Thursday, August 7, 2014

Hillary Clinton's 'Hard Choices' Retrospective: Introduction

My personally autographed copy of Hillary's Hard Choices sat on top of my entertainment center (not one of my so many bookshelves) still carefully wrapped in the plastic bag originally provided by Bookends in Ridgewood, NJ for a few days short of three weeks from the time I brought it home.

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In part, this was because Hillary was very active over these weeks and  involved in enough events to keep me pretty busy blogging ... in part.  But also because, even when I had free moments, I did not want to expose this precious signed copy to any kind of possible accident - no spilled coffee, stray cigarette ash (yes, I am a very bad girl).   No unintentionally creased pages or broken binding allowed.  I want it to remain in the pristine condition it was when Hillary returned it to me with her firm signature inscribed.

hard-choices-autographed

Early this week I decided the best recourse was to purchase the E-Book and read that.  I cannot mess up this copy.  So reading has commenced.

As I began reading, I asked myself what I was going to do here at the blog about it.  I have shared many of Hillary's words here and at times commented on them, but a book review seemed presumptuous.  Who am I to review the work of Hillary Clinton?  Nobody!

Reading her words I felt I was watching a movie run before my eyes.  It occurred to me that I had seen and heard so much of what she wrote about that it might be interesting for some people to revisit some of the images and words she refers to.  That is what I have decided would be my best contribution to the hard work of Hillary Clinton - to share those images and words once again in the context of the organization of her book.

Welcome, then,  not to a review but rather to a retrospective on Hard Choices.

Entries will not be regular since both reading the book and compiling the entries will depend upon  available free time.  I cannot promise a post a day.  I will however, attempt to continue this retrospective through the final pages of the book and hope that it coincides passably well with the waning weeks of summer.

The retrospective on part one of the book will be coming soon.