Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents: Strange Stories and Shocking Trivia from Inside the White House

by Cormac O'Brien

The classic compendium of weird, quirky, and politically incorrect presidential trivia is back—now with a chapter about the 45th American president, Donald J. Trump

This updated and redesigned edition of Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents features outrageous and uncensored profiles of our commanders in chief—complete with hundreds of little-known, politically incorrect, and downright wacko facts. You’ll discover

• Teddy Roosevelt was blinded in a White House boxing match
• John Quincy Adams loved to skinny-dip in the Potomac River
• Gerald Ford once worked as a Cosmopolitan magazine cover model
• Warren G. Harding gambled with White House china when he ran low on cash
• Jimmy Carter reported a UFO sighting in Georgia

With chapters on everyone from George Washington to Donald Trump, Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents tackles all the tough questions that other history books are afraid to Which president claimed that God struck down Abraham Lincoln on purpose? How many of these folks were cheating on their spouses? And are there really secret tunnels underneath the White House? American history was never this much fun in school!

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Biography, Presidents, American History, Humor

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Kellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

In addition to reading the book about the First Families, I carried this book around with me while we were in Washington. It put me in an American History state of mind. This book has a chapter about each president. The author highlights the accomplishments and failures of each. Then he tells us some interesting, if not humorous, things about them. Like, did you know that President Ford locked himself out of the White House while walking his dog? Or, did you know that LBJ had a buzzer system installed that rang inside the Oval Office so that the Secret Service could warn him that his wife was coming, so he wasn’t caught with other women? I didn’t. Not that this changed my mind about any of them, but it did make them more real to me. The author was very quick to point out the failures of each president no matter who it was. You could also tell who his favorites were, and who wasn’t. With all of that being said, I still enjoyed the book. If anything, I am starting to be able to place an event with a name, as well as, place them in chronological order without forgetting one

[Jelinas · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was a kid, I had this great book called Facts and Fun About the Presidents. I loved reading about the weird quirks of our nation's leaders, and it was fun to impress my friends by telling them that James Madison was our shortest president (at 5'4" -- my current height) or that John Quincy Adams enjoyed skinny-dipping in the Potomac River.

Well, Cormac O'Brien's book is like a PG-13 version of the same.

His writing is entertaining, but not nearly as fun as the facts he writes about. Once again, I shall hold my friends in my thrall as I regale them with stories about how Warren G. Harding used to tryst with his mistress in White House closets and how Harry S Truman swore like a sailor.

Since I'm a grown-up now, most of my friends are also grown-ups, they're actually interested in historical trivia.

I guess growing up has some benefits after all.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a weak book. Very disappointing - a little research, some writing, there you are. Wikipedia research would do just fine.

[Krystelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a child, I was enormously fond of the Horrible Histories books (well before there was a television show!). I suppose this book reiterates I am still enormously fond of the concept. Although it didn’t have quite enough meat in it for me to give it a higher rating, it was a fun read, and I loved finding out titbits about every president of the US. There’s a lot that had to be left out, which I understand, but at the same time I wish more had been filtered in! Some of them were far more forgettable than others (as is the nature of the job, I suppose) so reading on all of them was a great thing.

[Hillary Blatherwick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick easy read, sometimes entertaining but sheeeeeeeeesh. Powerful people have sucked from the dawn of time of that I’m more convinced.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable book to read. It was simple, informative, and filled with little insights and humor of the past US Presidents.

Here are some things that caught my intrigue:
- FDR had good family; we all know about Teddy Roosevelt, but could also count George Washington, John Adams, Ulysses S. Grant, and Winston Churchill.
- LBJ: Didn't know how much of a** he was.
- John Kennedy: His dad was Ambassador to England during WWII and insisted that England, was going to lose (oops). JFK also wrote book, "Why England Slept" that sold over 30,000 copies (which were purchased by his Dad).
- Nixon: Man with the Golden Gun? That's right (it seems like it a line from Bond) and what makes it more interesting is the person that gave him the gun? Elvis Presley gave him Golden .45-caliber as gift.

[Jdetrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first glance, this seems to be a somewhat crass look at the presidents, one that's content to dig up dirt on all of them and isn't concerned about any actual history. In point of fact, while it's written with a certain amount of irreverence, there are actual bits of history here, and while it's entirely too short to give anymore than a brief overview of each chief executive, it is a nice little primer on the presidents.

