Synopsis
A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2020
A concise, brilliant, and trenchant examination of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s successful lifelong quest for the presidency by National Book Award winner Evan Osnos.
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has been called both the luckiest man and the unluckiest—fortunate to have sustained a fifty-year political career that reached the White House, but also marked by deep personal losses and disappointments that he has suffered.
Yet even as Biden’s life has been shaped by drama, it has also been powered by a willingness, rare at the top ranks of politics, to confront his shortcomings, errors, and reversals of fortune. As he says, “Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable.” His trials have forged in him a deep empathy for others in hardship—an essential quality as he leads America toward recovery and renewal.
Blending up-close journalism and broader context, Evan Osnos, who won the National Book Award in 2014, draws on nearly a decade of reporting for The New Yorker to capture the characters and meaning of 2020’s extraordinary presidential election. It is based on lengthy interviews with Biden and on revealing conversations with more than a hundred others, including President Barack Obama, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, and a range of activists, advisers, opponents, and Biden family members.
This portrayal illuminates Biden’s long and eventful career in the Senate, his eight years as Obama’s vice president, his sojourn in the political wilderness after being passed over for Hillary Clinton in 2016, his decision to challenge Donald Trump for the presidency, and his choice of Vice President Kamala Harris as his running mate.
Osnos ponders the difficulties Biden faces as his presidency begins and weighs how a changing country, a deep well of experiences, and a rigorous approach to the issues, have altered his positions. In this nuanced portrait, Biden emerges as flawed, yet resolute, and tempered by the flame of tragedy—a man who just may be uncannily suited for his moment in history.
The audiobook includes Evan Osnos's conversation with David Remnick on The New Yorker Radio Hour.
Chapters
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001 JoeBiden Open
Duration: 41s -
002 JoeBiden Dedication
Duration: 08s -
003 JoeBiden Epigraph
Duration: 28s -
004 JoeBiden Prologue
Duration: 05min -
005 JoeBiden Chapter 1. Annus Horribilus
Duration: 25min -
006 JoeBiden Chapter 2. What It Took
Duration: 24min -
007 JoeBiden Chapter 3. Grow Up
Duration: 22min -
008 JoeBiden Chapter 4. Veep
Duration: 24min -
009 JoeBiden Chapter 5. Envoy
Duration: 34min -
010 JoeBiden Chapter 6. The Lucky and the Unlucky
Duration: 27min -
011 JoeBiden Chapter 7. Battle for the Soul
Duration: 34min -
012 JoeBiden Chapter 8. Planning a Presidency
Duration: 35min -
013 JoeBiden The New Yorker Radio Hour Interview with David Remnick and Evan Osnos
Duration: 26min -
014 JoeBiden Acknowledgments
Duration: 01min -
015 JoeBiden Credits
Duration: 01min