My Life (Bill Clinton autobiography)
1st edition cover
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| Author | Bill Clinton |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Bob McNeely (photograph) Carol Devine Carson (design) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Autobiography |
| Publisher | Knopf Publishing Group (Random House) |
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Publication date
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June 22, 2004 (hardback) |
| Pages | 1008 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 55667797 |
| 973.929/092 B 22 | |
| LC Class | E886 .A3 2004 |
| Preceded by | Between Hope and History |
| Followed by | Giving |
My Life is a 2004 autobiography written by former President of the United States Bill Clinton, who left office on January 20, 2001. It was released on June 22, 2004. The book was published by the Knopf Publishing Group and became a bestseller; the book sold in excess of 2,250,000 copies. Clinton had received what was at the time the world's highest book advance fee, $15 million (equivalent to $19 million in 2016).
In My Life Clinton covered his life chronologically, beginning with his early years in Hope, Arkansas, and his family's move to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he attended school and learned the tenor saxophone. It later had a peripheral role in his political public appearances. He had an early interest in politics, which he pursued in college. He eventually ran for and won the Governorship of Arkansas, and later, the Presidency of the United States. Along the way, Clinton offers anecdotes of ordinary people he had interacted with over the years.
Early in Clinton's life, he recalls listening to his family's stories of others and learning
"that no one is perfect but most people are good; that people can't be judged by their worst or weakest moments; that harsh judgments can make hypocrites of us all; that a lot of life is just showing up and hanging on; that laughter is often the best, and sometimes the only, response to pain."
Following his defeat for second term as governor, Clinton remarks, "the system can only absorb so much change at once; no one can beat all the entrenched interests at the same time; and if people think you've stopped listening, you're sunk."
In a political battle, he said that one should wait for an attack from his opponent, then counterpunch as strong and as fast as possible. Early gaffes in Clinton's political career were a result, he believed, of taking too long to respond to attacks.
Clinton spent about two and a half years on the book. He gathered material for four months, wrote an outline, and spent two years and two months writing the book. The book's editor was Justin Cooper. "I wrote it out long hand, left blanks for research, he'd do the research, put it in the computer, print it out, and then we'd edit it", Clinton said. "Every page in this book has probably been gone over somewhere between three and nine times." The original draft for the book was written completely in long-hand. "[There were] 22 big, thick notebooks."
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