All the candidates' books

"Living History," by Hillary Rodham Clinton

Hillary Clinton's startlingly readable autobiography is one of those books that mostly sucks you in with the pictures.

Seriously, the photo of Hillary and Bill in college -- he looking 12 feet tall and like an upmarket Seth Rogen -- is alone worth the sticker price. And Hillaryland staffers worried about their candidate's relatability should print up posters of the then-first lady staring darkly at a teenage Chelsea who is dressed in a miniskirt for her father's second inauguration ceremony. "It was too late for her to change," writes a still reproachful Clinton in the caption.

As for the book itself: Well, the woman -- or collaborator Maryanne Vollers -- can turn a phrase. There's a surprising amount of what might charitably be called disclosure and realistically be called spin on topics from Whitewater to Vince Foster's death to healthcare. Clinton comes off as most arrestingly candid when writing about her struggle to subsume her vivid identity in service to her husband's presidency. As for what pass for the dirty bits, if you're interested, you probably looked them up when the book came out: She first noticed his hands; they've been having a conversation for 30 years; she got real steamed about Monica ... yada yada yada.

-- Rebecca Traister

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"Worth the Fighting For: The Education of an American Maverick, and the Heroes Who Inspired Him" by John McCain with Mark Salter

Ever since the publication of his family's military history, "Faith of My Fathers," coincided with his spirited challenge to anointed candidate George W. Bush for the 2000 GOP nomination, John McCain has become the Republican most likely to scale the bestseller lists. Written, like four of his other books, with longtime top aide Mark Salter, "Worth the Fighting For" is as close as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has come to a standard political memoir. It begins not in a Vietnam POW camp, but in 1981 at the funeral of his father, an admiral who commanded the U.S. Pacific fleet. McCain's strength as both a storyteller and a politician is his insight into his own failings, displayed in passages like this: "My [first] marriage's collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity more than it was to Vietnam." When it comes to his ill-advised meetings with a shady savings-and-loan operator, McCain becomes a one-man self-criticism session. But from the ashes of the "Keating Five" scandal, McCain devised a shrewd and seldom emulated public-relations strategy: "I would henceforth accept every single request for an interview ... and answer every question as completely and straightforwardly as I could." That refreshing policy has served him well as a writer and as a longtime favorite of the traveling press corps; but it will be emulated only if McCain somehow straight-talks his way to the nomination.

-- Walter Shapiro

"Four Trials" by John Edwards, with John Auchard

Written for Edwards' last presidential campaign, this my-life-in-court memoir is better written (the invisible hand of book doctor Elizabeth Edwards) than the standard legislative chronicle about "how I almost passed the Dry-Cleaning Reform Act of 1999." Medical malpractice litigation might have an improved public image if all plaintiffs were like the one in Edwards' first big case. E.G. Sawyer lost the ability to speak and care for himself when a doctor in Asheville, N.C., cavalierly prescribed three times the recommended maximum dose of Antabuse to deal with Sawyer's alcoholism. After an initial settlement conference, Edwards recalls, "I left the courtroom scared to death." The judge had told him, "Mister Edwards, juries down here don't award more than a hundred thousand dollars." But in Horatio Alger fashion, the plucky young lawyer eventually won a settlement of $3.7 million and "E.G. had the care he needed [and] a sense of dignity back in his life." And Edwards had a calling -- and the beginnings of the personal fortune that would help finance the 1998 Senate campaign that launched his political career. But no matter how many courtroom victories, in "Four Trials" Edwards (surprise) always remains faithful to his campaign persona as "the small-town son of Bobbie and Wallace Edwards."

-- Walter Shapiro

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"A Foreign Policy of Freedom: 'Peace, Commerce, and Honest Friendship'" by Ron Paul

I'd never say anything bad about Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, if only because I tremble at the thought of the avenging Paulista hordes summoned to their keyboards by the resulting Google alert. I do think, however, that the jacket of his latest book, "A Foreign Policy of Freedom," might be a little enthusiastic in describing Paul as "the premier advocate for liberty in politics today." Also, Paul couldn't even get through 10 pages before referring to "The New World Order," which is almost never a good thing.

But the book, which is really just a collection of writings and speeches about foreign policy, is a good introduction to the Ron Paul phenomenon, and gives some insight into his allure for voters who might otherwise be allergic to a Republican. Anyone who opposes the Iraq war can find something to agree with in his generally isolationist, libertarian, anti-neocon views about the role of the United States in the world. They'll just have to ignore his views on a lof of the other topics not covered by this book, meaning the environment, civil rights, taxes, healthcare, abortion ...

-- Alex Koppelman

Next page: Mike Gravel's groovy theories of government, Rudy's tips on hiring qualified personnel