White House Diary

"Former President Carter has been an idol of mine my whole life. I chose the ‘White House Diary,’ because he is so detailed, nuanced and candid about his time in office that it actually reads like you accidentally stumbled upon your teenaged son’s incredibly and shockingly advanced diary while he is at school—except your teenage is son is former President Jimmy Carter and he was 86 years old when he wrote this book. You are going to be so proud of him."

"He is. He enjoys writing. Maybe doing these memoirs of different parts of his life was more interesting to him than doing a definitive, long one starting with, ‘I was born in Georgia.’ He’s still recording programs in his 90s. His last book was faith-based, as I recall. I didn’t mention it, because it wasn’t about his life as president. White House Diary is interesting. It’s a focused part of the time that he was in the White House. It’s shorter than some of the other books we’ve been discussing, it’s not an exhaustive look at his presidency. I think that’s true. He came to the presidency without a lot of political background, and that’s really hard. The humanitarian work he did in the years after the presidency is perhaps more significant in a way—like his involvement with Habitat for Humanity and other things that he has done."