Fiction, Essays, and Other Things

  If you make it in politics, especially if you become a leader of a nation, it is almost a guarantee you will attract the attention of writers, be they admirers, political enemies, singers of praise or slanderers. Most presidents have also written their own story and while autobiographies are subject to selective memory, some have become mini classics of the genre. And so, in honor of our first’s birthday, here is a selection of some of the best books written about our presidents. Not all are flattering, not all are unbiased and not all are life stories in the strictest sense. But they are all fascinating takes on some on some of history’s most fascinating figures.   GEORGE WASHINGTON Washington’s Crossing by David Hackett Fischer Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis 1776 by David McCullough JOHN ADAMS John Adams by David McCullough THOMAS JEFFERSON Thomas Jefferson: Author of America by Christopher Hitch...

  Perhaps the most encouraging development of the last year was seeing so many people stand up and champion Art Spiegelman’s Maus , a Holocaust parable told in terms of cats and mice, after a Tennessee school board voted to remove it from the middle-school curriculum. To me it wasn’t specifically about Maus ,it was about standing up to authoritarians and their shallow misreading of literature. Presenting students in their formative years with challenging, often disturbing works is a fundamental component of their intellectual and emotional development. And yet, the hypocrisy of some of the people rightfully defending Maus is not lost on me. I can’t speak for all of them, but I don’t remember any of them coming to the defense of To Kill a Mockingbird , a number of Steinbeck’s Depression-era works, The Adventures of Huck Finn or The Catcher in the Rye . It is striking indeed as some of the reasoning behind the withdrawal of those works is notably similar to the reason McMinn Coun...