Going Rogue: An American Life [Audio Download]

"Going Rogue" invites the reader into Sarah Palin's living room, gubernatorial office, campaign trail and the vision she has for America. We become familiar with her youth, her life with Todd and their family, her vocational and political rise and her dealings with the powerful. What emerges from this book is a woman who has struggled with challenges and emerged with successes and failures, triumph and heartbreak. We read of her motivation to bring change to Wasilla and stand up to the forces that used Alaska's resources for their gain rather than the benefit of Alaskans. Finally we ride the campaign trail with her as she flies out of Alaskan politics and into the "Big Leagues." Some of the anecdotes are amusing. Perhaps my favorite was the surprise when they got to the convention and saw all of the clothes that had been picked out for them. Sarah could not understand why they could not wear their own clothes. "Do we really look that bad?" The insider view of the campaign is eye opening. The fact that the campaign did such a good job in shopping for the Palins illustrates the detail to which handlers go in packaging their product. The gall in sending all of the clothes to Alaska after the campaign, only to have them sent back, seems a bit much. Getting a bill for the "vetting process" because they lost seems totally unreasonable but, I guess, that is life in the "Bigs."

What impressed me the most about Sarah's political moxy is the way she took on the special interests and negotiated energy concessions while cleaning up the corruption that had taken control of much of the Alaskan body politic. I came out with more respect for her abilities and thinking that she could be as good secretary of Energy.

This book is well written and never lost my interest. I have read and reviewed other autobiographies by political candidates, including "Worth The fighting For" by John McCain and "Standing Firm" by Dan Quayle. Without taking anything from either of them, "Going Rogue" beats them hands down.

This book bought me to the conclusion that Sarah Palin is a regular American, the closest thing we have come to in high office in a long time. She has had to raise children, pay bills, hold down jobs and improve her community. She has not just talked the pro-life talk, she has walked the walk. She tells how she and Todd bore the heartbreak of knowing that they would have a Down's Syndrome child and how he has blessed their lives. She rears up like a Mama Grizzly when her brood is attacked by the press and politicos. At the end, Sarah shares her vision for America, an America in which initiative is not smothered by regulations and taxation imposed by elites who think they know better how to live our lives than we do, an America in which ordinary people can make their contributions in all spheres and at all levels. After reading this book I hope that Sarah has a role in molding that America.

I bought this book soon after it was published but have just got round to reading it. Of course, Mrs Palin's prospects of becoming America's first woman President have become much less rosy in the past year and so her book will be less interesting to new readers.

She comes across as a surprisingly thoughtful lady as well as almost an embarrassingly religious one. In my country faith is not something to be paraded in public as Mrs Palin does. It is to America's credit that the hostility and indifference to religion that prevail in the UK are not present to such an extent in the great Republic.

I realise that hers is a one-sided account, but it is the first time that I have seen her side of the story and it left me feeling sorry for her. Nobody deserves the vicious personal attacks and wicked character assassination that she and her family were subjected to. Her lack of bitterness does her great credit.

If, as I expect, she fades away into obscurity, this will not be America's - or our - gain.

Prior to reading this book, I knew little about either Sarah Palin or Alaska and I was interested to learn more about both, especially the book's author. Mrs Palin was serving as the governor of Alaska when she was offered the chance to run for vice-president in the 2008 American presidential election. She has very similar political beliefs to Margaret Thatcher, but they have very different backgrounds and personalities, as I learned by reading this book. Indeed, Mrs Palin's personality has some similarities with Princess Diana, both being populists with an endearing charisma as well as a rebel streak. Mrs Palin's mix of populism and Thatcherism is perfect for her fans, but is regarded as very dangerous by her critics.

I realized early on in this book that I was going to enjoy reading it because Mrs Palin's story is both interesting and well-written. She makes summer in Alaska sound wonderful, although acknowledging that the winters are long and harsh. She discusses many aspects of her life and it is clear that she has strong views on a number of issues.

Although not directly relevant to her political career, perhaps the most intriguing question about her beliefs concerns her stance on the origin of species. At first glance, Mrs Palin appears to be a full-blooded creationist, but she denies this. Apparently, she accepts what she calls microevolution, in which species change and evolve over time, but not that people are related to apes or monkeys. Her stance is interesting, but I prefer to accept Darwin`s theory, despite the proof of it still being incomplete.

Not having studied the American political scene closely, I'll leave others to judge the accuracy of the main story, but the politics as described here is explosive stuff. Corruption in Alaska, tales of in-fighting within the Republican party and dirty tricks played by some Democrats - all rather sad, but I'll say straight away that similar things happen elsewhere in the world including Britain. Hey, the summer of 2009 was dominated by the expenses scandal at Westminster, while all British political parties of any significance have had their internal fights at one time or another, in between playing dirty tricks on each other. So in one form or another, most of the political stuff here doesn't surprise me, but some of it is shocking nevertheless.

An unconventional politician in many way, Mrs Palin nevertheless appears to have brought about significant changes in a number of areas in her home state of Alaska, which may seem to many people (especially in my country) like a frozen wasteland, but which is rich in natural resources and occupies a vast land area, approximately equivalent to France, Spain, Italy and the UK combined. So being governor of Alaska is not equivalent to running a small local council in Britain even though it is sparsely populated (fewer people live there than in the county of Leicestershire in which I live). I suspect that the position of state governor may be equivalent to being leader of the Welsh assembly. The biggest Alaskan story by far in my adult lifetime was the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, which Mrs Palin covers briefly; she later had plenty of political fights with the oil companies (including BP as well as ExxonMobil and others) in her time as state governor.

Mrs Palin has drawn plenty of criticism from a variety of sources and uses the opportunity that this book affords to hit back at those critics, often explaining how things have been distorted by the media. Having had my own relatively minor experience of being in British national newspapers, I have sympathy with victims of media distortion, so I don't blame Mrs Palin for hitting back via this book, but I can see that others will react badly. At least my story was a one-day wonder with no lasting consequences, but things are different for those who go into politics, sport or showbiz.

Mrs Palin clearly isn't impressed by the way the Republican presidential campaign was handled, and clearly feels that she wasn't able to contribute effectively to the campaign, but the aftermath was even worse. While some Republicans were happy to cast her as the scapegoat, some Democrats launched a sustained campaign against her that exploited freedom of information laws. Ultimately, this created problems for the legislative process as well as personal difficulties for the Palin family, all described in detail, causing Mrs Palin to decide that she had to quit as governor with a year still to run, even though she was never found guilty of anything. As she acknowledges, that decision to quit may kill her political career, but Mrs Palin says that did what she felt was right for Alaska. Inevitably in such situations, people will believe whatever they choose to.

I expect Mrs Palin will return to public life in some capacity eventually. That might be as a presidential candidate, but it might alternatively be as champion of a cause dear to her heart. Her vice-presidential campaign generated enormous hope among disabled people, while her love of Alaska makes her passionate about environmental issues. So there's two obvious issues, but I'm sure there are others.

Would I vote for Mrs Palin, given the chance? I don't know because I`d need to know more about issues not discussed in this book, but I'd like the option.

I can see why this book - and the author - are so controversial. Fans of Mrs Palin will love this book, while critics will be furious. Both are likely to have their opinions reinforced by reading this book. Coming from a position of ignorance, I'll just say that I found this book to be compulsive reading.