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Michelle: A Biography | 
| Author: Liza Mundy
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $16.50
You Save: $8.50 (34%)
Rating:  31 reviews
Sales Rank: 6118
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st Simon & Schuster Hardcover Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 1416599436
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.931092
EAN: 9781416599432
Publication Date: October 7, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
She can be funny and sharp-tongued, warm and blunt, empathic and demanding. Who is the woman Barack Obama calls "the boss"? In Michelle, Washington Post writer Liza Mundy paints a revealing and intimate portrait, taking us inside the marriage of the most dynamic couple in politics today. She shows how well they complement each other: Michelle, the highly organized, sometimes intimidating, list-making pragmatist; Barack, the introspective political charmer who won't pick up his socks but shoots for the stars. Their relationship, like those of many couples with two careers and two children, has been so strained at times that he has had to persuade her to support his climb up the political ladder. And you can't blame her for occasionally regretting it: In this campaign, it is Michelle who has absorbed much of the skepticism from voters about Obama. One conservative magazine put her on the cover under the headline "Mrs. Grievance."Michelle's story carries with it all the extraordinary achievements and lingering pain of America in the post-civil rights era. She grew up on the south side of Chicago, the daughter of a city worker and a stay-at-home mom in a neighborhood rocked by white flight. She was admitted to Princeton amid an angry debate about affirmative action and went on to Harvard Law School, where she was more comfortable doing pro-bono work for the poor than gunning for awards with the rest of her peers. She became a corporate lawyer, then left to train community leaders. She is modern in her tastes but likes to watch reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Brady Bunch. In this carefully reported biography, drawing upon interviews with more than one hundred people, including one with Michelle herself, Mundy captures the complexity of this remarkable woman and the remarkable life she has lived.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 26 more reviews...
 A Work in Progress October 29, 2008
22 out of 24 found this review helpful
This is not the definitive biography of Michelle Obama. But it will do for now, at least until the next bio, Michelle Obama: Grace and Intelligence in a Time of Change, comes out at the end of November. (Actually, if you have Kindle you can download the newer biography now.) Liza Mundy's biography is short and padded, but I can't blame her for that. Michelle Obama is only 44 years old and while she is smart, ambitious, determined, and full of admirable qualities, the most remarkable thing she has done so far is to marry Barack Obama. It's hard to make much of a biography out of that. But Mundy has buckled down and done what she can, considering the lack of material and the fact that she wasn't able to interview Michelle Obama for this book.
Michelle and her older brother Craig grew up in Chicago and because their parents emphasized the importance of education, both of them ended up graduating from Princeton. Michelle continued on to Harvard Law School and took her law degree to various jobs in Chicago. She did well at all her jobs, but left others with the impression that she was restless and bored with those jobs, although she did quite well at all of the jobs.
I think I learned more about Barack Obama from this book than I did about Michelle. That's okay. My impression from this book is that while Michelle still hasn't found a job that she is passionate about, other than being a mother of course, she recognizes that Barack has focus and passion and wants to do what she can to help him realize his goals, for himself and for the country.
Before reading this book, I hadn't read either of Barack Obama's books, (Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope), or any of the books about his life. From this bio about Michelle, I learned that Barack went to law school only after he realized that he needed to learn about law to better help the communities he was working in in Chicago. He became a member of a church when he realized that would also help him be a more credible member of the community. He ran for office in Illinois when that appeared to be the way to create the changes he was seeking. All that hard work has taken a toll on his own family though. For most of the their marriage, Barack has been a weekend husband and father, and it doesn't appear that that situation will be improving anytime soon.
Michelle: A Biography is a short book, 217 pages including end notes. There's no index. It isn't a fluffy celebrity bio, but it isn't a full-fledged scholarly biography either. It's an unfinished work, if only because Michelle Obama has yet to do anything biography-worthy. She is obviously a smart, accomplished, elegant woman who will be an excellent diplomat in the White House and ambassador to the rest of the world. Expect a full-fledged biography in four or eight more years.
 Kinda Blah October 23, 2008
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
This book just isn't that great. It's very short...extremely short. It's right around 200 pages. It almost seems like the author just wanted to make a quick buck to get this book out before the election. It wasn't detailed at all. Her childhood in the book was more about the history of Chicago and race relations. I would have enjoyed more stories about Craig, her brother, and Michelle growing up with a "middle class" family in the South Side of Chicago. The pages on her college years at Princeton were thin. Mostly discussing her thinking on her future instead of what she learned and how she changed there. In the book after she met Barack Obama, it was like the book changed to more of a book looking at him instead of Michelle. I felt the book almost became mean spirited about Michelle and how she treats Barack. If someone hasn't heard Michelle Obama speak about her past then this is a good quick book to get a taste of where she's from and who she is, but if you are looking for an in-depth study or biography about her then you aren't going to get it. Wait for this one on the bargain tables.
 Thin October 15, 2008
9 out of 17 found this review helpful
This book was based on interviews with people who weren't central to her life, and lacks the personal sparkle that comes from the subject cooperating with the author that a true biography should contain.
 Far too boring to do its subject justice October 15, 2008
7 out of 13 found this review helpful
I saw this book and grabbed it instantly. Michelle's charisma and simple down-to-earth aura actually impress me more than her husband's equal traits. She's positively amazing, and I was excited to read her biography.
How disappointing it is to be halfway through this book and have ONE good line I can appreciate - a quote from her older brother Craig about the senselessness of buying a $75,000 station wagon.
Ms. Mundy may be blaming her flailing sales on lack of cooperation from the Obama campaign, but I have to say a good author should be able to present their work without whining and complaining about lack of support in writing it.
Of course, after reading just 50% (I'm not going to finish it - it's not worth my time), I understand why Ms. Mundy is looking for a scapegoat. Heaven forbid the blame for this boring depiction of such an incredible woman be laid where it belongs - with the author.
Boring October 15, 2008
7 out of 18 found this review helpful
I can see why she wrote her whiny article in XX Factor - she obviously sees herself as more important than a political campaign - I suppose she wanted to get her book out in time to earn a lot of money but I can understand why it wasn't Michelle's priority to speak to her. In any case, the material she does have, is not written about in a very interesting way - I couldn't finish it.
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