Penguin Books Australia

Reviews for Race of a Lifetime by Mark Halperin & John Heilemann.

Race of a Lifetime: How Obama Won the White House is already being hailed as a modern classic of political journalism

'It is almost 50 years since Theodore White published his ground-breaking volume, The Making of the President, and for nearly half a century his has remained the classic account of a presidential election. Now two very different and far less reverential US political reporters have challenged White's supremacy as a campaign chronicler and have come up with a book that in its own way is every bit as good . . . No one, I suspect, will be able to take Sarah Palin seriously as a prospect for 2012 after reading this book . . . Consistently fascinating.' Book of the Week, 5 Stars, Daily Telegraph

'The talk of Washington. It has already caused a heap of trouble for Harry Reid, the hapless Senate Majority Leader . . . The book is at its most delightfully sly and bitchy about Obama's rivals, who receive a thorough trashing.' Book of the Week, Sunday Times

'Race of a lifetime is, indeed, a fantastically detailed and gossipy affair - which is not to diminish its effect . . . Incendiary.' Book of the Week, Observer

'The delicious thing about this book - it's guilty pleasure - is that it transports you to a parallel universe in which everything in the National Enquirer is true. In Race of a Lifetime, the reader travels with two highly diligent and workaholic reporters - John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, who are both clearly addicted to the human drama of US presidential elections.' Financial Times

'Meet high-maintenance spouses, a short-fused war hero, a webcam-wielding mistress. Welcome to the meat-grinder, flash-incinerator race to be the 44th President of the United States, as seen by two reporters who followed it every strange step of the way.' Book of the Week, The Times

'The account by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin of the 2008 presidential race, is high-quality political porn. It is sleazy, personal, intrusive, shocking - and, let's be honest, terribly compulsive. It is also a thoroughly researched, well-paced and occasionally very amusing read.' Book of the Week,  Economist

'The talk of Washington.' The First Post.co.uk

'Obama emerges as the most incisive, most disciplined and, in important ways, most conservative of all the contenders.' Book of the Week, Scotsman

"The classic account of an epic presidential race . . . A book that reads like the fevered dream that everyone even remotely involved in the campaign insists it was - longer, more intense, more significant and peopled with vastly more fascinating candidates than any presidential race in living memory. Small wonder that HBO bought the film rights nine months before publication." Giles Whittell, The Times

"A spicy smorgasbord of observations, revelations and allegations . . . The authors mix savvy political analysis with detailed reconstructions of scenes and conversations. They employ the same sort of technique Bob Woodward pioneered in his bestselling books to create a novelistic narrative. [Race of a Lifetime] leaves the reader with a vivid, visceral sense of the campaign and a keen understanding of the paradoxes and contingencies of history." Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times