After her best-selling memoir – Becoming – former U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama is back with a new book set to release next month, and this time she is swayed into the self-help genre.
The new book, ‘Becoming: A Guided Journal for Discovering Your Voice’ will be released on November 19.
The journal has been described as “an intimate and inspiring introduction” by the former First Lady, and also has over “150 inspiring questions and quotes to help you discover – and rediscover – your story.”
“It includes more than 150 inspiring questions and quotes that resonate with key themes in Mrs. Obama’s memoir and that are designed to help readers reflect on their personal and family history, their goals, challenges, and dreams, what moves them and brings them hope, and what future they imagine for themselves and their community,” according to publisher Penguin Random House.
Printed on cream writing paper, with a grosgrain ribbon, foil-stamped cover, and removable half-jacket, Becoming: A Guided Journal for Discovering Your Voice includes thought-provoking prompts designed to help you reflect on your personal and family history; your goals, challenges, and dreams; what moves you and brings you hope; and what future you imagine for yourself and your community, according to the product description.
“I hope you’ll use this journal to write down your experiences, thoughts, and feelings, in all their imperfections, and without judgment. . .. We don’t have to remember everything. But everything we remember has value,” Mrs. Obama wrote in the introduction to the journal, which she shared exclusively with People.
He added: “I’d only kept a journal for a short period of my life, for a couple of years during my late twenties as I was getting more serious with Barack and contemplating a new career. It was a tumultuous time filled with change, and I found that dedicating time to writing my thoughts down helped me navigate all the transitions. Then I put it away and didn’t pick it up again until I began writing my memoir. Instantly, I was transported back to that earlier version of myself, with all the warmth, heartbreak, and frustration flooding in.
“The experience left me asking myself, ‘Why didn’t I journal more?’ The answer, like for so many of you, I’m sure, was that I simply got busy. I switched careers. I got married. I had children. Somewhere along the line, I ended up in ball gowns at the White House, however that happened.”
“Looking back, I wish I’d taken more time to write down what I was thinking and feeling. I didn’t journal much because I talked myself out of it—journaling can feel a little intimidating and layered with implication, the idea being that once you put pen to paper, your thoughts have extra weight and meaning,” she wrote. “What I recognize now, though, is far more simple: ‘We don’t have to remember everything. But everything we remember has value.'”
Her First Memoire Becoming which was released November 2018 sold more than 11.5 million units across print, digital and audio formats and it is one of the bestselling books for 2019.
The new journal will be published in over 20 countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Taiwan, and China and a Spanish edition, entitled BECOMING: Un Diario Guiado.
