Pretend I'm Not Here: How I Worked with Three Newspaper Icons, One Powerful First Lady, and Still Managed to Dig Myself Out of the Washington Swamp

Authors: Todd, Barbara Feinman
Publisher: William Morrow
BISAC/Subject: BIO026000, BIO010000, BIO007000
ISBN: 9780062445117, Related ISBNs: 0062445111, 9780062445117, 9780062445124
Classification: Non-Fiction
Number of pages: 320,
Audience: General/trade
Synopsis:

An accomplished former ghostwriter and book researcher who worked with Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Ben Bradlee, and Hillary Clinton goes behind-the-scenes of the national’s capital to tell the story of how she survived the exciting, but self-important and self-promoting world of the Beltway.

Barbara Feinman Todd has spent a lifetime helping other people tell their stories. In the early 1980s, she worked for Bob Woodward, first as his research assistant in the paper’s investigative unit and, later, as his personal researcher for Veil, his bestselling book about the CIA. Next she helped Carl Bernstein, who was struggling to finish his memoir, Loyalties. She then assisted legendary editor Ben Bradlee on his acclaimed autobiography A Good Life, and she worked with Hillary Clinton on her bestselling It Takes a Village. Feinman Todd’s involvement with Mrs. Clinton made headlines when the First Lady neglected to acknowledge her role in the book’s creation, and later, when a disclosure to Woodward about the Clinton White House appeared in one of his books. These events haunted Feinman Todd for the next two decades until she confronted her past and discovered something startling.

Revealing what it’s like to get into the heads and hearts of some of Washington’s most compelling and powerful figures, Feinman Todd offers authentic portraits that go beyond the carefully polished public personas that are the standard fare of the Washington publicity factory. At its heart, Pretend I’m Not Here is a funny and forthcoming story of a young woman in a male-dominated world trying to find her own voice while eloquently speaking for others.

Sign up for our literacy platform for reading at home

LightSail includes up to 6,000 high interest, Lexile aligned book titles with every student subscription. Other titles are available for individual purchase.

Watch the power of

Lightsail in action

×

SUPPORT GROWING READERS

Immediately Engage Students
Immediately Engage Students
Simple intuitive design has classrooms reading within minutes.
Exponentially Grow Reading Time
Exponentially Grow Reading Time
Students love the LightSail experience and naturally spend more time reading.
Accelerate Literacy Development
Accelerate Literacy Development
Students reading 25 minutes a day on LightSail are seeing 2+ years of Lexile growth in a single year.

LightSail Education is a comprehensive Lexile and standards-aligned, literacy platform and digital e-book library. Including multimodal learning functionality and featuring books from leading publishers, LightSail holistically assesses and nurtures each student on their reading and writing-to-learn journey, throughout elementary, middle, and high school.

*LightSail offers a 2,000 or a 6,000 title bundle with its student subscriptions. Other titles are available for individual purchase.