[Cathryn Conroy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents: Strange Stories and Shocking Trivia from Inside the White House ****
By Cormac O'Brien

A more precise title for this book by Cormac O'Brien would be "Little Known Facts About the Lives of the U.S. Presidents," but that doesn't have the same snappy ring for book sales as "Secret Lives" has. But the truth is that these are not secrets.

Written as you would expect it to be with one chapter per president—from George Washington to Donald J. Trump (his first term)—each contains snippets of information from the big summary of each presidency to the details of little known facts about the man—be they funny, weird, salacious, and even depraved. From excessive drinking to evening hymn sings, from murder to UFOs, our presidents have quite the interesting stories.

Here are some highlights:
• George Washington's salary was $25,000, which in today's economy is about $1 million! He indulged a lot, including outfitting all his horses in leopard-skin robes and spending about 7 percent of his income on alcohol.

• Thomas Jefferson often greeted ambassadors in his pajamas, a practice most of them found appalling.

• During a heated argument with his secretary of the treasury, James Monroe brandished a pair of fire tongs at the man to chase him out of the White House.

• Abraham Lincoln is widely considered to be one of the funniest presidents—a regular comedian.

• Chester Arthur loved clothes, and he was the first presidents to employ a full-time valet.

• While boxing in the White House with heavyweight champion John Sullivan, Theodore Roosevelt received a blow to his face that left him blind in his left eye, and he kept the injury a secret for years.

• Warren G. Harding enjoyed playing poker in the White House. He once bet an entire box of priceless White House china—and lost.

• Franklin Delano Roosevelt was so superstitious that he never lit three cigarettes from a single match, refused to sit at a table set for 13, and wouldn't begin a trip on a Friday. Ironically, the funeral trip that took his body home began its journey on Friday the thirteenth.

• Richard Milhous Nixon enjoyed drinking, but he was rip-roaring drunk after two glasses of wine. In this inebriated state, he once contemplated using nuclear weapons when an American intelligence-gathering aircraft was shot down by a North Korean fighter jet in international waters.

• Gerald R. Ford is the only U.S. president to have worked as a magazine model.

• In 1969, before he was elected president, Jimmy Carter admitted to a UFO sighting, the only president to do so.

• In his youth, Barack Obama had a difficult time attracting women. Even Michelle, the woman he eventually married, turned him down the first few times he asked her on a date.

• Donald Trump switched political parties about as often as he did wives. He started out as a Republican, then joined the Reform Party, and then became a Democrat before becoming an Independent and finally a Republican again.

This is an amusing book written with respect but also a dry wit that is easy-to-read whether you want to skim it or read it cover-to-cover.

[Amberly Dzimira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learning Andrew Jackson was a Pisces ruined my year.

I do love this book a lot though. Exactly how I want to learn history: give me a brief overview of what they did, what their star sign is, and then spill all the tea

[Vivian Trương · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cuốn này đầy ắp thông tin từ gây shock tới thú vị tới hài kì quặc cực kì khó hiểu luôn. Sách tuy đã dịch sang tiếng Việt nhưng khá nhiều từ chuyên ngành chính trị - kinh tế nên vẫn có vài chỗ khó hiểu đối với mình, nếu đọc bằng tiếng Anh chắc mù tịt luôn quá =)) Một cuốn sách khá hay, mong Nhã Nam dịch luôn cuốn Bí mật của các đệ nhất phu nhân Mỹ luôn đi, chứ để mình tìm đọc tiếng Anh hơi bị căng!!

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book of short biographies and factoids about all of the Presidents up until Obama. The bios are competently written with only a few mistakes and a rather homey, knock your neighbor's elbow kind of style. The factoids are actually fairly interesting and (rather rare for me) present some new information I had not known before. For instance, Gerald Ford was apparently extremely gassy and usually blamed which ever Secret Service agent was closest when he cut one loose. I also found it interesting that when Queen Victoria met Millard Fillmore, she thought he was one of the handsomest men she had ever met. This is especially interesting since this is Millard Fillmore (I was going to insert an image of Millard Fillmore, but can't figure out the formatting. Trust me on this, Queen Victoria's taste in men needs to be seriously questioned.
This is a perfectly servicable book to pass away a few hours at the doctor's office (which is what I did)

[Jessica Senn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok, so honestly a 3.5 star read, but I'll round up because I TRULY enjoyed annoying my family over Christmas by reading snippets of this out loud. :) You really won't learn anything new, but it was wildly entertaining. :)

[Wilde Sky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides some usual facts / anecdotes about US presidents.

