The First Lady's Steamy Book Report

By Tamara Jones
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Discussing dirty books with Laura Bush is surprisingly easy.

Which is a huge relief, because deconstructing Russian literature of the 19th century was the other option. But the interview, granted in advance of the first lady's National Book Festival, was slated to last 10 minutes, not 10 years, so skipping her favorite era altogether is a matter of time, not taste.

This is the kind of literary speed-date that brooks no transition between "Little House on the Prairie" and "Lady Chatterley's Lover," a mad skitter through three wars, Woody Allen, the plague and third grade. She endures all with the same warm smile, flanked by a spray of yellow roses on one side and James H. Billington, the librarian of Congress, on the other.

"I will admit to reading books like 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' in high school, where you had a fake cover on the outside of the book and read it during math," she says, adding that it seemed "risque at the time."

Was the once-banned classic the steamiest novel she ever read?

"Probably not," she replies breezily. "I've probably read some steamier since."

Smile.

Silence.

S teamier? Like what?

Smile.

She turns to the librarian of Congress for rescue.

"It's hard even having to name ones that are steamy, don't you think, Dr. Billington?"

The librarian of Congress isn't sure he has heard this correctly. He leans in closer.

"Beg your pardon?" he says.

"We're talking about steamy books," the first lady explains.

Billington was hoping to talk about "War and Peace," about how Saturday's book festival on the Mall is such a wonderful way for families to come together, about the 48,000 schoolchildren who have entered a contest to read letters they have written to authors who inspired them.

"Elmo is going to be there!" Bush offers.

Speaking of excitement, which fictional man would Laura Bush most like to marry?

"I guess Rhett, the one every woman wants to marry," comes the reply, maybe wistful, or maybe just exasperated. "His manliness, you know, sort of a wild man."

And the fictional life she would most like to live?

"I guess the one that comes right off are the 'Little House on the Prairie' types, that pioneer sort of life." She loved the 'Little House' series as a girl, she says, because plucky Laura Ingalls shared her first name and had brown hair like her own.

She mentions "A Year of Wonders," by Geraldine Brooks -- one of 70 featured authors, illustrators and poets at the festival. "Not that I would have wanted to live during the plague," she adds, "but still I think it's really fascinating to read about those times in history."

Bush often swaps books with her mother and mother-in-law, as well as with her twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara.

"One of the really interesting things about being the parent of adult children is that now my children and I discuss the books. . . . Barbara and Jenna and I are at a stage now where we peruse each other's bookshelves."

At the family ranch in Texas this summer, Bush says, she picked up Ann Patchett's memoir of literary friendship, "Truth and Beauty."

"Jenna had read it and underlined it and it was very interesting to see what a 25-year-old would underline," she recounts. She found herself lingering, a literary voyeur, over a passage her daughter had highlighted. "It was about the way a girl felt about her father, so it was revealing in that way." She can't remember it more specifically, Bush says, except "of course it was a loving line."