Woodward to lift lid on decades of reporting in memoir

Bob Woodward's next book will be an inside account of how the bestselling author and award-winning US journalist came to write so many inside accounts.

Secrets: A Reporter's Memoir will offer Woodward's take on some of the government leaders he has known and the news he has helped break, from Watergate to the inner workings of the Trump administration.

Simon & Schuster announced on Tuesday that Secrets would come out on September 29.

"He has kept notes, transcripts and files of all of his interviews with the most important players in Washington," the publisher's announcement said in part.

"For the first time in this one-of-a-kind reporting memoir, Woodward lifts the lid on his historic reporting relationships, some spanning several decades."

Woodward, who turns 83 this week, became famous in the 1970s when he and fellow Washington Post journalist Carl Bernstein helped break the Watergate scandal and other news about the Nixon administration that eventually led to president Richard Nixon's resignation.

Woodward also has written or co-written more than 20 bestsellers, including All the President's Men, which was made into a film starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman; Bush at War; and the Trump books Rage and Fear.

Woodward told The Associated Press during a recent interview that he saw the new book as a chance to "get into the reporting process in detail", pointing out that he had hours-long conversations with presidents and other leaders.

"I've had the benefit of not being in a hurry," he says.

Many of his books are chronicles of current administrations, timed to election years.

But shortly after Trump's win in 2024, he told the AP that he was unsure whether he'd write about him again because he had already reported on Trump throughout his first term.

"I think we know who he is," Woodward said this week.

"He's so transparent. He's out there talking, two or three hours a day."