Genre Reading Group Recap

EOL's genre bookgroup met last evening to discuss presidential biographies and, let me tell you, conversation was brisk!  We all seemed to be of a similar frame of mind and uniformly avoided modern politics.  

We took a close look at Abraham Lincoln and his marriage into the Todd family with Stephen Berry's House of Abraham: Lincoln and the Todds, a Family Divided by War.  

The nation's first single president and the first to marry in the White House, Grover Cleveland broke several molds while in office as well as fathering the first child born to a sitting president in office.  The child, Ruth, was nicknamed Baby Ruth and a clever candy manufacturer thought it just the right name for a new product!  Pickup a copy of H. Paul Jeffers' An Honest President: The Life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland and learn about this very candid president.

Theodore Rex is the second in a projected 3 part exhaustive biography of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris.  The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt is the first in the series but there was a 22 year gap (1979 to 2001) between the first and second volumes.  You probably have time to get these two read before the third is available :)

I also chose to read about Theodore Roosevelt from The American Presidents series edited by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.  Louis Auchincloss' short biographical essay on Roosevelt was a particular delight to someone who tends to get bogged down in too much dry detail.  I blogged about this book earlier, so click through if you'd like to read more about the book or the series!

Our conversation about Teddy Roosevelt meandered to two other books that one member now has on a to-be-read list:  River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard and A Bully Father: Theodore Roosevelt's Letters to His Children.

Our next meeting will be for the topic of European Monarchy fiction and is set for March 31st at 6:30pm!  Pick up a novel on any European monarch and come tell us about it!  For more information, call or email me!

Holley

205-445-1117 or

hwesley@bham.lib.al.us