Why people recommend it
Hard Choices is a political memoir by Hillary Rodham Clinton detailing her tenure as United States Secretary of State during the first term of the Obama administration. On The Book Review podcast, the book surfaced in discussions regarding political memoirs and publishing figures. During the July 2024 episode featuring Jill Abramson on the 2016 Presidential Campaign, host Gilbert Cruz brought up the earlier memoir, though Abramson admitted she had not read it. In another episode that month with Jesmyn Ward on 'Sing, Unburied, Sing', Alexandra Alter examined the publication to provide sales context for Clinton's literary output. Alter compared the commercial performance of the 2014 memoir with subsequent releases, noting that Hard Choices sold approximately eighty-six thousand print copies, a figure she described as far fewer than other comparable political books of that era. These podcast segments used the publication as a benchmark for evaluating political non-fiction sales trends and gauging public appetite for biographical writing from prominent political figures. The discussions offered listeners a behind-the-scenes look at how publishing insiders measure the success and reach of high-profile memoirs in a competitive literary market.
Who recommended it
- Gilbert Cruz Discussed
- Alexandra Alter Discussed
Gilbert Cruz — 1 mention
“the second was hard choices and now what happened how does this book compare to those first two well I have to admit I did not read um the book that she wrote hard Choice”
Alexandra Alter — 1 mention
“and it's also interesting to kind of compare this to her last Memoir which came out in 2014 and that was called hard choices and that sold around 86,000 print books so far fewer”