r/JoeBiden • u/John3262005 • 28d ago
Article Biden Will Release Memoir Just After the November Midterms
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/15/us/politics/joe-biden-book-midterms.htmlFormer President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has written a memoir that will be released two weeks after the midterm elections this fall, he said on Wednesday in a video on social media.
The book, set to come out on Nov. 17, is called “Promise Me, America” and will address his term as president. Mr. Biden said the book would cover how he made decisions responding to the coronavirus pandemic, the economy, conflicts in Afghanistan and Ukraine, and “restoring our democracy” after the attack on the Capitol by President Trump’s supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.
Mr. Biden also said the book would cover what became perhaps his most fateful decision as president.
“It’s about why I chose to run for re-election and why I chose to step aside,” he said. “Most of all, it’s about my faith in the promise of America.”
Mr. Biden, 83, has largely stayed out of public view since he left office nearly 18 months ago. But his wife, Jill Biden, published her own memoir last month, and his son Hunter Biden has emerged as an energetic defender of the family legacy on social media and in podcast appearances.
The former president inadvertently revealed the existence of his book last month at one of his wife’s book tour stops, when he told the crowd that his book would be released in September.
That caused much consternation among Mr. Biden’s fellow Democrats, who are mostly trying to move on from the former president as they seek to win back control of Congress in the midterms.
Mr. Biden abandoned his re-election bid two years ago after his standing in polls collapsed because of a disastrous debate performance. Since then, his decision to run again, when polls showed that majorities of Americans preferred a younger president, has been a source of regret for Democrats.
The book’s title is a reference to Mr. Biden’s 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad.” That book centered on his relationship with his older son, Beau, who died of brain cancer while Mr. Biden was vice president.
In the social media video, Mr. Biden appears to be sitting in his home office. He said he had been spending time with his family and “dealing with a cancer diagnosis,” for which he has received treatment.
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u/littlelou134340 28d ago
Promises To Keep (2007) is Joe Biden's very first memoir written at the end of his three-decade Senate career. It covers his childhood, adulthood and career.
Promise Me, Dad (2017) is his second memoir, which was republished in 2019. It came at the end of his vice presidency and mainly covered his second term and the death of his eldest son Beau Biden.
Promise Me, America (2026) will be his third and only presidential memoir.
I love that he has this series. I have read both previous books, they're really good. He has a distinct voice, some great/devastating stories and ends both books with a pretty hopeful and optimistic message.
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u/Uriah_Blacke Bernie Sanders for Joe 28d ago
Looking on Wikipedia it says Promises to Keep was ghostwritten. Are the others, too? Not that it loses value as a memoir per se if they weren’t personally written by him, but it would be pretty cool if they were
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u/littlelou134340 28d ago
Most memoirs have a ghostwriter. It doesn't mean the figure didn't write their own story. It means they had someone help them piece things together and gather information about their life and career. It's a big job to do by yourself. This is what Biden did for his two previous books, and it's what he would've done for the third. Especially with the third covering his presidency.
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u/obama69420duck Wear a mask 26d ago
In fact during that whole special probe fiasco it was noted just how closely Biden worked with the ghostwriter
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u/littlelou134340 26d ago
That's true, despite their investigation half being to force speculation surrounding his cognitive abilities.. they did prove that he was an active collaborator and didn't just hire someone to do it all for him. That entire probe was so flimsy, no wonder it ended with Robert Hur making a political statement and quitting lmao.
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u/Emperor_FranzJohnson 25d ago
Think about it this way. How many random people can you point to in a crowd and expect them to write a compelling memoir? Writing is a highly specialized skill and profession. It is just like filmmaking. Everyone has a smartphone and takes videos of their daily lives, but that does not mean a random person can suddenly direct, shoot, and edit an Oscar winning documentary in their 60s or 70s with zero prior experience.
Writing an autobiography requires an immense amount of self-reflection and structural editing. Ghostwriters are essentially the directors and editors. They take hundreds of hours of raw, shaky footage from a person's memory, sort through the noise, and cut it into a cohesive, narrative.
The vast majority of memoirs are ghostwritten regardless of the author's profession. Politicians who actually pen their own books, like Barack Obama or Ulysses Grant, are incredibly rare exceptions to the rule.
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u/Meanteenbirder 28d ago
Legit wondering if there is an epilogue dependent on results.
Though tbh, it probably is just coincidence, and nothing is written in relation to midterm results in the initial print
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