. All the Best is a collection of Bush Sr’s letters, diary entries and emails, prefaced by him and read to varying degrees by his family — including “Bar” whose first particular entry is heartbreaking. As a 1990s kid, there was special joy for me in listening to George H.W’s grandfatherly voice, and learning about him as man. I must say I was…thoroughly surprised by how candid “Poppy” could be in his letters, at one point discussing teenage necking trends with his mother and signing off as Dr. George H.W. Bush, Sexologist. But…that was ’41, a man who even in his senior years surprised his family by jumping out of planes in his 90s. This collection of letters and diary entries takes us from his youthful days as a Navy pilot to his early days as an elder statesman; although the lackluster readings from his kids diminished it somewhat, I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

Until recent years, I’ve regarded Bush Sr as something of a reedy aristocrat; while that’s true in some ways — good ways, with a concern for propriety and a sense of noblesse oblige — reading Bush Jr’s memoir of him and this has improved my regard for him. While born to privilege, he did not hesitate to serve in World War 2 and nearly died there; thereafter, he pursued college and then struck out on his own in Midland, Texas, where he and his young wife “Bar” endured dust storms and hardship while they waited for hard work and inspiration to resolve into material success. Bush Sr’s complaints about his son George W. are hysterical in retrospect: young W. had a tendency to try and say too much at one time and was a clumsy speaker. One of the most poignant parts of the early memoir-in-letters is learning of the death of his young daughter, Robin, to leukemia: the presentation makes this all the more weepy by having Barbara Bush read the letter in which George HW writes about their struggle to save Robin, in taking her to specialists only to see her wither away. It is one thing to hear one parent talking about seeing a young, innocent child die before their eyes: but to hear Barbara read her husband’s letter, to have both parents involved, was a masterstroke in immersion, even if it came via sympathetic sorrow. “Bar” appears in a few more letters, all emotionally charged.

As the book progresses, there is a shift from personal to professional interest; that is, the more Bush rises in public prominence, the more we’re reading about China, managing the RNC through the Watergate crisis, and conducting the Gulf War. A series of letters takes us through Bush’s annoyance that the president was being slandered, to deeper dismay that Nixon was involved, and finally total disappointment (once the tapes were aired) to find that his chief was ‘completely amoral’. As the chair of the RNC, he felt he had no choice but to encourage Nixon to resign. (Nixon would remain one of Bush’s pen pals, though: there are at least a half-dozen missives in here written to RN wishing him well or thanking him for policy input.) While modern versions of this book have been updated and expanded, my version ended in the 1990s without any reactions to 9/11 or his son’s presidency. The image of HW that emerges here is that of a deeply serious citizen, who despite being part of the stoic ‘greatest generation’ is remarkably tender-hearted where servicemen and children are concerned — and a man with a wonderful sense of humor, sometimes bawdy. His letters were part of his humor, as he’d sometimes send out joke memos as president, or stern instructions not to feed Ranger, the family dog who was beginning to resemble a miniature cow. The letters are often funny in what they contain, like his 1999 admission that he used his impaired hearing to tune out of small-talk conversations, looking confused if asking a question or just outright ignoring what was said or asked. I know many men who are accused of selective hearing, so I couldn’t help but laugh — and ditto for his note thanking a friend for a gag gift of a desktop bow and arrow, which he’d been using to attack family members’ keesters all morning.

This was quite an experience; part of the attraction for me was some subtle nostalgia, of course, encountering again the first president I ever remember, who in some part of my brain retains the title in perpetuity the way John Paul II remains ‘the pope’. More than that, though, I enjoyed learning about him — not as a president, but as a man. George W’s 41 started me on this path, but reading his own words, sometimes in his own voice, made the learning experience special. Learning about his sense of humor was probably the biggest thing I’ll remember about this book, but I also enjoyed the behind-the-curtains look into how history was experienced. From my perspective, Watergate and the fall of the Soviet Union are simply historic events — but these letters make them real, especially Bush’s stress as he negotiated with a Soviet Union which was beginning to fall apart, but still militarily potent and potentially paranoid. Another important aspect was Bush’s perspective; I liked him struggling with memory as he attended the Japanese emperor’s funeral, or was allowed by Japanese hosts to fly over the same area he was shot down in as a young man — the young fighter pilot who hated the enemy now having aged into a gracious statesman who shook hands and accepted the hospitality of men he very well may have tried to kill decades before. I will say this is arguably a better book to read than to listen to: as much as I enjoyed listening to “Poppy” talk, a lot of the letters just lacked any gusto and this was especially salient when the text was emotionally charged.

Related:
41: A Portrait of my Father, George W. Bush
Decision Points, George W. Bush. (Also read by the author.)