I found this book quite interesting and amusing, some of the “facts” presented were pretty bizarre.

[Gage Thurston-Willette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book and it’s content. The quirky backgrounds of our presidents are something people may not be privy to. As a history and presidential buff, this book uncovers the good, the bad, and the ugly of presidents and their lives before, during, and after the White House. It’s a mix between humor and fact, and the author truly leaves no stone unturned. Between cheating scandals, stuck in bathtubs, and the first female President? This is a good, easy read for anyone who enjoys history.

[Clare Kirwan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection of mini-biographies, especially as it focussed not only on bald historical facts but on personalities, quirks and anecdotes which real brought the characters to life. For me as a European, it’s an engaging introduction to the various presidents which also helped to put historical events into context.

[caton clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was super fun actually

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found it to be a very insightful and entertaining look at the lives and personalities of past presidents. The way some of the more recent presidents were portrayed made me suspect the storytelling /embellishing of the ones further in the past.

This isn't going to replace a serious history book but it certainly provides another level of insight and was quite an entertaining read.

[Amy Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love strange facts and trivia, and this book offers me plenty of those. I've read it a couple times and just decided to read it again.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very minimal but interesting. A good supplement to individual biographies.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

As we come up to another Presidential election, we're being asked to make a very important choice. We're electing someone to join a very powerful and elite group of men who have shaped the history of the world in the last 200-odd years. It's an important decision, to be sure, and not one to be taken lightly. Will our next President be a political powerhouse, a man who is able to take the reins of the country and lead it into a better and more just future? Will he be inept or corrupt, allowing his cronies and his pals to use the nation for their own personal gain? Or perhaps he'll simply be a cipher, one of those Presidents who is forgotten by everyone except for over-achieving elementary school kids who think that everyone will be impressed that they know who Zachary Taylor was.

We don't know, and we can't know, and that's one of the most interesting lessons of this book. Every President, from Washington to Dubya, was elected by the people in the hopes that he was the right man to lead the country. Every President was praised and damned. Every President was, before the election, sold as the one man who could save the nation from ruin and despair. If not all of those Presidents lived up to their hype, well, therein lies the lesson....

For people who like their history to be amusing and bite-sized, this is the book for you. It's a "gateway book" for Presidential history - you read this and then go on to read more serious treatments of the Presidents, hopefully becoming more appreciative of the vast spectrum of personalities that have guided our nation. And what an interesting group it's been.

There are, of course, the heavy-hitters that everyone knows. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Johnson (Lyndon, not Andrew), all men who made their marks on America. Washington, of course, set the entire tone of the Presidency. He demanded formality, and the acknowledgment that the office of President was one that should be treated with respect. At the same time, he didn't want to be revered, or treated like American royalty. His decision to serve only two terms of office became unbreakable tradition, at least until FDR, and then law with the adoption of the 22nd Amendment. While the stories that are attributed to him are mostly apocryphal - chopping down the cherry tree, throwing a dollar across the Rappahannock, wooden teeth - the real stories are even better. He spent vast sums of money on alcohol, had a terrible temper, and probably wouldn't even have been the President if he hadn't married Martha Custis. In short, Washington was human, just like the other forty-two who followed him.

Then there are the infamous - the Presidents who are excoriated for their misdeeds and who are the ones we all wish never actually happened. Nixon, Hoover, Buchannan, Harding, Pierce.... These are the ones you tell your children about when they turn 18 and they're wondering who to vote for. Warren G. Harding, for example, was only President for two years before his death, but manages to make the bottom of the "Best Presidents" list nearly every time. For one thing, he never wanted to be the President - it was all his wife's idea. But Warren didn't like to say no, didn't like to stand up to people, so he let her railroad him into running for and winning the office. Once he was in the White House, he was perfectly happy to let Congress govern while he had sex with his mistresses and lost vast sums of money - and the occasional priceless White House tea set - to his poker buddies. It's said that his father told him he was lucky not to have been born a girl, "because you'd be in the family way all the time. You can't say no." While he amused himself, his cabinet and his friends did their best to rob the government blind. He was lucky that his ineptitude wasn't discovered until after his death in 1923.

