Latest news with #HachetteBookGroup
Fox News
3 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Biden team is ready to drop dirt on Harris if she comes after him, Mark Halperin says
Political analyst Mark Halperin revealed last week that former President Joe Biden's team is prepared to release unflattering stories about their efforts to prepare former Vice President Kamala Harris for a potential run if she comes after him in her new book. Harris announced the release of her upcoming book "107 Days," documenting her short-lived presidential run, just a week after Biden Biden reportedly signed a $10 million deal with the Hachette Book Group for his upcoming presidential memoir. While speaking on 2Way's "The Morning Meeting" with Sean Spicer and Dan Turrentine, Halperin dismissed the notion that they discussed these books with each other, adding that the Biden team is ready to push back if they feel threatened. "If the Biden people decide that Kamala Harris is coming after Joe Biden, wait until you hear the Palin-esque stories about how much they tried to help her be prepared to be vice president and be in a position to run, and how they decided, 'not happening. She's not up to this,'" Halperin said. "And if the Biden people feel threatened, you will hear stories about Kamala Harris as vice president that will not make her look good." Halperin's "Palin-esque" comment refers to revelations from 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain's 2018 memoir, which revealed he regretted picking former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. Halperin later elaborated on his own show on Tuesday about how the Biden administration attempted to prepare Harris for a potential presidential run but found she wasn't "ready for prime time." "[T]he folks in the Biden administration, including the president himself, were very protective of her, did their best to make her a success, did their best to make her ready to be president either if Joe Biden left office prematurely or if she decided she wanted to run. If you look at her public schedule, you'll see she had, I think, an unprecedented number of meetings with world leaders," Halperin said. He continued, "Certainly, every opportunity, whether they were in Washington or when she traveled overseas, she met a lot of world leaders. They tried to get her up to speed, but she was not quite ready for prime time. Let me put it that way." Fox News Digital reached out to Biden and Harris' teams for comment but did not immediately receive responses.
Wall Street Journal
27-07-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Joe Biden's Book Is Bound to Be Dull
The news that Joe Biden sold his presidential memoir to the Hachette Book Group for an advance of about $10 million raises a question: What will Hachette get for its money? Mr. Biden's approach to his presidency suggests that a Biden memoir is likely to combine many of the worst characteristics of previous presidential memoirs gone wrong. The first challenge with such memoirs is that ex-presidents often aren't particularly interested in writing after being president. When Lyndon B. Johnson left the White House, he told a friend, 'I'm going to enjoy the time I've got left.' Johnson probably had a good book in him, but he apparently didn't want to share it. Instead, he produced a lackluster memoir that was published in 1971, and also worked on another tepid book with biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin, which was published after his death. According to Ms. Goodwin, Mr. Johnson would tell his team fascinating and earthy anecdotes but then get mad when he saw them on the page, saying, 'Get that vulgar language of mine out of there. What do you think this is, the tale of an uneducated cowboy? It's a presidential memoir, damn it, and I've got to come out looking like a statesman, not some backwoods politician.' This illustrates another challenge with presidential memoirs—the temptation to revise history to reflect well on the author. Mr. Biden, who is significantly older than Johnson was when he was putting together his memoirs, is likely to have even less interest in sitting down to do the hard work of writing. This means that the book is almost certain to be ghost-written, which can diminish its authenticity. As Robert Caro, who knows something about writing compelling presidential history, has said: 'Most presidential memoirs are pretty canned. If they're not written by somebody else, they seem like they are.' This was the case with Ronald Reagan's clearly ghost-written memoir, 'An American Life.' The book was a commercial disappointment, and it failed to give readers real insight into Reagan.
Yahoo
27-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ozzy Osbourne Announced His Upcoming Memoir ‘Last Rites' Less Than 2 Weeks Before His Death
Ozzy Osbourne had one more special project in the works before his death. Hachette Book Group announced on July 10 that Osbourne would be publishing his memoir, Last Rites. According to the book's synopsis, the rock star wrote about his time performing in the legendary heavy metal band Black Sabbath, his marriage to wife Sharon Osbourne, his multiple health battles and more. 'People say to me, if you could do it all again, knowing what you know now, would you change anything? I'm like, 'F*** no,' If I'd been clean and sober, I wouldn't be Ozzy. If I'd done normal, sensible things, I wouldn't be Ozzy,' the former rocker said in a press release at the time. 'Look, if it ends tomorrow, I can't complain. I've been all around the world. Seen a lot of things. I've done good … and I've done bad. But right now, I'm not ready to go anywhere.' Last Rites is scheduled to be released on October 7, 2025. Ozzy Osbourne Dead at 76 After Suffering Health Issues, Weeks After Final Performance News broke on Tuesday, July 22, that Ozzy died at the age of 76. 'It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning,' the musician's family shared in a statement to Metro. 'He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time.' Ozzy is survived by Sharon and their children Kelly Osbourne, Jack Osbourne and Aimee Osbourne, as well as kids Elliot, Louis and Jessica, who he shared with ex-wife Thelma Riley. A cause of death has yet to be revealed. Ozzy's death comes weeks after he took the stage one last time with Black Sabbath in Birmingham, England, on July 5. The performance marked Ozzy's official retirement while raising funds for Cure Parkinson's, Birmingham Children's Hospital and Acorns Children's Hospice. (Ozzy was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2020.) 'You wake up the next morning and find that something else has gone wrong. You begin to think this is never going to end,' the metal singer told The Guardian in a May profile, noting that his wife organized the benefit concert to 'give [him] a reason to get up in the morning.' Jack Osbourne Pays Tribute After Dad Ozzy Osbourne's Star-Studded Final Concert Following the concert, Kelly took to social media to express her gratitude for the full circle moment. 'I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you. Thank you to everyone who came to the show last night, [and] thank you to everybody who was involved in the show last night. You have no idea what it did for my dad,' Kelly said in an Instagram Story video. 'It was one of the most magical experiences of my entire life, and if I keep talking, I'm probably going to end up crying again. So, that's all I'll say for now. Thank you.' Days after her positive message, Kelly took to social media, slamming rumors that her father was close to death. 'This is the s*** I wake up to,' Kelly wrote alongside a screenshot of a message from a social media user critiquing her understanding of her dad's condition. 'Wtf is wrong with people?'
