First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies
Written by Kate Andersen Brower
Narrated by Karen White
4/5
()
About this audiobook
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the groundbreaking backstairs look at the White House, The Residence, comes an intimate, news-making look at the true modern power brokers at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: the First Ladies, from Jackie Kennedy to Michelle Obama.
One of the most underestimated—and challenging—positions in the world, the First Lady of the United States must be many things: an inspiring leader with a forward-thinking agenda of her own; a savvy politician, skilled at navigating the treacherous rapids of Washington; a wife and mother operating under constant scrutiny; and an able CEO responsible for the smooth operation of countless services and special events at the White House. Now, as she did in her smash #1 bestseller The Residence, former White House correspondent Kate Andersen Brower draws on a wide array of untapped, candid sources—from residence staff and social secretaries to friends and political advisers—to tell the stories of the ten remarkable women who have defined that role since 1960.
Brower offers new insights into this privileged group of remarkable women, including Jacqueline Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson, Patricia Nixon, Betty Ford, Rosalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, and Michelle Obama. The stories she shares range from the heartwarming to the shocking and tragic, exploring everything from the first ladies’ political crusades to their rivalries with Washington figures; from their friendships with other first ladies to their public and private relationships with their husbands. She also offers a detailed and insightful new portrait of one of the most-watched first ladies of all time, Hillary Clinton, asking what her tumultuous years in the White House may tell us about her own historic presidential run . . . and what life could be like with the nation’s first First Husband.
Candid and illuminating, this first group biography of the modern first ladies provides a revealing look at life upstairs and downstairs at the world’s most powerful address.
Kate Andersen Brower
Kate Andersen Brower is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Residence, First Women—also a New York Times bestseller—and First in Line. She is a CNN contributor who covered the Obama White House for Bloomberg News and is a former CBS News staffer and Fox News producer. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and the Washington Post. She lives outside Washington, D.C., with her husband and their three young children.
Related to First Women
Related audiobooks
First Ladies: The Ever Changing Role, from Martha Washington to Melania Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5NPR American Chronicles: First Ladies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Butler: A Witness to History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sex With Presidents: The Ins and Outs of Love and Lust in the White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eunice: The Kennedy Who Changed the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Camelot's Court: Inside the Kennedy White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Founding Mothers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ladies of Liberty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pelosi Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lady Bird: A Biography of Mrs. Johnson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Joe Biden: The Life, the Presidency, and What Matters Now Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gilded Suffragists: The New York Socialites who Fought for Women's Right to Vote Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Watergate Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5First in Line: Presidents, Vice Presidents, and the Pursuit of Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Presidents Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Nine of Us: Growing Up Kennedy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Team of Five: The Presidents Club in the Age of Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five Presidents: My Extraordinary Journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Barbara Bush: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Exploring the White House: Inside America's Most Famous Home Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: The Untold Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Republicans: Inside the Extraordinary Relationship Between George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Social History For You
The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Barracoon: The Story of the Last ""Black Cargo"" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Defining Moments in Black History: Reading Between the Lies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Reliving Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Essays on Desire and Consumption Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Reformation: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Account of Race: The Supreme Court, White Supremacy, and the Ravaging of African American Voting Rights Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five Days in November Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me for Young Readers: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Culture: The Story of Us, From Cave Art to K-Pop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Truth Has a Power of Its Own: Conversations About A People's History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines, and the Health of Nations Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5We Did That? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Female Husbands: A Trans History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for First Women
90 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I'm not finishing this. I'm well over the '50 pages', and I'm fed up with the bad grammar and the lack of any perceptible organization of the matter. Plus, I find I'm just not really interested. Maybe if the author had concentrated on one woman at a time, but it feels like random gossip columns.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I poured through First Women with an obsessive attitude. I devoured all of the information about the first ladies from Jackie to Michelle (I read the hardcover and therefore did not read the afterward about Melania). First Ladies includes glimpses into the lives of the following ladies: Jackie Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon, Betty Ford, Nancy Reagan, Rosalind Carter, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush & Michelle Obama with a few illusions to Mamie Eisenhower and the first truly modern first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt.
I’ve always had my personal favorites, Jackie, Nancy, Hillary & Michelle, and the others I really didn’t know much about. My favorite line emphasizes the regal aspect of the Kennedys, when Grace Kelly’s daughter, and real life princess, Princess Caroline, refers to Caroline Kennedy as Princess Caroline Kennedy. I’ve always been fascinated by Jackie and so learning more about her thrilled me. Learning more about Rosalind, Pat & Barbara, who just recently pasted away, was also enlightening and enlivening.
Each chapter is divided by topic, not by first lady as I anticipated. This was mostly helpful, though occasionally confusing. Brower has a penchant to use lots of pronouns, which means I would often lose track of which first lady she would be referring to. Additionally, her primary source in regards to Michelle Obama was clearly her hair dresser and every time Michelle enters the narrative, Brower feels the need to emphasize, repeatedly, that Michelle did not want to be first lady. Over and over again – we get it, she didn’t want to be there. It seemed like the life of Michelle was shunted aside in favor of Lady Bird and Nancy particularly.
Because of this, what I feel was an, extreme oversight of the value of the first lady beloved by the country, I did not have the most favorable opinion of the book, and yet, I couldn’t stop reading. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great read and so interesting. I did have a hard time because it was linear and followed topics ( motherhood ect it was linear within each topic though) so it felt like a lot of back and forth and there so much historical information, but I found the stories and the women fascinating.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book covers the 10 first ladies before Trump. As it happens, I am old enough to remember each in her time in the White House. I learned lots of interesting stuff about each of them.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book provided such a great look into the lives of some of the modern first ladies. I found it extremely entertaining and informative. I do have to point out that since there's little access to Michelle Obama that some of the anonymous informants could be a little biased perhaps since most of the information gathered on her seems like it was more negative than anything else. Overall I enjoyed the read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I was interested from the start and stayed engrossed the whole book. This was a surprisingly quick read.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A really fascinating look at what it means to be the first lady to the president of the United States. The relationships between these women is very interesting. It was a sneak peek into who they really were (or are) as people. I could not put this down. It is very well written.