news event, a slice of history, a personal testament, a work to be argued over for years to come by political partisans, most of whom will not have actually read it.

Perhaps general agreement might be possible on one point: This massive book is the most complete and wide-ranging apologia ever produced by a former American President. Its only distant competitor is U. S. Grant's autobiography --- but when you compare the scope of the two books, Clinton's emerges as much wider by a large margin. It is not simply an account of his two Presidential terms; it is a full-bore autobiography, starting with his birth on page 1 and continuing to his retirement from office and final summing up on page 957. Even as a physical object MY LIFE is daunting. On my bathroom scale the book weighed three and a half pounds.

Clinton sums himself up as "both a political animal and a policy wonk." This is a good capsule summary of the book, which is awash in lists of the programs he advocated, policies he backed in every conceivable field, foreign and domestic; speeches he delivered, and travels he undertook, leaders he dealt with from rural Arkansas bosses to foreign heads of state. The book is far too long, and one shudders to read in his acknowledgements of how much he was persuaded to leave out. The writing can be sprightly and quotable on one page, then ponderous on the next.

Is MY LIFE self-serving? Of course. This is Clinton's brief in his own defense, his chance to fire back at his numerous still-active critics. He sees himself as a moderate progressive, not radical enough for the far left and openly at war with the far right faction of the Republican Party. His scorn for the Gingrich-DeLay-Armey wing of the GOP is a major theme throughout. Perhaps the most important of his political heroes is a fellow Arkansan, Senator J. William Fulbright, legendary chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Clinton began his Washington career as a lowly clerk for that committee.

The former President is also unhappy with our national preference for political trivia over substantive news. Time and again he complains that public fascination with nonessentials kept the world from learning about things he considered important and newsworthy.

This brings us, of course, to the subject of his private life as President. Readers whose only interest is in the Monica Lewinsky affair, Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, Whitewater, Vincent Foster and other such titillating events will find them all here, treated with Clintonian reserve and strictly from his personal point of view. He admits to sexual wrongdoing and apologizes (rather too profusely, I feel). But these episodes are only one strand in the larger tapestry of his public career and embattled Presidency. Most of them he dismisses as partisan attempts to destroy him rather than honest investigations of questionable goings-on. Kenneth Starr in particular emerges as a kind of homegrown Javert, an unscrupulous and unprincipled tormentor rather than an honest prosecutor.

There is no point in a reviewer trying to sort this out. Every reader will have his or her own perspective. I for one am grateful, however, that these subjects do not take over and dominate the larger narrative of which they form a distasteful but certainly necessary part. Clinton's narrative of his political baptism of fire and upward rise in Arkansas, for one thing, seems far more interesting and important in the overall picture of his life. It's not sexy, certainly, but it matters more.

Clinton as a writer lacks the same thing he lacked as President: self-discipline. The level of detail in this book is staggering (remember those 80-minute-plus State of the Union speeches?). The number of names dropped is immense; we learn about the personal styles of political operators in half the small towns of Arkansas, and also those of government leaders in half the banana republics on the face of the globe. Hillary and Chelsea are there too, of course, sometimes cheering him on, sometimes putting up with him. And White House staffers, down to the level of his valets, are duly memorialized.

Clinton is no more successful than other writers have been in making the details of Washington budget battles interesting to the lay reader. The same caveat applies to some extent in international affairs; the protracted negotiations on peace in the Middle East, for example, are here at a level of detail that will certainly be of interest only to specialists.

MY LIFE is one of those books that has "Important" written all over it. It is not, however, consistently interesting because it bogs down in too much detail. It is Bill Clinton's testament, his boast and his mea culpa all at once. When you reach page 957 you know you have read something that really matters --- but you're glad it's over.

Born to a middle class family in Arkansas, William Jefferson Clinton is a true force of nature. In "My Life" Clinton delivers a great story, even if it is not a great book. Because it gives Bill Clinton a chance to get out his perspective, this book is an important part of the record of the last dozen years.

The purpose of a memoir is to give a person, famous or not, the chance to give their account of their life--or the parts they choose to share with the reader. After eight-plus years of being defined by his opponents, friends, and generally being behind the media filter most of the time, Clinton deserves to be heard and his voice comes through loud and clear. After all he went through from his political opponents he is surprisingly gracious to them.

Clinton, like other presidents since Watergate, felt he suffered from the media's focus on juicy stories, dirt, and scandals, and that they failed to inform us of much of what was being accomplished by his administration. Unlike his predecessors, Clinton had to deal with even more news outlets through cable television and the Internet, as well as a rise in popularity of talk radio.

He provides a chronological dumping of the most important events of his very full life from his birth in 1946 through the end of his presidency. The breathless narrative (where does one man get so much energy?) is not lacking in gems. On the other hand, it drags at times as he tries to cram in as many events, accomplishments, failures, and names of people as possible.

If nothing else, this is one very bright man. One of the more interesting aspects of Clinton that shines through is his shrewd grasp of electoral politics. He also takes every opportunity he can to inform the reader of his extensive anti-terrorist initiatives. That was one part of the book that seemed especially revisionist. You can almost here him in his good-old-boy voice, claiming with regard to 9/11 "it's not my fault." Perhaps, but that is another discussion. In "My Life" Clinton does his best to provide the groundwork for his own defense.

With hundreds of others defining him in books and commentary, it is interesting and refreshing to hear his perspective.