Erik Larson is an outstanding author who takes interesting historic events and presents their story in a manner that makes readers feel as if they're wrapped up in a novel or a big budget movie. He describes his process as first finding a tale of interest from the pages of history and then supplementing it with fascinating additional details that ( Read more... )

Why do such a large proportion of voters in rural regions of the United States vote for Donald Trump, a self-proclaimed billionaire from New York, who has been accused of being unfaithful in his marriage vows, of stiffing his creditors and who criticized the military service of former POW John McCain and mocked a disabled reporter? Aren't all of ( Read more... )

When one thinks of pivotal Presidential elections, the contest of 1844 isn't one of the first that comes to mind. It would set in motion a chain of events that would light the fuse for the coming Civil War, as the issue of expansionism would further divide the nation and intensify northern resentment of the southern "slaveocracy." Many expected the ( Read more... )

First of all, a big thank you to Stephen Floyd, whose website My Journey Through the Best Presidential Biographies tips me off each year for what to look for to add to my potus_geeks library (now over 1000 volumes).


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2023 wasn't my most prolific year when it came to reading. It was a year of personal transition that intruded into reading time. Still, there were 10 books that were read and reviewed in this community, some new, some old ones that I've been meaning to get to. Here's a look back at the books we read and reviewed in this community.

( Ten Books Read and Reviewed in 2023 )

What's it like to be a Senator willing to vote according to your conscience and your understanding of the Constitution, at a time when doing so will earn you the wrath of your party and place you and your family at risk of physical harm from angry, riled-up zealots accross your country? In Romney-A Reckoning, McKay Coppins, a journalist for the ( Read more... )

Passion for his subject and a superb understanding of geopolitical politics combine to result in Serhii Plokhy's outstanding 2023 work The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History, an intelligent and informative chronicle of the first year of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The book begins with an excellent summary of the history of Russo- ( Read more... )

In the words of a New York Times movie reviewer, "history belongs to those who tell it." How will history remember the 2020 Presidential election and the first year of the Biden presidency? Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns tell it as they saw it in their 2022 book This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America's Future. The authors ( Read more... )

Frank Church served as a liberal Democratic US Senator representing the increasingly conservative state of Idaho from 1957 to 1981. He distinguished himself as an early critic of the Vietnam War at a time when many lacked the political courage to speak up, either for fear of being seen as unpatriotic or of running afoul of the domineering President ( Read more... )

In his third novel detailing the adventures of Congressman (now Senator) Charlie Marder and his zoologist wife Margaret, CNN anchor Jake Tapper boldly goes into the next generation of the Marder family in his newest work All the Demons are Here, as the story's protagonists are the couple's offspring. It's 1977, the nation is recovering from Richard ( Read more... )