There are, of course, the ciphers. These are the Presidents that no one really remembers much about. The middle-of-the-pack Presidents, neither good enough nor bad enough to be really memorable. James Polk, for example. Ever dress up as him for a history class skit? No, I didn't think so. This is because he was a boring, humorless workaholic who had about as much personality as a table lamp. Still, he did get us into a war with Mexico, which resulted in the annexation of what we now know as the American Southwest, so there is that. How about Chester Arthur? He became President when Garfield was shot, and was most renowned for the fact that he was a very snappy dresser. He restricted Chinese immigration, so there's a point against, but supported the Pendleton Act, which made it harder to appoint unqualified drinking buddies to important civil service posts. Other than that, he had parties, drank a lot and was kicked out after finishing his term.

Forty-three different men, forty-three different stories. It's very easy to forget that these were Real People, complex human beings with incredible merits and flaws. Franklin Pierce was so despised that his own party came up with the slogan, "Anybody But Pierce." John Tyler was so hated that he was burned in effigy and was the first President to receive a full-time bodyguard. On the other hand, Lincoln had a soft spot for pardoning soldiers who were to be shot for unmeritorious conduct, and Theodore Roosevelt once opened a speech with: "Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot." Now THAT is hard-core....

It's also hard to remember that, for all the mistakes made by Presidents in our lifetimes, they're hardly new ones. Clinton was not the first guy to be unfaithful to his wife while President - in fact, compared to what some others got up to, a little hummer under the desk is practically innocent. And Bush is not the first dim bulb with delusions of grandeur either.

Bush has said, many times, that history will be the final judge of his administration, and I think he's right about that. Very few people in President Monroe's time would have known the horrors that would eventually emerge from the Missouri Compromise, and there were countless people who thought that FDR's New Deal would spell the end of American capitalism. It's hard to objectively judge the Presidents we still remember so vividly, but we can compare them to the ones who have gone before them.

If you're new to Presidential history, or if you want an easily accessible refresher, this is an excellent text to have. Mind you, it's slightly incomplete - it was published prior to Bush's second term, so there's a little bit missing at the end, but I think we can all remember four years back. And maybe, just maybe, our next President will be so special that Mr. O'Brien will be moved to update and re-publish in, say, four to eight years.

[Patrycja · Rating 5 out of 5]

To become a U.S. president you need to be natural born Citizen of USA. There are of course many more requirements. "And until recently, having white skin and a penis were pretty important too." This book is fun and informative, even though it takes on playful way to talk about presidents of the USA. Author gives each president few pages and states the facts about their carrier, what they did right and where they felt, but also gives some personal, often fun facts of their lives.
Did you know f.ex. that James Madison was the shortest president? (5'4"). Or did you know that Andrew Johnson compared himself to Jesus Christ, claiming that Lincoln died because of God decision, so he can be the next president? Or did you know that R.Nixon's nickname was Tricky Dick?

There are many interesting and fun facts in this small compendium.
I highly recommend it. It is light read, and I hope to remember the facts next time I will have some intellectual conversation to impress my listener.

I think this should be recommended read to current president. On other hand though I doubt he would ever finish it, since the longest read he can manage are three pages top.
Also it is worth to mention that each chapter about president is accompanied with an amazing drawing of the leader. The illustrator Eugene Smith is an amazing artist. I love those informal portraits of presidents. "When I was a boy, I was told that anyone could be president. I'm beginning to believe it." - Clarence Darrow.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can read my full review here: https://thebeerthrillers.com/2023/04/...

Excerpt:

"The book is pretty straight forward. Each chapter is about 3 – to – 4 pages and covers each preisdent in sequential order. Some are a little bit more interesting than others, and some are a bit more ‘known’ than others (in the sense that its not bizarre weird trivia about the person).

(I can only imagine if they make an edition of this when it gets to Donald Trump.) For the most part, a lot of the chapters are typical histories of their time in office and their greatest scandals / offenses, with bits of esoteric knowledge of each president thrown in.

It is interesting to see what level of scandals different presidents have, and how thats impacted their political careers and how well their time in office went. It certainly seems like the scandals have ramped up over time. What “passed” for scandals in the 1800s and early 1900s are just mere blips on most Presidential tenures these days. "
.........

Full review here: https://thebeerthrillers.com/2023/04/...

