NYPost: "Laura's hot, but Dubya's not"

The New York Post's Page Six, home to gossip about wanna-be celebrities and their cousins, the actually famous, disclosed today that First Lady Laura Bush is negotiating with publishers who are bidding on her memoirs. As one literary agent told the Post, "The publishers are coming to the White House to meet with her and discuss the book."

President Bush, by contrast, is said to be waiting before pitching his memoirs. With an approval rating at historic lows, the president apparently thinks he should wait five years before approaching publishers. One agent, Mort Janklow, asked how long Bush should wait, quipped, "30 or 40 years might be good." In the meantime, the more popular first lady -- a former teacher, librarian and a published author -- may serve up a more palatable version of the Bush 43 White House, say literary agents.

Recalling a similar situation for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose wife Cherie published a memoir before he did, British literary agent Andrew Lownie told the London Telegraph:

The Blairs pioneered this strategy and it is a great way of testing the waters. Mrs. Bush is clearly a lot more popular than her husband at the moment and this is a way of serving up a story in a way that is palatable to the public. Longer term, I am sure we will also see a book from her husband and this of course allows for two bites of the cherry. Commercially, it makes great sense. Also, of course, the public tend to mellow in their attitude to even the most hated political leaders over time.

No word yet on the size of the advance, but you can start counting those zeroes. Bill Clinton made $30 million from sales of his "My Life" and his "Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World." Former First Lady, now New York senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton, got $8 million for "Living History."

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Shealah Craighead / White House

Laura Bush, 'reader in chief,' hosts last book festival

It is her signature event, a contribution to the nation's capital likely to last longer and have more impact than most of the official proclamations that have come out of the West Wing during her husband's or anyone's presidency.

On Saturday, First Lady Laura Bush, a former teacher and librarian, will host her final National Book Festival on the Mall in Washington. This year's all-day event features children's author R.L. Stine, who wrote the "Goosebumps" series; Philippa Gregory, author of "The Other Boleyn Girl;" and Alexander McCall Smith, author of the best-selling series "No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency."

Oh yes, book lovers can also meet writers Laura Bush and her daughter Jenna, who co-authored a children's adventure book called "Read All About It!"

Mrs. Bush, dubbed the "reader in chief," brought the idea with her from Texas, where she inaugurated the state's festival 14 years ago. In Washington, the first book celebration took place three days before 9/11. Some 30,000 came that year, when the event was at the Library of Congress. Last year, long since moved to the larger National Mall, the festival attracted 120,000.

Seen here addressing a White House symposium on global literacy at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York last Monday, the first lady said she plans to continue promoting literacy around the world after the Bushes leave the White House. She said she will co-chair the U.N. Literacy Decade to help empower the estimated 770 million adults around the world who can't read.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Mrs. Bush said she hopes the event becomes an tradition and will whisper something about it to the next first lady.

I love the whole idea of the National Mall being turned over to literature for a Saturday a year. It still has that feeling of a lot of book lovers together, people who love to read and who love books.

Conceding that in the future, electronic reading devices may play a larger role in the world of literature, Mrs. Bush disclosed that her mother-in-law, former First Lady Barbara Bush, has already started reading "from a little hand-held screen that she can download books on."

But she added that for those who have a romantic feeling about the feel of ink on paper, "there will always be a place for the book."

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Jemal Countess / Getty Images

Laura's great expectations

Laura Bush, a former teacher and librarian, toured the Charles Dickens House and Museum in London today, lamenting that many Americans are now aliterate -- they are able to read but choose not to.

"They work on a computer or they watch television," she said. "And it will be a huge loss for all of us if we don't read our literature, because that's how our ideas and our values are transmitted from generation to generation."

The first lady toured the home in Bloomsbury where Dickens lived from 1812 to 1876. According to London's Guardian, she chatted briefly with the author's great-great-great-granddaughter, Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, and inspected a battered journal Dickens kept during his travels to the United States.

"It's so important for us as English-speaking people to be aware of what our literature is," she said.

The Bushes on are on what is being billed as their last White House trek to Europe, returning home to Washington tonight.

Call it a tale of two continents.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo Credit: Public Domain