American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, by Jon Meacham
Ok, let me just say right off that I kind of love Andrew Jackson. I knew very little about him before starting this book, but as I read it I found myself bringing him up in conversation and going on and on. It’s like a [...]
So excited that another super-nerd has joined the Presidential Challenge!
Jennie from Life is Short, Read Fast hopped on board this month and was patriotic enough to post her first review on July 4th. Wonderful, right!?
Go check out her review of a giant, 800 page bio of our first president. I’m way, way impressed!
Welcome [...]
John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, A Private Life, by Paul C. Nagel
Let me just start by saying that this was not one of the biographies that I was really excited about. After reading John Adams, I kind of thought that I had a pretty basic idea of JQA’s life and thought this would be [...]
The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness, by Harlow Giles Unger
Alright, there are a lot of little things that I want to talk about that have absolutely no relation to one another so bulleted list it is!
Harlow Giles Unger is maybe the best historian name I’ve ever heard of. And [...]
April 27, 2011 – 12:05 pm
James Madison (The American Presidents Series), by Garry Wills
I know that this sounds kind of lame, but when I chose a biography to read about James Madison, I chose by length. There were only a few that were even out there. There were two that had pretty good reviews: this one (at about 200 pages) [...]
American Sphinx, by Joseph Ellis
Something that I’m already noticing about these presidential biographies as I make my way through them is just how much overlap there is. Reading John Adams, I learned almost as much about Thomas Jefferson as I did about John Adams. For most of their political lives they were on a pretty [...]
February 28, 2011 – 6:57 pm
John Adams, by David McCullough
So this was a book I was way, way excited about reading. I have heard nothing but absolutely raving reviews of it AND it was already on our shelf… one of the few books that Shaun contributed when we merged our bookshelves. It is huge and thick so I decided to [...]
February 21, 2011 – 2:38 pm
I saw this on Huffington Post today and thought that you guys that are doing the Presidential Challenge with me might be interested
It is a list of 7 Award-Winning Presidential Biographies.
John Adams by David McCullough is on there and I have to agree. Amazing. I just finished it and I’ll tell you all about it [...]
January 25, 2011 – 12:39 pm
His Excellency: George Washington, by Joseph Ellis
It’s almost embarrassing how little I knew about George Washington before I read this book. I’m not sure if the public school system failed me or if I just didn’t ever listen, but I could count the number of facts that I knew about him on one hand… and [...]