Listen Up, Mr. President: Everything You Always Wanted Your President to Know and Do

Thomas, the doyenne of the White House press corps for over 30 years, stops asking questions and starts giving answers in this how-to guide to the American presidency. Having covered every president since Kennedy, Thomas offers up a “lesson plan” drawn from the foibles and successes of presidents past, with praise and admonition meted out in equal measure. While Carter gets high marks for his honesty (his poor political gamesmanship is served up as a warning), Nixon takes a predictable beating for his paranoia and combative stance toward the press while Kennedy alone slips through unscathed, described as “our best president of the later twentieth century.” While the book sometimes devolves into platitudes (“Telling hard truths makes great leaders”) accounts of Thomas sparring with press secretaries like George Stephanopoulos (who infamously compared her voice to the Wicked Witch of the West's) and Ari Fleischer are entertaining. Her incessant questioning of power also drives home the underlying message of the book: it's a primer not, at heart, for those who would be president but for those who would elect one. (Oct.)