Laura Bush plans to write memoir

Laura Bushmemoir

Curtis Sittenfeld tapped the first lady's life story for her novel "American Wife," but the real thing may be on its way. The Associated Press reports that Laura Bush is planning to write a memoir:

"I've been talking to some publishers, but nothing has happened yet — just a few visits," she said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

Over the last eight years, Laura Bush has made books a priority. She co-founded the Washington, D.C., National Book Festival in 2001 and has celebrated the work of various authors at the White House, including Mark Twain, Willa Cather, Langston Hughes, Flannery O'Connor and Truman Capote. Her affinity for books goes back further, too; she founded the Texas Book Festival in 1995 and was once a librarian.

On her website, she has recommended readings, with a long list of books for young children. I'm more intrigued by her reading list for adults, though, which is pretty heavy:

"Bless Me, Ultima" by Rudolfo A. Anaya
"Music for Chameleons" by Truman Capote
"My Antonia" and "Death Comes to the Archbishop" by Willa Cather
"The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
"Goodbye to a River" by John Graves
"All the Pretty Horses" by Cormac McCarthy
"Mornings on Horseback" and other biographies by David McCullough
"Beloved" by Toni Morrison
"Ship of Fools" and "The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter" by Katherine Anne Porter

Could a Dostoevskian Bush family saga be in the works? A dusty, brutal evocation of their Texas years, in the tradition of Cormac McCarthy? A White House haunted by a vengeful ghost?

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Laura Bush visits American troops in Afghanistan, June 2008.

Credit Army.mil via Flickr.