Until the last few years it would have been considered unusual to have a biographical tome delivered in the middle of one’s continued political assent (as opposed to years later.) But modern day campaigns have dictated that the ‘approved’ biography be released almost as a marketing tool of the political aspirant. Such is not the case here. Famed investigative reporter Bernstein spent the last eight years researching and writing this extensive book interviewing over 200 friends, enemies, staffers and acquaintances creating a broad and balanced portrait of one of the most polarizing figures in modern American politics. From her domineering father to her Methodist upbringing in Park Ridge, Illinois, to her Yale law school days, political and legal life in Arkansas and finally to eight years on Pennsylvania Avenue, Bernstein paints a highly detailed picture of a woman who is gloves-off ambitious, determined in action, but sometimes confused in her approach and one who must continually make complex judgments (not always successfully - first term health care reform, for example) yet learn from her mistakes. Her long and twisting relationship with husband Bill is given a wide berth here as well. Bernstein pulls back the curtain on headlines from Whitewater to Clintongate as we learn much of the background now from the other half’s side. Her’s is a view that while generally concealed under a calm demeanor, is as conflicted and frustrated as it is often headstrong. The only regret is that, unlike what the title might imply, we get only a small view of what HRC is like when she really is in charge, meaning the years since she got out from under the shadow and served in the US Senate. The historical importance of this book is now inextricably tied to what happens at the polls. - Tim Devine

Can you believe it? Bill and Hillary Clinton had “a secret pact” for her to help him reform the Democratic Party, then attain the presidency, after which he’d help her become the nation’s first female president. This breathless revelation would be stunning if it weren’t so obvious.

It’s admittedly tough for competing biographers to gain a foothold on the ladder of book sales in an election year, and New York Times veterans Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta, jr. are up against the redoubtable Carl Bernstein, who is hawking his own biography this season. But it’s still annoying for readers to chase moonbeams only to learn that an alleged blockbuster is largely derivative or oversold.

The authors reveal that they spoke with Marla Crider, an old Bill Clinton girlfriend (who wasn’t?), who stumbled on a letter from Hillary on Bill’s Arkansas desk before their marriage, outlining their future plans. Crider makes the catty observation that the letter was all about their careers; “so unusual that there was no talk of a home, family and marriage.” Even so, the authors concede in an endnote that Crider’s account first appeared in a 2000 book by Jerry Oppenheimer. Crider says Oppenheimer’s account “was not totally accurate,” but the authors don’t say in what way.

The authors, not surprisingly, find tension in the relationship between the former first lady and former Veep Al Gore, based on secondary sources and unattributed interviews. Both policy wonks were scrambling to gain the ear of the president on a range of issues. That tension will resemble a tea party if a reinvented Gore jumps into the presidential primary pool this fall, setting the stage for the battle of the two 800-pound gorillas. - Steve Goddard’s History Wire

Detroit’s answer to Yippie activists like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, John Sinclair famously formed the White Panthers, managed the MC5 and basically formulated the now-quaint ’60s notion of revolution through “rock & roll, dope and fucking in the streets.” Of course, it all came tumbling down after Sinclair was busted for handing two joints to a female undercover cop and ended up behind bars for 10 years. John Lennon played at the historic “John Sinclair Freedom Rally” in Ann Arbor in December, 1971, along with Yoko, Stevie Wonder, Allen Ginsberg, Phil Ochs and Black Panther Bobby Seale, getting the Michigan Supreme Court to release Sinclair three days later and eventually overturn his conviction, an event captured in the recent documentary, The U.S. vs. John Lennon. First published in 1972 and reissued by Process on its 35th anniversary, Guitar Army is, like Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice and Hoffman’s Steal This Book and Woodstock Nation, a relic of the times, when wild-eyed hippies hallucinated that they could bring down a corrupt government and live happily ever after. Seen in that light, some of the pronouncements smack of naiveté, but the now-65-year-old survivor maintains his benign attitude towards cultural upheaval as well as marijuana use, as he’s presently living blissfully in the world’s pot capital, Amsterdam, after a stint in New Orleans. He’s still fighting the good fight, and this book recounts all the events that are now the stuff of legend—he and the MC5 playing for the orchestrated Yippie event at the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention, which erupted into police violence, the early harassment that radicalized the local Detroit community, his years behind bars. The new edition features a CD with some fascinating historical documents, including MC5 performances of “Motor City is Burning” and “Looking at You,” several taped White Panther party meetings discussing the use of violence and how the organization related to their supposed colleagues in the Black Panthers and the now-long-gone Sinclair-managed, The Up, whose “Just Like an Aborigine,” could have been done by the N.Y. Dolls. A document of the times in which it was created, Guitar Army is a curio, but also an eyewitness account of a tumultuous time in U.S. history that will be studied for its lingering influence long after we’ve all hit our last bong.- Roy Trakin

Without a doubt, the funniest political novel of the year, Christopher Buckley’s “Boomsday” is as spot-on a prediction of the oncoming doom of the Social Security system as any other current prognosticator’s view; just as ridiculous perhaps, but much more riotous. The story revolves around Cassandra (”Cass”) Devine, a political blogger and Capitol Hill operative whose real passion is, in Buckley’s words, “instilling in members of her generation outrage against the members of the previous one and toward a government that still, in the language of her generation, didn’t get it.” While railing against everything from her father to sleazebag P.R. to beltway conflagrations (where Buckley, ironically, also lives), Devine manages (with her sponsor, Massachusetts Senator Randolph K. Jepperson) to incite a movement called “transitioning” which is essentially a government sponsored euthanasia program designed to save Social Security by providing tax breaks to those who take their lives by Boomsday, the day when the baby boomers will first receive benefits. The idea seems to actually take hold in some quarters, creates a generational divide and even makes it’s way to the status of a fulcrum issue in the next Presidential campaign! It’s the West Wing meets Six Feet Under and with it’s various (and hilarious) twists and turns, it’s hard not to see this one (like Buckley’s recent “Thank You For Smoking”) making it’s way to the big screen someday soon. - Tim Devine