A woman in charge?

I don't read a whole lot of biographies*.

I am not very interested in Hillary Clinton.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I couldn't put down Carl Bernstein's huge epic biography of Hillary, A Woman in Charge.

It's a really, really interesting book.  Bernstein has taken some critical heat for focusing on parts of the Clintons' lives with a reporters' love for detail (Publishers' Weekly magazine called it "muddling"), while leaving other parts of their lives completely unexplored.  But I think that's why I enjoyed this book.  There was very little information, for example, on the Clintons' presidential campaign of 1992 (and if you read this book, you'll find yourself starting to refer to the presidency as "the Clintons'," rather than just "Bill's"); but Bernstein had a lot to say about their lives in Alabama. 

In addition to being a fascinating life story, I also found this a fascinating biography of a marriage.  With the 2008 presidential race heating up, I think we'll hear more discussion about Clinton's ambitions and personality; if you've any interest at all in her as a candidate, I'd skip some of the more partisan left and right political books and head right for this biography instead.

*Interestingly enough, one of my favorite biographies of all time (and it's a short list), His Holiness: John Paul II and the Hidden History of Our Time, was also written by Carl Bernstein.