George Bush memoir attracts controversy

The Bookseller - 09.11.10 - Katie Allen

Former US president George Bush's memoir has attracted front-page news stories this morning, including an interview and extract in the Times.

Decision Points, published by Random House imprint Virgin Books in the UK tomorrow (10th November) as hardback, e-book and audiobook, attracted coverage across all the newspapers, most focusing on Bush's belief that coercive interrogation technique "waterboarding" helped prevent terrorist attacks.

The Times includes front page coverage plus a four-page interview and extract in the newspaper. The tone of the book is described as "depending on your point of view, self-regarding or presidential", adding "Decision Points reads at times like Defensive Points: it remakes the case for the Iraq war, it reviews the moral dilemmas around coercive interrogation, domestic surveillance and Guantanamo, it reapportions blame for the handling of Hurricane Katrina and, above all, it reminds the reader how Mr Bush's presidency was singularly recast by America's day of fire, 9/11".

The Independent runs a front-page review, dubbing the title "The Decider Decides": "a book that is part spin, part mea culpa, part family scrapbook, part self-conscious effort to (re)shape his political legacy."

"A dogged work of reminiscence by an author not naturally given to introspection" the paper continues. "The prose in Decision Points is utilitarian, the language staccato and blunt. Bush's default mode is regular-guy-politico, and his moods vacillate mainly among the defensive and the diligent – frat boy irreverence, religious certainty and almost willful obliviousness."

The Financial Times' piece reports that Bush allegedly received a $7m advance for the title and that it has a print run of 1.5m copies.

Decision Points is currently number two in Amazon.co.uk's Hot Future on PointsReleases chart, while Tony Blair's A Journey (Hutchinson) is still number one in the Society, Politics & Philosophy category.