Scribe UK is to publish a new edition of president-elect Joe Biden’s memoir Promises to Keep, originally published in the US by Random House in 2008. But at this juncture it seems the book will not include his reaction to the shocking events in Washington this week when a mob of Republican supporters forced their way into the Capitol building.
The B-format paperback will be published on 14 January, to coincide with the presidential inauguration on 20 January. The memoir tells the story of Biden’s life and career prior to his emergence as Barack Obama’s vice president. The book has never previously been published in the UK and there has been greatly increased interest in the title internationally since Biden’s election as US president.
Scribe’s publisher, Henry Rosenbloom, has acquired UK & Commonwealth rights to the book. He says, ‘We’re thrilled to be publishing this book. It’s Biden’s equivalent to Obama’s Dreams of My Father, very well written and compelling, in which he comes across as remarkably decent, smart, and emotionally intelligent. It is an essential book for anyone wanting to understand the new president’s values and character.’
The publisher says: ‘With his customary honesty and wit, Biden movingly and eloquently recounts growing up in a staunchly Catholic multigenerational household in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware; overcoming personal tragedy, life-threatening illness, and career setbacks; his relationships with presidents, world leaders, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle; and his leadership of powerful Senate committees.
‘Through these and other recollections, Biden shows us how the guiding principles he learned early in life — to work to make people’s lives better; to honour family and faith; to value persistence, candour, and honesty — are the foundation on which he has based his life’s work as husband, father, and public servant.’
The book’s title comes from Robert Frost’s famous poem ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ which ends ‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep./But I have promises to keep,/And miles to go before I sleep,/And miles to go before I sleep.’
