An alternate viewpoint

Having read eplovejoy's excellent, but negative review of this book (and especially having seen that it is the only review available), I felt obliged to make a few comments for some contrast. While "Thanks for the Memories, Mr. President" is far from the best book I have read, on-topic or off, it is still a credible and worthwhile read.

I suspect that one's attitude and expectations will greatly influence how this book is received. If you are expecting a book that you can't put down and makes you laugh out loud on every page, you will be disappointed by "Thanks for the Memories". Helen Thomas certainly knows her stuff; she has covered every president from Kennedy to Bush, and clearly knows all of them very well - their quirks, their strengths and limitations, and their senses of humor. One gets the sense, however, that being used to the shorter format of the news media, she has not yet mastered the art of putting together a longer work in such a way that it will hold peoples' interest.

"Thanks for the Memories" suffers from this limitation. It reads exactly like a series of anecdotes or a joke book, in that the individual episodes recounted stand more or less well on their own, but there is little narrative to bind the stories together. They simply do not flow very well. It is the sort of book that one might keep on hand to pick up and read a few pages of now and again, but not likely the sort of book that too many people would read from cover to cover.

It is likely that we all have our favorite anecdotes about the various presidents covered, and it is easy to criticize Thomas for her selection at times. It should not be forgotten, however, that the stories told are for the most part those which Thomas herself has witnessed, or those which were directly recounted to her by those involved. Thomas has certainly been a constant presence in political circles over the years, but she hasn't been everywhere, and it is further just possible that she didn't feel a given anecdote, while perhaps more humorous, portrayed the man as well as others that she did select.

For that is at heart the goal of the book. Not necessarily to present the funniest quotes or malapropisms of each president, but to portray THE MAN. To give us, the reader, a better and more complete sense of each of these men from the vantagepoint that Thomas has been privileged to hold. Some were naturally more funny, some were dour or even paranoid, but each had personality traits that didn't come out in the newsbites and public addresses that they made.