The Obamas love a surprise announcement, and another one popped up on Twitter this morning:
“There’s no feeling like finishing a book, and I’m proud of this one,” President Obama tweeted. He’s talking about his new memoir, A Promised Land, which is set to come out November 17. It’ll be the first volume of his presidential memoirs, and his fifth book.
In it, he “tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world,” according to the book’s page, which also promises that it will be “extraordinarily intimate and introspective.” Obama will explore landmark moments like the death of Osama bin Laden and the passage of the Affordable Care Act, and talk Putin, Wall Street reform, and the financial crisis.
It’ll be published by Penguin/Random House, come out in 25 languages, and run 768 pages (for context, Bill Clinton’s single volume memoir was 1,008 pages; George W. Bush’s was 481 pages). Obama will also narrate an audio edition. The book is part of a joint publishing deal with wife Michelle Obama that reportedly went for $65 million.
Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.
