Simply Barbara Bush; A Portrait of America's Candid First Lady

New York: Warner Books, 1989. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. David Valdez (Jacket photograph). The format is approximately 5.25 inches by 8.25 inches. xviii, [2], 236 pages. Genealogy table. Illustrations. Index. Slight creasing to DJ edges. Inscribed by the author. The first complete biography of Barbara Bush celebrates her upbringing and devotion to family values, her work on behalf of literacy, education, and cancer research, and the emergence of her popular cloth-coat style. Donnie Radcliffe (July 13, 1929 - February 19, 2010) was a journalist for The Washington Post and a biographer who wrote biographies of First Ladies Barbara Bush and Hillary Clinton. Mrs. Radcliffe joined The Post in 1972 and rose to cover the White House, one of the top assignments at a newspaper, at a time when many male editors did not take female reporters seriously. She advanced her career by writing news stories that, in the hands of some other writers, would have arrived on Washington doorsteps as soft features. During her 22-year career at The Post, Mrs. Radcliffe covered six White Houses. Bob Woodward, the Post reporter who with Carl Bernstein uncovered the Watergate scandal, called Mrs. Radcliffe a "pick-and-shovel reporter -- always digging. That's the biggest compliment I can give someone, a pick-and-shovel reporter." He added that Mrs. Radcliffe used her contacts to set up interviews "with lots of Nixon people" to help him and Bernstein.
Mrs. Radcliffe did some of her most memorable reporting during the Reagan White House of the 1980s. From Washington, she wrote about the thousands of dollars in borrowed designer clothes that first lady Nancy Reagan accepted after promising to halt the practice. Barbara Bush (née Pierce; June 8, 1925 - April 17, 2018) was the first lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993, as the wife of George H. W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States. She was previously the second lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989, and founded the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. Among her children are George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States, and Jeb Bush, the 43rd governor of Florida. She and Abigail Adams are the only two women to be the wife of one U.S. president and the mother of another. At the time she became first lady, she was the second oldest woman to hold the position, behind only Anna Harrison, who never lived in the capital. Bush was generally popular as first lady, recognized for her apolitical grandmotherly image. She enjoyed the role and life in the White House, though her experience as first lady was complicated by her protectiveness over her family and her diagnosis of Graves' disease in 1989. She frequently carried out charity work, including her projects to promote literacy and her support for people with AIDS. Among the most prominent of her actions as first lady was the commencement speech she gave at Wellesley College; it saw considerable publicity and her selection was controversial, but it was widely regarded as a success. She remained active in political campaigning after leaving the White House, as two of her sons ran for office in both gubernatorial and presidential campaigns.