Ever since the news emerged that former US first lady Michelle Obama had signed a joint book deal with husband Barack, fans and critics have been speculating over what might be revealed in the highly-anticipated memoir.

Over recent days, excerpts of her 426-page book “Becoming” – worth a reported $65m (£50m) – revealed previously unknown facts about the Obamas, much of it adding to Michelle’s already-popular appeal.

So what have we learned about the 54-year-old former lawyer and her family?

She Will Never Run For Office

She has said it before but repeats it once more for those doubters at the back: “Because people often ask, I’ll say it here directly: I have no intention of running for office, ever.

“I’ve never been a fan of politics, and my experience over the last ten years has done little to change that,” she writes.

She adds that the arena is not for her, and she is put off by the “nastiness”, “tribal segregation or red and blue”, and an inability at times to be civil.

She Hated Being A Lawyer

In an Elle Magazine interview with Oprah Winfrey, Obama details how her high-achieving attitude at a young age led her to become a “box checker”.

“Get good grades: check. Apply to the best schools, get into Princeton: check. Get there, what’s your major? Uh, something that going to get me good grades so I can get into law school, I guess? Check. Get through law school: check”.

When “swerver” Barack came along at a point when Michelle had built her existence “carefully”, he was “like a wind that threatened to unsettle everything”, she writes in the book.

She Used IVF To Conceive Her Daughters

Obama reveals she had a miscarriage 20 years ago and that her daughters Malia, 20, and Sasha, 17, were conceived using in vitro fertilisation.

She told ABC that she felt she had “failed” at the time because she didn’t know how common miscarriages were.

“We sit in our own pain, thinking that somehow we’re broken. It’s important to talk to young mothers about the fact that miscarriages happen,” she told the outlet.

The “Cheese Toast” Story

Normality was a concept rarely experienced during Barack Obama’s eight-year tenure in the White House. Even transitioning into life as a private citizen, Obama says that opening a window at home would trigger a flurry of security concerns.

But it seems she was keen to return to doing simple things by herself, so on one of her first nights alone in her new house, she delighted in making her own cheese toast and sat in her garden to enjoy it, as her dogs Sunny and Bo kept her company.

She told Winfrey: “I sat on the stoop, and there were dogs barking in the distance, and I realised Bo and Sunny had really never heard neighbour dogs.

“They’re like, ‘what’s that’ and I’m like, ‘Yep, we’re in the real world now, fellas’.

“What I came to realise is that there was absolutely no time to reflect in the White House. We moved at such a breakneck pace from the moment we walked in those doors until the moment we left.”

It’s Not Been Easy Watching The Obama Legacy Being Unravelled

“It’s been hard to watch as carefully built, compassionate policies have been rolled back, as we’ve alienated some of our closest allies and left vulnerable members of our society exposed and dehumanised,” she writes.

“I sometimes wonder where bottom might be”.

She also laments the loss of the “vibrant diversity” seen in previous tenures but not in the current administration – something which the Obamas had worked hard to promote.

She questions why so many women had rejected presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, for a “misogynist”.

“What I knew from working in professional environments…is that sameness breeds more sameness, until you make a thoughtful effort to counteract it.”

She Used Her Profile To Back Up-And-Coming Fashion Designers

“I wanted to draw attention to and celebrate American designers, especially those who are less established,” she writes.

And she didn’t mind if this frustrated well-known, respected designers such as Oscar de la Renta.

“For me, my choices were simply a way to use my curious relationship with the public gaze to boost a diverse set of up-and-comers.”

Obama says she was very conscious of the choices she made, writing: “As a black woman, too, I knew I’d be criticised if I was perceived as being showy and high-end, and I’d also be criticised if I was too casual. So I mixed it up”.

Her stylist Meredith Koop spent “hours making sure the designers, colours, and styles we chose paid respect to the people and countries we visited”.

If you thought you were the only one to engage in a full fitting room workout when shopping, Obama too would “squat, lunge and pinwheel” her arms to make sure anything she wore would allow her to move freely and comfortably.

For her, outfits weren’t simply a chance to dress up, but a subtle and thoughtful way to pay respect and acknowledge the people she would meet and influence.

She And Barack Had Marriage Counselling

Obama reveals that, just like any other couple, she and Barack had issues to work out within their marriage.

Barack, who Michelle describes as a “plate-spinner”, would sometimes leave her “flailing in the wind” amid his many travels as she would keep things at home in check.

While he was constantly busy and filling up his time with more things to accomplish, Michelle reveals she needed more support from him.

“When it came down to it, I felt vulnerable when he was away,” she writes.

And the counselling taught her a lot about herself.

“It was about me exploring my sense of happiness,” she told Winfrey.

“What clicked in me was that I need support and I need some from him. But I needed to figure out how to build my life in a way that works for me.”

She Will “Never Forgive Trump” For Putting Her Family In Danger

Donald Trump was among a slew of people who wrongly claimed Barack Obama was not born in the US – a lie which he spun from as early as 2010 and throughout his predecessor’s presidency.

A number of high profile individuals said the move, which fuelled the controversial “birther” movement, was racist.

For Michelle, the comments had an added significance.

“The whole [birther] thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed,” she writes.

“What if someone with an unstable mind loaded a gun and drove to Washington? What if that person went looking for our girls?

“Donald Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my family’s safety at risk. And for this, I’d never forgive him”.

She Wanted To Block Out Trump’s Election Win For As Long As She Could

The Obamas spent election night 2016 in the White House cinema, when as the movie wrapped up, the then-president looked at his phone to see that results coming in from Florida were looking “kind of strange”.

The picture was not looking good, so Michelle went to bed in efforts to “block it all out”.

It was then that Trump’s win was more or less confirmed – news which left daughters Sasha and Malia “deeply rattled”.

She Graciously Extended A Hand To Her Successor

Michelle Obama writes in her new book that her predecessor, Laura Bush, told her that if she ever needed help, she would be a “phone call away”.

Obama paid the same gesture forward to Melania Trump – despite reports that FLOTUS 45 allegedly plagiarised parts of Obama’s 2008 convention speech at the Republican National Convention in 2016.

According to ABC News, Trump has not yet taken her up on the offer.