Wings For Wheels

As some of you know, I was holed up in my apartment this winter for a few weeks working on a book. I was referencing it on Twitter and Facebook, but kept it off the blog except for an allusion to “an exciting work opportunity” shortly after I began work on it.

Well, I’m proud to announce that it will soon be out, and is available for pre-order from Whitman Books.

It’s a limited-edition commemorative book about the Inauguration of President Barack Obama. I’ve seen the galleys and they did a really beautiful job with it. It’s packed with pictures and features replicas of souvenirs from that historic weekend and comes in a protective slipcase. I wrote the text for it, including a brief biography of Obama, an account of the transition period, and essays about all facets of the Inauguration.

Best of all is an oral history of the day told by a diverse group of people, some of whom flew all the way across the country, others who walked from their home. Yes, I realize the irony of saying that the best part of my book is the section I didn’t write (although I did ask the questions, and edited all the responses into a flowing narrative), but I think we got something very special in that section. It puts the reader on the Mall that morning, which there was no way I could have done with my own words. If you were there, you’ll be able to flashback to it. If you weren’t there, you’ll feel like you were after reading it.

Now as you can see, there are two books in that picture. Although I contributed some text and ideas to the one about Michelle Obama and the First Family, the bulk of my work was on the book about the Inauguration. But the two of them are sold as a set. I haven’t seen the Michelle book yet (my advance copy is on its way), but I’m sure they did a great job with that, too.

I should point out that this is not a political book at all. Outside of a few paragraphs in the opening section that touch upon events that were crucial during the campaign, there is virtually no analysis of the reasons why Obama won the election. That wasn’t the point of the book, and, besides, there are others who could analyze that better, and in greater depth, than I ever could. In other words, while I gloss over the Jeremiah Wright controversy, I did not once use the phrase “whackjob wingut” to refer to Sarah Palin.

Although this whole thing came together very quickly, I’m very proud of the work I did. And apparently Whitman was happy with it too, because I’m about to start work on a second book with them. So that means that I won’t be blogging with as much frequency as in the past month, but I’ll throw something up here once in a while when I need a break.