Washington Post
24-07-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
Former president Joe Biden to publish a White House memoir
Hachette Book Group will publish a memoir by former president Joe Biden, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The memoir, which does not have a publication date, will focus on his time in the White House. The Journal reported that Biden received an advance in the range of $10 million. 'Every president is expected to write a memoir,' Biden said earlier this month, at an event for the Society for Human Resource Management. 'I'm not going to criticize them, this is an observation — most take between three and six years to get it done.' He added that his publisher wanted the manuscript 'by March of this year.' Biden's previous memoir, 'Promise Me, Dad,' exploring his family's struggle with his son Beau's battle with cancer, was published in 2017 and became a bestseller. According to the tax filings Biden released during his 2020 presidential campaign, he and his wife, Jill Biden, earned $10 million in income from the memoir, along with $3 million from her 2019 book, 'Where the Light Enters.' In his review for The Washington Post, Tom Brokaw described 'Promise Me, Dad' as a 'poignant, instructive and deeply affecting account of a family's struggle against a vicious brain cancer, played out against the demands of his job as vice president and the temptations of another run for the presidency. It is also a touching account of the cruel realities of cancer, especially cancer that strikes your child.' 'After the Trump gold rush for the book industry of the last few years, the Biden era has, so far, been a bust,' Politico reported in 2023. Books on various aspects of Biden's life and career, including his relationship with Barack Obama and his first few years as president, had each, the article noted, sold only a few thousand copies — or less. Donald Trump has not yet written a memoir about his time as president, though he has published photo books, including, in 2024, 'Save America.' Former president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama signed a joint book deal with Penguin Random House in 2017 reported to be worth $65 million. In 2001, when former president Bill Clinton sold his memoir rights for $10 million, it was believed to be the largest-ever amount for a nonfiction book.
New York Post
24-07-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Biden sells memoir for millions less than Obamas, Bill Clinton in embarrassing blow
Former President Biden has sold his presidential memoir for a $10 million advance – far less than the lucrative deals won by the Obamas and Bill Clinton, according to a report. Biden, 82, made a deal with Hachette Book Group for an advance of around $10 million, people familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal. The book's publisher, Hachette's Little, Brown & Co., has not yet set a publication date. 3 President Biden delivers his farewell address to the nation from the Oval Office in January. via REUTERS Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, meanwhile, sold the rights to their memoirs to Penguin Random House for a record-breaking $60 million in 2017. Alfred A. Knopf, which is owned by Penguin Random House's parent firm Bertelsmann, paid $15 million for former President Bill Clinton's 2004 memoir 'My Life.' President Trump did not publish a presidential memoir after his first term. At an event earlier this month, Biden said he was 'working my tail off' to write a memoir. Biden was represented by Creative Artists Agency, which sold Hachette worldwide rights for the book. The agency also represented Biden for his 2017 memoir 'Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose,' which chronicled his last year with his oldest son, Beau, who died from brain cancer in 2015. 3 Barack Obama's memoir 'A Promised Land.' AP Hachette and CAA did not immediately respond to The Post's requests for comment. In May, a spokesperson for Biden announced that the former president has an 'aggressive' form of prostate cancer, though it 'appears to be hormone-sensitive, which allows for effective management.' It's likely that his health could impact the timeline of his memoir's release. Biden has hinted that the memoir will cover his four years as president. The longtime politician also served eight years as vice president during the Obama administration. He dropped out of the presidential race in late July last year after a disastrous debate performance and freezing episode ramped up accusations that he was mentally unfit to serve. 3 Bill Clinton's memoir 'My Life.' AP Biden's book is set to follow the best-sold presidential memoirs in history. Within its first 24 hours, Barack's memoir 'A Promised Land' sold 890,000 copies in the US and Canada, surpassing Michelle's 'Becoming' at 725,000 first-day copies and Bill Clinton's 'My Life' at 400,000. Just one month after its release in 2020, sales of Barack's memoir had surpassed 3.3 million copies – close to the then-lifetime total of Clinton's and George W. Bush's, at 3.5 million and 4 million copies respectively.
