Memoirs by First Ladies are often more hotly anticipated than those by their husbands. Once the Presidential wife is liberated from the White House and has access to a skilled ghostwriter, it is hoped, she will finally have her say. The results can be broken down by genre. There is the campaign-platform memoir—Hillary Clinton’s “Living History”; the score-settling version—Nancy Reagan’s “My Turn”; and the memoir of ambitious co-Presidency—Rosalynn Carter’s “First Lady from Plains.” And then there was Betty Ford, who blazed a (perhaps unfortunate) trail with “The Times of My Life”—the addiction memoir. The next installment in the First Lady canon is still to be written.

When Laura Bush stopped in at the Council on Foreign Relations for a chat the other day, the crowd contained, in addition to the usual bankers and Park Avenue types, a contingent of sharp-elbowed publishers. Sitting in the audience was her lawyer, Robert Barnett, as well as at least four editors from prominent publishing houses...