Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery [B1908]

2026 HCDJ in excellent condition, priced at what online book buyers are willing to pay us for this 'hot off the press' book. From California Governor Gavin Newsom comes an intimate and poignant account of identity, belonging, and the defining moments that inspired a life in politics "Go slow," his political elders advised him, but Gavin Newsom has never known such a speed. For Newsom, the California Dream is what lured his father's family from County Cork, Ireland, six generations ago. His great-great-grandfather, a cop, walked a beat in San Francisco, where almost 150 years later, Newsom would be elected as mayor, running on the values instilled in him by his family history: that California's open arms must continue to extend to each new generation. Newsom has never lived anywhere but California. Born in San Francisco, his parents divorced at a young age, and his childhood was spent being tugged between two worlds: his mother worked three jobs in order to care for her children while his father, a close friend of the Getty family, brought Newsom into San Francisco society, a world of wealth and connections. The dissonance was frustrating, and made all the more difficult because of undiagnosed dyslexia, but the vantage point was valuable: he inherited his mother's perseverance and his father's reverence of California, not only its wildness, but its opportunity. In Young Man in a Hurry, Newsom traces the forces that have defined his ambitions as a politician and have pushed him to outpace the nation on myriad cutting-edge social issues that have since entered the mainstream. As mayor of San Francisco, he made waves when he violated state law in order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, more than ten years before the Supreme Court made such unions legal. He launched bold efforts to counter climate change, improve mental health care, and enhance gun safety, and worked to preserve the California Dream for his constituents. Elected as governor on the eve of unprecedented wildfires and entering office into immediate hyper-partisan headwinds from Washington, DC, Newsom has constantly and consistently stuck his neck out. Here for the first time, he reflects on the long personal journey that ultimately shaped him into one of the most recognizable and accomplished elected officials in America. Filled with intimate family history and written with candor and remarkable personal insight, here is a deeply resilient California story of identity, belonging, and the defining moments that inspired a life in politics.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "The Great Gavini! I wished there were more pages. Excellent writing. I was enthralled throughout. It was funny and witty and raw. I cannot say enough how much I loved this book! Gavin, please be our next president!"; "For having struggled with dyslexia for most of his life, Gavin Newsom has a rare command of the English language. This book is spectacularly written, and is an insight into a life that has honed Newsom into a formidable political powerhouse. I opened this book not knowing anything about Newsom save that President Trump hates him and Newsom's social media team is absolutely brilliant with their trolling of the president. So I was surprised by the Getty connection, and the stark contrast of his split home and life as a child. That resonated with me, being a kid who floated between abject poverty with my single mother and upper-middle-class with my father, and spent weeks of my summers surrounded by the trappings of wealth and pomp that came with my paternal grandmother. It's definitely two different worlds, and seeing how that shaped Newsom was illuminating. I've never devoured a nonfiction book so fast in my life."; "By the end of the book, the picture that emerges is complicated. Newsom is clearly ambitious and shaped by extraordinary access to privilege, but also marked by personal struggles, and very real public mistakes. I can't help but like the guy. I very much enjoyed the book and loved learning more about him and his family. If he runs, I will support him 100%."