Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now

Whatever Evan Osnos writes I’ll read. He is an excellent investigative writer/journalist. His ability to identify an important topic, personally dig into it, and then concisely tell a gripping story is on another level.Admittedly, when this book first came out in at the end of the US Presidential election in 2020 I suspected that he was, more than anything else, trying to advance his own career by writing on a popular topic, something that he had no experience in.The book must have been done very quickly, but Osnos won the lottery when the candidate he was researching won the Democratic primary and then the general election. Additionally, there wasn’t much else out there written specifically on Biden. Suddenly, Osnos was appearing on national TV shows as a Biden and presidential politics expert.But I knew better. Previously in his career, Osnos had taken advantage of his ability to speak Chinese and from 2008-2013 lived in China as the New Yorker’s China correspondent. His book Age of Ambition, on the emergence of China and the Chinese people on the world stage, was fantastic and won a National Book Award. And that’s how I knew Osnos, as I too was interesting in the changes happening in China. I followed his writings after he returned from China, they were all good, occasionally writing on China again, but also random other issues, but this Biden book just came out of thin air.Anyway, this book is very short but well written. The audio book is maybe 5 hours long, which Osnos reads himself. To his credit, for this book, Osnos managed to personally interview Biden at his home in August 2020, just a few months prior to the general election with Trump, in the middle of the COVID pandemic, prior to the development of vaccines. Another review here reminded me that Osnos interviewed many other people in Biden's life, including many of the candidates in the current Democratic primary, which was true, and good that he again was seeking out his own sources and truth, but clearly this was a "quick" book.More than anything else, this relatively short book focuses on, at that time, during the 2020 election, who Joe Biden was. Many of the important events of Biden’s personal life are covered, as well as an appreciation of the breadth of his career. Osnos had also read many other sources on Biden and brings them into the story.Sitting here now, being bombarded with news of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I was very interested that Biden had been very involved with Ukraine going back to the Crimea invasion in 2014. Additionally, what I took away most from this book, was Biden’s extreme reluctance to go to war in every instance, and how that is showing up now.The book ends with Biden’s turn to Progressive politics towards the 2020 election and the comparison of Obama and Biden to JFK and LBJ. JFK talked a good game but LBJ got things done due to his long history and knowledge of the Senate. It is still early in Biden’s administration but, having read all 4 Caro books on Johnson, the comparison struck a cord.Osnos also speculates that the death of his son Beau made him a more serious candidate, which toned down his less serious "cowboy" tendencies that had resulted in verbal mistakes that doomed his previous 2 presidential campaigns. I suspect older age and learning from past mistakes may have had this affect, too, but it was an interesting conjecture.Lastly, the interviews with Biden were recorded and about 30 minutes along with analyses are included at the end of the audiobook.If anyone is interested, I had previously read Biden’s 2008 campaign autobiography Promises to Keep as well as Hunter Biden’s book on his lifelong struggles with addiction, and would highly recommend them. They are obviously not objective but very revealing and show great honesty. I read Osnos’s book to fill in the gaps and balance things out.Osnos’s latest book Wildlands is also excellent. In that book he uses his own experiences in West Virginia, Greenwich, CT, and Chicago to try to explain to the rest of us why Trump does so well in elections.

Not knowing whether Biden would win the Presidential election, this is THE LATEST biography of Joseph Biden. The author is a staff writer for the New Yorker and both a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize winner. The reader already knows the Job-like storyline of Biden's life: the car crash that killed his first wife and daughter, the death of his oldest son to cancer and the continued struggles of addiction for his son Hunter. This biography reveals so much more about Mr. Biden.Osmos interviewed not only Biden but also scores of his political colleagues, advisors, family members and close friends. This reviewer found the section on Biden's Vice Presidency and his ever evolving relationship with Obama extremely fascinating. What began as Biden serving as an advisor to candidate Obama, became a relationship of deep friendship. loyalty and honest exchange of differences.Biden is often marginalized for his intelligence and skill set. On the contrary: Biden is a political wizard who grasps the depth and breadth of the workings of Congress. His ability to reach across the aisle has enabled him before and during the Obama administration to negotiate the passage of groundbreaking legislation including Obamacare.Biden is also highly proficient in international diplomacy. During both his many foreign fact finding missions in his fifty years in the Senate, as well as negotiating sensitive foreign assignments for the Obama administration, Biden met and befriended many world leaders. He did not always agree with these leaders, but Biden was willing to talk, consider options, listen and negotiate.Finally, the reader will learn that Biden is a person who admits his mistakes and learns from them. He is wanting and willing to plot the best course for the poor, middle class, minorities and immigrants. He holds both the hopes of the young and the fears of an ever aging population close to his heart. The author ends with these sentences: "And if he came to the Presidency, he was unlikely to supply much exalted rhetoric that reaches into a nation's soul. But, for a people in mourning, he might offer something like solace, a language of healing." What an endorsement for this book!

This kindlebook Joe Biden The Life The Run What Matters Now by Evan Osnos provides a staff writer’s take on multiple life snapshot details of Joe Biden that include: gives insight into focused determination via the reference of Joe Biden knowing since his late teenage years that he would like to be President, some of the reasons why Biden wanted to improve upon the Voting Rights Act(the aclu website describes more details on the voting rights act), some details about Joe Biden’s time at the University of Delaware, some of the reasons why former President Obama asked Biden to allow himself to be vetted for vice presidential consideration, some details on Biden’s personal life and family, why certain events around the summer of 2017(events that occurred in Charlottesville Virginia) and 2018 indirectly influenced Biden politically, some of the reasons why Joe Biden selected Kamala Harris for the pick of Vice President and more.

Perfect in everything. Everyone should read and see for himself what an awesome human being President Biden is. A blessing soul. And may God protect Beau in all eternity

Nice to see a book out about President Elect rather than Trump. Good read and nice quality of book. Reasonable price

Very interesting, well written and full of detail. The author has obviously spent a lot of time looking at every aspect of Joe Biden's life. I would recommend that everyone reads this as it is important to understand who will be the next leader of the free world.

Langweiliges Buch, husch husch aus verschiedenen bereits geschriebenen Büchern zusammengeschustert

Like the book and stories in it!