Doug Jones’ book ‘Bending Toward Justice’ on track for January release
Alabama’s junior Senator Democrat Doug Jones, who bested former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore in a historic upset in December, has a book on track to be released January 2019. St. Martin’s Press told to The Associated Press on Tuesday, Jones’ book will be titled “Bending Toward Justice: The Birmingham Church Bombing that Changed the Course of Civil Rights.” Prior to his being elected Senator, Jones is best known for prosecuting Ku Klux Klansmen responsible for killing four black girls in the 1963 bombing of the 1963 Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham as a U.S. attorney. According to the AP, Jones book will cover that time in his life through his Senate race, which made him Alabama’s first Democrat elected to the Senate in over 20 years. Australian Greg Truman, now a New York-based writer, editor, and story consultant wrote the book with Jones. According to the Australian News, Truman “was beside the former lawyer for the crucial final weeks of the campaign and witnessed his ‘overwhelming’ victory in Birmingham.” An Australian and an Alabamian walk into a bar … pic.twitter.com/W0ri3oeJ1f — Greg Truman (@gregtruman) December 13, 2017
Hillary Clinton takes blame in upcoming book but responds to critics
Hillary Clinton takes the blame for her 2016 presidential defeat in her upcoming book but offers choice words for President Donald Trump, her campaign rivals and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Clinton writes in “What Happened” that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders caused “lasting damage” to her presidential campaign and pushes back against the notion raised by Vice President Joe Biden that she didn’t campaign forcefully enough for middle class voters. “I go back over my own shortcomings and the mistakes we made. I take responsibility for all of them. You can blame the data, blame the message, blame anything you want – but I was the candidate,” she writes. “It was my campaign. Those were my decisions.” CNN reported Wednesday that it purchased a copy of the book in Jacksonville, Florida ahead of its Sept. 12 release date. In the book, Clinton says she miscalculated “how quickly the ground was shifting under all our feet” and tried to run a traditional campaign “while Trump was running a reality TV show that expertly and relentlessly stoked Americans’ anger and resentment.” During the primary, Clinton writes that advisers often told her not to fight back against Sanders’ criticism for fear of alienating his supporters. She says “his attacks caused lasting damage, making it harder to unify progressives in the general election and paving the way for Trump’s ‘Crooked Hillary’ campaign.” As the campaign moved along, she says then-FBI Director James Comey‘s probe into her private email server, including his late-October decision to issue a letter to Congress on the investigation, disrupted the image of her as a strong leader. Clinton questions whether a stronger response from President Barack Obama to reports of Russian meddling in the election might have made a difference. And she writes with regret that she never got the chance to confront Putin in person. “There’s nothing I was looking forward to more than showing Putin that his efforts to influence our election and install a friendly puppet had failed,” she writes. “I know he must be enjoying everything that’s happened instead. But he hasn’t had the last laugh yet.” Clinton’s previous books include her 2003 memoir, “Living History,” published while she was a U.S. senator from New York, and 2014’s “Hard Choices,” her account of her time as secretary of state. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
Hillary Clinton calling new book ‘What Happened’
Hillary Clinton is calling her new book “What Happened” and promising unprecedented candor as she remembers her stunning defeat last year to Donald Trump. “In the past, for reasons I try to explain, I’ve often felt I had to be careful in public, like I was up on a wire without a net,” Clinton writes in the introduction, according to publisher Simon & Schuster. “Now I’m letting my guard down.” Simon & Schuster told The Associated Press on Thursday that Clinton’s book will be a highly personal work that also is a “cautionary tale” about Russian interference in last year’s election and its threat to democracy. In public remarks since last fall, the Democrat has cited Russia as a factor in her defeat to her Republican opponent, along with a letter sent by then-FBI Director James Comey less than two weeks before the election. Comey’s letter, sent to Congress on Oct. 28, said the FBI “learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation” into the private email server that Clinton used as secretary of state. Days later, Comey wrote that the FBI did not find anything new. “Now free from the constraints of running, Hillary takes you inside the intense personal experience of becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party in an election marked by rage, sexism, exhilarating highs and infuriating lows, stranger-than-fiction twists, Russian interference, and an opponent who broke all the rules,” according to Simon & Schuster. “In these pages, she describes what it was like to run against Donald Trump, the mistakes she made, how she has coped with a shocking and devastating loss, and how she found the strength to pick herself back up afterwards.” “What Happened” is scheduled to come out Sept. 12 and has evolved since first announced, in February. It was originally billed as a book of essays that would “tell stories from her life, up to and including her experiences in the 2016 presidential campaign,” as opposed to a memoir centered on the race. Clinton’s loss has already been the subject of the best-selling “Shattered,” a highly critical book by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, and a more sympathetic account, Susan Bordo’s “The Destruction of Hillary Clinton.” Within hours of Thursday’s announcement, “What Happened” had jumped from No. 3,350 to No. 17 on Amazon.com. Clinton’s previous works include the 2003 memoir “Living History,” published while she was a U.S. senator from New York, and a book about her years as secretary of state, “Hard Choices,” which came out in 2014 as she prepared to launch her presidential candidacy. She also wrote “It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us” when she was first lady. Her upcoming memoir isn’t the first political book to be called “What Happened.” Scott McClellan, a former White House press secretary during the George W. Bush administration, released a book with the same title in 2008. McClellan’s memoir was an unexpectedly critical take on his former boss that became a best-seller. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Ala. State Audtior Jim Zeigler releases book on 2018 governor’s race
Former news reporter and journalism minor from the University of Alabama, Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler on Monday announced the release of his fourth book over the weekend on Internet-based publishing house Lulu.com The 284-page book, titled The Making of the People’s Governor 2018, tells the story of of the 2018 election for Governor of Alabama following the second term of Gov. Robert Bentley. Zeigler says he got the idea for the book from potential presidential candidates who release a book about a year before they make a decision on running for president. “Potential candidates for governor have not written their pre-campaign books, but that has now changed. Just watch,” Zeigler predicted. “Watch what an impact this book will have on the upcoming race for governor.” A strong critic of the Bentley administration since he was elected state auditor in 2014, Zeigler said Sunday he will be a candidate for office in 2018 when his term will be up as state auditor, but has yet to decide which office to seek — governor or re-election as auditor. “Whether I will run for governor or re-election as state auditor depends partly on the people’s response to the new book,” Zeigler said. He has until February 9, 2018 to make his decision — the date of the filing deadline with the state Republican Party. A synopsis of the book: The book tells the story of the 2018 election for Governor of Alabama following the disastrous second term of Gov. Robert Bentley. The people of Alabama strongly wanted a change from the self-serving, money-wasting Montgomery Insiders to a voice for Alabama taxpayers. Several of the usual suspects ran for governor with no track records of having stood up against the abuses of the Bentley administration. But one candidate had stood up in the Bentley years and, in 2018, stood out from the rest. Just as American voters voted to “Drain the Swamp” in the 2016 election of President Donald Trump, Alabama voters stood up and voted to “Drain the Marsh in Montgomery” in 2018. Drain the Marsh. Has a certain ring to it.