[Hal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love books that profile the Presidents and there are many different angles to be explored out there. Here is yet another entry that says it deals with "secret lives." A bit of a teaser that line as one may think we have some very intriguing and unknown tales between the covers. Well kind of, what we get is a synopsis of what their terms produced, mostly common knowledge. But after this, topics are brought up unique to each man (yep still all men) some which has been out there before and some new uncovered material.

In chronological order we see the blemishes and peccadillos of each and every one exposed for what they were or did. I'm don't know anything of Cormac O'Brien (could he be related to Conan?)but one does soon enough get a glimpse into his political orientation particularly toward our more recent occupants. President Obama portrayed as an all round cool guy. El Presidente Donald, not so much. In fact he provides quite a buffet of venom venting here. In general a fun read with insights into the oh so real people that took up the mantle.

[Jason Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up to four. Read date of 2007 is a wild guess; I could be off by a couple of years.

This will be a short review (for me) because most of what I have to say about this book would just echo my Hail to the Chiefs review, so just see that for further details. I will say that Hail to the Chiefs is the more entertaining of the two, but this one is also great if not quite as sensationalist. It's laid out a little differently. There's a bio followed by a handful of anecdotes, and everything is well-written in an easy to read format. This is not meant to be used for research papers in your history class unless you're just looking for a summary for ideas, and anyone relying on it for such is apt to get a D at best. This provides breadth; for depth you should look elsewhere.

And while this was a joy to read, O'Brien's sister book on the Secret Lives of the First Ladies was even more fun. Some of those women were nucking futs.

[Gold223 · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, I read this back in middle school and it contributed to my fascination in the presidency, and I wanted to read it once again after having studied history more thoroughly for the past few years.

It was a good introduction, it’s got good stories, but it doesn’t get to the heart of what is so intriguing about our commander-in-chiefs preferring to air on the side of trivia. Which is valid, but it’s not where I’m at anymore. It’s not until later in the book with modern presidents, it begins to look at policies and Begins in some ways to urge the reader to look more carefully at the candidates we have.

Definitely dated, that’s not its fault, no one could’ve expected a president to endorse a coup against the government but here we are. If you’re casually interested in presidential history, you could pick it up, get a laugh out of Herbert Hoover’s desires to not see the staff of the White House or the many antics of Lyndon Johnson, but I would wager there are better books out there that are more current.

[Joanna Pellegrino-Sopp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me preface by saying I am a history teacher, so I obviously have a very clear bias toward reading books like this. I enjoyed this book very much, but I do wish it was longer with more facts. I love Presidential Trivia of any kind, it's something I can throw into my lessons to get kids hooked or more interested in the President. It's not really a book that calls for an extensive review, what you see is what you get. Maybe you want to learn more about Millard Fillmore. If that's the case, this is the book for you. Buy it on the Kindle- it's only $1.99.

There another O'Brien book entitled The Secret Lives of the First Ladies: Strange Stories from Inside the White House. I actually enjoyed this one much more as it is a topic that is rarely touched upon.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a trivia buff so this book is a lot of fun. I am going next for the companion book on the first ladies.

I have always liked history from the "people who lived it" point of view, not the dates and the big numbers or whatever. This book is full of behind-the-scenes information as well as the major circumstances of each president. Also each presidential chapter requires a short amount of time so I can pause and restart easily. It is well-written and seems to be well-researched. I also like the accompanying drawings of each president; they add a visual of the person behind the actions.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apart from the axe that Cormac O'Brien seems to need to grind with Jack Kennedy, I really liked this book. There were a couple of times that I wasn't sure if the facts were actually true (I was under the impression that the Taft-bathtub rumor had been debunked?), but overall I found it very entertaining, and in general O'Brien does a good job of indicating when the items in the book are hard to verify. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to get a little more of the human side of our presidents.

[Maria Kemplin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a selection I read on kindle, typically on my phone while waiting on appointments (and once during an extended stall in construction traffic). The format of the book is ideal for interruptions, comprised of short chapters featuring each U.S. President. The biographical sketches offer only a trivia-style overview of the president, and in my case each offered information which I had not previously been aware.

[donna stevenson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Chair summation of tru.p

Totally unfair to Trump while bragging up obama.a know fact obama was and is gay and Michelle is a really a man posing as a woman,you need to tell the truth about obama an his"wife"while not a Trump can be had done more for us than obama did in 8 years and has been horribly mistreated as his wife has,to look at her she has more grace in her little finger than Michelle has in her whole giant body