The History Book Club discussion

This is the start of the potential Presidential Reading List

All of the books that are being recommended will be placed on separate book shelves for each president. Please feel free to recommend additions to that list here. You can search for books already added to the Presidential Book Lists by searching in the group bookshelves.

Look for Presidential Series and then the last name of the President. For example, for Lincoln - the bookshelf is named Presidential Series - Lincoln.

Also, please add any suggestions to this list and they will be added to the appropriate shelf. We will will of course get around to polling all of the selections as we move forward.

I'd like to suggest Traitor to His Class The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, by H.W. Brands.

I think this was already added; but if it has not been..Brands is an excellent author and that is a great suggestion. I posted a link to a Brands lecture at Pritzkin where he actually gave a lecture on this book and FDR.

Bentley

For a solid one-volume political biography on Jefferson, I like In Pursuit of Reason The Life of Thomas Jefferson.

Would you like me to add it to the Jefferson poll now or is this just a recommendation for the future?

You can just add it to the bookshelf for future reference, I think.

OK..will do. Thanks.

You need to add a couple of books for John Adams. I recommend the these...

1) Party of One by James Grant
2) The Character of John Adams by Peter Shaw

John Adams Party of One
The Character of John Adams

Thank David...We always add the author links to and the covers. If the author's photos are available we add those. We try to populate all of the fields. I noticed some posts where this was not done so I will add those as well. This is a work in progress.

James Grant

Peter Shaw

Noble E. Cunningham Jr.



It is important that we do this because the goodreads software will link where these books are mentioned (which threads in our site) and people can easily cross reference these discussions and/or posts. Of course, it is the same for the authors...without posting their cover or their link as I did...the software cannot do its job.

Nixonland America's Second Civil War and the Divisive Legacy of Richard Nixon, 1965-1972.

Rick Perlstein

Not sure if this is the proper format to pass this along, but I recently read this book and I really enjoyed it.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10...

Thanks, David. We always add the bookcover (if available) and author links. If the author's photos are available we add those.

Candice Millard

If you're looking for a presidential scandalous read, Franklin and Lucy by Joseph Persico explores FDRs relationship with Lucy Mercer until he died. She had him under her spell, all right. One of the greatest presidents of our time and he couldn't resist the charms of 'another woman.' I felt so bad for Eleanor.
Diana Rubino

Diana please use the proper book and author citations according to our guidelines when discussing a book.

by Joseph E. Persico

Sorry, I didn't see the guidelines--can you tell me where to find them? I'm very new here.
Diana

Diana I sent you a goodreads email with the pertinent info and links. Check your message inbox and you will find them there.

Thanks Diana. Feel free to add it to the FDR thread.

Would the moderators prefer that we add books about presidents here, or on the threads already devoted to individual presidents?

OK, I got the guidelines and will follow them. I didn't know about the Goodreads software for adding links to books. Thanks, Diana

Peter, it is best to add books about individual Presidents to thier respective threads. There is also a thread which is for the office of the Presidency. Thanks.

I'm suprised there's nothing on Washington (Chernow has a great book on him) nor JA (I see JQA), like the McCullough book. Also Doris Kerns-goodwin's team of rivals is missing from the lincoln entry. Not sure if Alexander Hamilton (not a president) should be part of the missing washington thread, since huge hunks of his life were serving under Washington (chief of staff during revolutionary war, sec. of Treasurer under Washington's first term.
Ron Chernow

David McCullough

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Ron Chernow

Marc you might want to check the threads for these individual Presidents. I believe these are all listed. I believe this thread was set up initially to discuss potential group reads.

All great selections, what you posted. Thanks for your endorsement of these great books.

Exactly right. This thread is just for suggestions on what to read. Check the individual threads.

Hi there--I'm looking for the title and author of a book that I read in college (around 1986) that specifically covered, in-depth, the Democratic and Republican conventions of 1960, 1964, 1968 and 1972. It was very readable. Do you have any suggestions for how I might find the title/author? I'd really like to re-read it.

It was just one book about those four conventions.

This might not be what you were looking for, but Theodore H. White wrote a series of books about the Presidents around those time frames.

Hi Jo:

I'm drawing a blank on that. A great book catalog is Worldcat:

https://www.worldcat.org/

David, these are great books:

by Theodore H. White