*Finally* got started on Bill Clinton's "My Life" today

[Lancer]

OK, OK, so the bedside table is stacked high; takes me a while.

In the first couple of pages he talks about going to stay with his mom when she was working as a nurse at Charity Hospital in New Orleans. He was just a boy, but remembers the city and their times there so fondly.

"I have seen most of the world's great cities, but New Orleans will always be special… most of all for those first memories of my mother. They are the magnets that keep pulling me down the Mississippi to New Orleans."

But this is the best thing I have read in a very long time:

I learned a lot from the stories by uncle, aunts, and grandparents told me: no one is perfect but most people are good; that people can't be judged only 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. Perhaps most important, I learned that everyone has a story—of dreams and nightmares, hopes and heartache, love and loss, courage and fear, sacrifice and selfishness. All my life I've been interested in other people's stories. I've wanted to know them, understand them, feel them. When I grew up and got into politics, I always felt the main point of my work was to give people a chance to have better stories.—Bill Clinton, My Life

[Vektor]

1. It's a good book.

I'm reading it now, but sadly, just plodding through it, since I am in a really challenging and time-consuming academic program, and have to hit the textbooks more often than I can hit the Bill book. :-)

Maybe I can finish it on my next holiday break...

[cdsilv]

2. I agree

...very powerful. Better stories.

[Catherine Vincent]

3. I have it and only read a few chapters.

I'll eventually get around to finishing it. I love Bill Clinton.