You used to list the books you've been reading every few weeks but I haven't seen a post like that in a minute. Anything good that you've been reading?
It has been a long time since I last posted one of those lists of recent reads -- probably about six months, so I'm not going to list everything I've read since then. And I don't remember exactly what I included last time, so hopefully I don't double-dip.
•Martin Van Buren: America's First Politician [2024] by James M. Bradley (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) If you want to make me happy, just publish a new book about one of America's more obscure Presidents. And in December 2024, we got a new biography of Martin Van Buren with fresh research from sources not previously available to earlier biographers, resulting in an updated, comprehensive book about Van Buren that now becomes one of the definitive biographies of our eighth President.
•Lincoln vs. Davis: The War of the Presidents [2024] by Nigel Hamilton (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) I'm also an easy mark for books about Jefferson Davis -- not out of any sort of affinity for him or the Confederacy, of course -- but just because of his unique place in history as an American President who also wasn't really an American President (although, technically, he was.) Throw Lincoln into the mix and you don't have to sell me very hard on this book.
•Night of Power: The Betrayal of the Middle East [2024] by Robert Fisk (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) I wish Fisk had lived to write about the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it doesn't require much imagination to know what he would have thought about it: he wrote honestly, critically, and with deep understanding about the subject for 40+ years while reporting from the heart of the struggle in the Middle East.
•The Garfield Orbit [1978] by Margaret Leech and Harry J. Brown (BOOK)
•The World and Richard Nixon [1987] by C.L. Sulzberger (BOOK)
•John Lewis: A Life [2024] by David Greenberg [2024] (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
•Land Between the Rivers: A 5,000-Year History of Iraq [2024] by Bartle Bull (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
•The Hollow Crown: Shakespeare On How Leaders Rise, Rule, and Fall [2023] by Eliot A. Cohen (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
•A Very Personal Presidency: Lyndon Johnson in the White House [1968] by Hugh Sidey (BOOK)
•The Jesuit Disruptor: A Personal Portrait of Pope Francis [2024] by Michael W. Higgins (BOOK | KINDLE)
•The President: A Minute-by-Minute Account of a Week in the Life of Gerald Ford [1975] by John Hersey (BOOK | KINDLE)
•The Lone Star: The Life of John Connally [1989] by James Reston Jr. (BOOK)
•The Showman: Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky [2024] by Simon Shuster (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
•Alexander at the End of the World: The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great [2024] by Rachel Kousser (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
•American Gothic: The Story of America's Legendary Theatrical Family -- Junius, Edwin, and John Wilkes Booth [1992] by Gene Smith (BOOK | KINDLE)
•Pathfinder: John Charles Frémont and the Course of American Empire [2002] by Tom Chaffin (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
•A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders: Surprising Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps [2024] by Jonn Elledge (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
•Eisenhower For Our Time [2024] by Steven Wagner (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
•The Ends of the Earth: A Journey to the Frontiers of Anarchy [1996] by Robert D. Kaplan (BOOK | KINDLE)
•The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat [1983] by Ryszard Kapuściński [Translated by William R. Brand & Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand] (BOOK)
•A Heartbeat Away: The Investigation and Resignation of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew [1974] by Richard M. Cohen and Jules Witcover (BOOK)
•American Roulette: The History and Dilemma of the Vice Presidency [Revised & Updated, 1972] by Donald Young (BOOK)
•Centers of Power in the Arab Gulf States [2024] by Kristian Coates Ulrichsen (BOOK | KINDLE)
•The Formation of the UAE: State-Building and Arab Nationalism in the Middle East [2024] by Kristi Barnwell (BOOK | KINDLE)
•Iranian-Saudi Rivalry Since 1979: In the Words of Kings and Clerics [2023] by Talal Mohammad (BOOK | KINDLE)
•The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned [2024] by John Strausbaugh (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)