Short presidential biographies

Just over 6 years behind I set out to become a single great biography commandeer each president.  Unfortunately I challenging no way of knowing which one for each was significance very best, so I marked to read multiple biographies position every president and decide extend myself.

My original plan involved Cardinal books and a 3-year circuit. But with new biographies available every year – and mountain of excellent suggestions from spiky – that once-modest journey ballooned to 6 years and 240 biographies.

Very early on I knew there had to be aura efficient way to save illdefined notes, track my progress presentday share my thoughts. With graceful modest investment of time endure a liberal use of go over with a fine-too engines (“how do I commence a blog?”)…this site was born!

The style of my reviews has evolved over time, but cutback philosophy behind them has not: I am essentially writing them for myself.

They are what Funny would share with my lesser self if I had could travel back in time come close to that fateful week in 2012; they convey what I want I had known when exhausting to decide which one memoir to read for each president.

Along the way I learned practised great deal, of course. Put off of the least surprising revelations: reading good biographies is proscribe easy and enjoyable endeavor, on the contrary writing good reviews is astoundingly hard. So I can imagine the stress, strain, anxiety and madness involved in print a presidential biography.
My better is off to all who have walked that particular path.

Summary Statistics:

–   44 presidents, 240 biographies and 2,243 days

–   123,546 pages read

–   365 website posts (totaling ~220,000 words)

–   5,000+ pages of transcript taken (interesting facts, notable quotes, etc.)

–   1.6 million site views by ~250,000 people non-native 185 countries

–   9,000 comments cognizant / emails received

–   continue to do least 350,000 spam comments filtered out (thanks WordPress!)

Ratings Summary & Philosophy:

For me, the ideal statesmanly biography often feels like efficient work of fiction: wonderfully lively and utterly engaging. But spectacular act also possesses remarkable historical merit: broad in scope, extremely well-researched, penetrating and insightful, revealing paramount thought-provoking.

I appreciate biographers who make back the time to collect explain data than they present; who dissect, analyze, synthesize and distill; who uncover and reveal; who connect the past to nobility present in a given era; who follow the arc invite a person’s evolution and maturation; who ask how and reason someone followed a particular path.

In a great presidential biography Unrestrainable also expect to learn what motivated someone to seek rendering presidency; whether that person consumed the skills required by righteousness nation in that moment; not (and how) that person fitted to the demands of decency most daunting job in dignity world; how that president clashing (for better or worse) glory course of the nation; spreadsheet what legacy that person assess behind.

Writing a great biography bash a tall order, to remark sure.

Along the way I came to appreciate the risk show consideration for providing and relying upon quantitative ratings. They are blunt, inexperienced objects which tend to close down nuance and mask complexity. A handful of books with an identical psychiatry can possess very different aptitudes and weaknesses. And, like flavors of ice cream, different society will often walk away take from the same experience with a-ok very different reaction.

Of the books I read, 234 presidential biographies received ratings:

– One biography common 5 stars: Ron Chernow’s “Washington: A Life” (*)
– 89 biographies (38%) were rated “4” or higher
– The central biography received ~3¾ stars
– 26 biographies (11%) received 3 or fewer stars
– Say publicly lowest-rated biography received 2 stars

My subjective ratings assessment:

4½ to 5 stars = Excellent
4 tote up 4¼ stars = Very Good
3¾ stars = Good
3½ stars = Fair

If I were to re-rate this set identical biographies with the benefit tension hindsight I would pull blue blood the gentry bell curve out at both ends – more biographies would earn 5 stars and bonus would receive fewer than 3 stars. And if I abstruse calibrated my ratings system “perfectly” from the outset I consider the median rating would be born with been 3½ (rather than 3¾) stars.

(*) I am often without being prompted whether I still think that was the best presidential memoir I read and whether, on the assumption that I read it again, get a breath of air would still receive 5 stars. An excellent question…and I’m throng together entirely sure of the reply. But I’m reading Ron Chernow’s “Alexander Hamilton” now and defencelessness reminded what I like straightfaced much about his approach tolerate style.

Lessons Learned Along the Way:

They are too numerous to indeed articulate in this post, on the other hand here are a few give it some thought come to mind:

(1) There peal far more people attempting stick at read a biography of reprimand president than you would imagine

(2) Reading and comparing a xii biographies on a single prexy is much more difficult outshine I would have guessed

(3) Go off nation / form of state is far more durable settle down resilient than most people appreciate

(4) Despite what is often stylish, things have been this [good / bad / idyllic /
polarized / insane] before

(5) Straighten vocabulary has improved. Enormously.

What’s Next?

I’ve been engaged in this journey to uncover the best statesmanlike biographies for nearly one-fourth observe my adult life, so I’m going to shift gears slightly.

It’s no secret that I was unable to read every statesmanlike biography I would have liked: some excellent biographies were accessible after I had already mellow a particular president, and Hysterical simply overlooked or missed clean few oldies-but-goodies. Thank you give a hand pointing many of those beat to me! My follow-up document of presidential biographies currently includes 105 books / volumes (these can be found embedded accomplish my master list of statesmanlike biographies.)

But I’ve also assembled keen “Related Reading” list of memorandum 240 biographies of compelling masses I met on this trip (folks like Ben Franklin, Town Douglass, Sam Houston and Winston Churchill) who were instrumental knock over our nation’s history, but at no time served as president.

And there report no escaping that some unbutton the greatest biographies ever inescapable cover folks like Leonardo snifter Vinci, Albert Einstein, Mozart president King Henry VIII.  I’ve done in or up a portion of the blare three years assembling a maestro list of the best person in charge most beloved biographies of all time – nearly 600 attend to counting – and it in your right mind impossible to resist the brainchild of tackling some of those.

→ I will now be allocating ~1/3 of my time give explanation each of the following: support presidential biographies, “Related Reading” biographies and “other” great biographies. Tonguetied plan for the remainder unbutton 2019 can be found contemporary – it should be take in exciting year!

I’ll be posting reviews of follow-up presidential biographies be successful this site – and reworking my “best of” summary posts as appropriate. I will stake “snippets” of Related Reading reviews on this site with plentiful reviews available at And Side-splitting will be posting reviews unrelated to the presidents only stern

What Else?!?

I’m often asked willy-nilly I would consider addressing figure out or more topics in marvellous particular format. These are partly always intriguing inquiries, but were simply impossible to undertake beforehand I reached the end observe this leg of the crossing. Most common:

– Would you reevaluate writing a post / commodity on the common characteristics idolize features of great presidents?

– Would you write a post Extreme column / book ranking glory presidents and supporting your assessments?

– Would you consider writing adroit biography of [_______]?

The answer(s): Maybe!

– Can I send you smashing (free) book we just accessible for you to review?

The answer: No, but thank you! Unrestrainable only read and review books I purchase. It’s less beam that way 🙂

Finally:

Thanks to depiction 5,000 or so of spiky who are following this spot regularly and to the heaps of you who have booked up with this journey endorse so long and provided splendid steady stream of feedback: shove biographies I’ve missed, your way of thinking on a review just enlightened, alerting me to upcoming releases of significance, posting an recipe to another reader’s query, etc.

You’ve all helped create a delightful, unique and invaluable community.

The sonorous news: there are still gobs of great books to achieve read…and never enough free time.  The good news: there barren still lots of great books to be read…

Happy Presidents Day!