Every Day Is Extra

By: John Kerry

Narrated by: John Kerry

Length: 28 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

John Kerry tells the story of his remarkable American life - from son of a diplomat to decorated Vietnam veteran, five-term United States senator, 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, and Secretary of State for four years - a revealing memoir by a witness to some of the most important events of our recent history.

Every Day Is Extra is John Kerry’s candid personal story. A Yale graduate, Kerry enlisted in the US Navy in 1966, and served in Vietnam. He returned home highly decorated but disillusioned, and testified powerfully before Congress as a young veteran opposed to the war.

Kerry served as a prosecutor in Massachusetts, then as lieutenant governor, and was elected to the Senate in 1984, eventually serving five terms. In 2004 he was the Democratic presidential nominee and came within one state - Ohio - of winning. Kerry returned to the Senate, chaired the important Foreign Relations Committee, and succeeded Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State in 2013. In that position he tried to find peace in the Middle East; dealt with the Syrian civil war while combatting ISIS; and negotiated the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement.

Every Day Is Extra is Kerry’s passionate, insightful, sometimes funny, always moving account of his life. Kerry tells wonderful stories about colleagues Ted Kennedy and John McCain, as well as President Obama and other major figures. He writes movingly of recovering his faith while in the Senate, and deplores the hyper-partisanship that has infected Washington.

Few books convey as convincingly as this one the life of public service like that which John Kerry has lived for 50 years. Every Day Is Extra shows Kerry for the dedicated, witty, and authentic man that he is, and provides forceful testimony for the importance of diplomacy and American leadership to address the increasingly complex challenges of a more globalized world.

©2018 John Kerry (P)2018 Simon & Schuster

It's an honor to have Mr. John Kerry as narrator

This book is quite extensive and it gets better towards the end. The last chapters are simply awesome, the author gives his message. The fact of being narrated by Mr. John Kerry is a plus. The experience of driving on my daily long comutes and feeling like United States Secretary of State was my passanger telling his biography :)

IMHO, Elite & Normal

This book is really worth it . Time is the only scarce resource we have between the elite and the normal people. Mr. Kerry does an excellent job as a story teller from the boarding school in Europe to the Secretary of State. The only reason I gave it a one star was because it doesn’t work on the Apple Watch.

Inspiring and thoughtful

Interesting to listen to see how Sec Kerry grew from a soldier to anti war activist to politician presidential candidate and sec of State. It was educating to listen view the second half of the 20th century from Secretary Kerry's perspective. Sec Kerry's narration added additional appeal to the audiobook. he is well articulated and experienced politician who can convince you on many matters despite your worldview. After listening to the book I have utmost respect to John Kerry and what he stood and fought for.

Most memoirs are fiction but this one is authentic

We, my husband and I, are partial towards John Kerry having 1st noticed him during the height of the Vietnam War when he testified before congress. His quote, "Who wants to be the last man to die for a mistake" linger as heroic.

The audible version is a beautiful telling of living a life of privilege from a young boy to senior statesman. We see him as a great American Patriot. Our political process has prevented him from becoming president but presidential he is.

Kerry is a man of integrity

I really enjoyed this memoir of John Kerry's life. He is a man of principle and integrity. He acknowledges his mistakes and shortfalls while learning from them in an effort to continue the fight. His recounting of his early privileged childhood, to his days at boarding school to his Vietnam experience feel truthful and certainly shaped who he is as a man. The stories about his time in the US Senate stress the importance of relationship building and learning from his seniors. These lessons served him well as secretary of state and his amazing work on the Iran treaty along with the climate accord. It will be interesting to see what this courageous man does with his extra days.

Very Enjoyable

I like John Kerry, but I was not necessarily expecting to enjoy this book as much as I did. He's very interesting, and I felt very engaged through most of it (when he got very detailed in some of his foreign policy issues during his tenure as Secretary of State I momentarily lost focus). Overall, I found the book quite excellent and learned a lot of things about him that I didn't previously know.

Great story by a great American.

John Kerry is an example to us all. He, like John McCain, share the passion for a better world and expresses it clearly in the story described in this book. We need more Kerry’s in this world.

Thoroughly World Class

A perfect life perfectly described and a perfect reading of his own book. At first I thought Part 2 would end it, but even if the book seems long, I would not have missed all the descriptions of the diplomacy. Trying to follow the news, I had thought that the other side was just being stubborn. But no, they were trying, and by next morning they had spoken to someone or thought more about it, so over breakfast the picture would have shifted and all the work have to be thrown out. . . . My Vietnam vet husband used to joke, 'I'm so poor I can't even pay attention!" Alas, the people who should listen to this book are way too stupid to pay attention. I think Mr. Kerry wrote this book for the future, for whoever is able to pay attention. He should have been our President; the election was stolen by a doofus. Now we have another doofus. . . We need to pay attention and demand the best We need to study, over-prepare and keep a positive attitude. I served as an admin officer in the USAF (and was mostly bored to tears). As a Spanish general wrote to my commanding officer, I wish for John Kerry: May God protect you many years!

Thank you John Kerry ...

Thank you for your message(s) and mostly for your superb summary. For readers and/or listeners, while the end is right on, you really need to start from the beginning to learn how and why the end of this book is so credible and pertinent for all. I will listen to this audible ... again.

IMPRESSIVE … Truly an Obra Magnanimous!

John, you have meticulously reconstructed your life’s battle to find raison d'être in the ever-conflicting parameters of privilege, demons of war, and deceptions of politique. I applaud your tenacity for believing that the US will regain its leadership role, but from my vantage point up here in the Bolivian Andes, the curtain of hypocrisy has been pulled back too far and the Wizard revealed.

I am afraid we have become a nation of lemmings obsessed with “comfort” and “convenience.” We have forgotten how we got here, when words like liberty, freedom, and equality used to mean something; now only justification for military contracts and soon-forgotten vote tallies on the Senate floor. We’ve forgotten how to “show-up”; afraid to lose it all on “one turn of pitch & toss” when we can hedge our bets with derivatives and satisfy our fight-or-flight impulse by watching Morning Joe.

I ETS’d in 1972, a year behind you as a Captain in 8th Special Forces Group out of Panamá and have lived a life of development financing throughout Latin America ever since. I tend to align myself more behind the nobility of the indigenous Quechuan underdog than the Peal-shoed Oligarch.

We’ve both come a long way since the Clipper Ships, Houqua and the Opium Trade. As my 103 year-old mother, Marileeds Heard, tells me every day from Ipswich; “That was a long time ago!

Un Abrazo fuerte, Jock