Why are we passionate about this?

We live in the countryside of southwest Michigan in a farmhouse dating back to the 1830s on land once owned by James Fenimore Cooper. The land itself has stories to tell that intrigue us as readers and writers ourselves. Katherineā€™s passion for the writings of Jane Addams and Edith Wharton led her to Theodore Roosevelt, a kindred male voice in American literature at the turn of the twentieth century. Tomā€™s passion for environmental writers and activism led him to the books and essays of the 26th President, who believed that good writing sometimes leads to good laws! As professors and writing partners, we are delighted every time we can introduce readers to the literary Theodore Roosevelt.


We wrote

Theodore Roosevelt: A Literary Life

By Thomas Bailey & Katherine Joslin,

Book cover of Theodore Roosevelt: A Literary Life

What is our book about?

We tell the story of Theodore Roosevelt as a writer and a reader, literary activities he pursued relentlessly from theā€¦

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Up From Slavery

Thomas Bailey & Katherine Joslin Why did I love this book?

Theodore Roosevelt read the book and loved his philosophy and way of telling a life story. Autobiography is at the heart of American literature. Washington, the founder of the Tuskegee Institute and Rooseveltā€™s contemporary in age and thinking, was the first writer the President invited to lunch at the White House, controversial as that invitation came to be. We love the book because, in this day of reconsidering Black history, the reader can see how Washingtonā€™s notion of self-reliance, captured in his famous admonition, ā€œCast down your bucket where you are,ā€ helps to define the quest for economic and social freedom for people of color in the early 20th century. Readers will discover a compelling man with an engaging writing style who speaks to the struggles within American society that persist to this day.

By Booker T. Washington,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Up From Slavery as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Originally published in 1901, ā€˜Up From Slaveryā€™ is an eloquently written book by Booker T. Washington, an American educator, author, speaker, and counselor to several presidents of the United States. Booker T. Washington was a prominent leader of the African-American community in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Washington was born into slavery but would become a prolific author who wrote broadly about his life experiences and the challenges facing African-Americans during his time.
In this, Washington describes events in an extraordinary life that began in bondage and culminated in worldwide recognition for his many accomplishments. In simply writtenā€¦


Book cover of Our National Parks

Thomas Bailey & Katherine Joslin Why did I love this book?

We love this book for its breadth and its moral and environmental urgency. Muir writes eloquently [in an admittedly heightened and romantic prose] about the beauties of Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Sequoia National Parks, the only ones in existence at the time. Muir is of interest to Roosevelt because of his understanding of how important it is for wilderness to be preserved for all time not by state governmentsā€”as was the case in his timeā€”but by the federal government. This of course was one of TRā€™s central personal beliefs and was to be, especially after his two-night camping trip in Yosemite with Muir in 1903, a central and guiding policy of his Presidency. For an elegant essay, readers might want to spend time with Muirā€™s chapter, ā€œThe Wild Gardens of Yosemite Park.ā€

By John Muir,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Our National Parks as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For every person who has experienced the beauty of the mountains and felt humbled by comparison.


John Muirā€™s Our National Parksā€”reissued to encourage, and inspire travelers, campers, and contemporary naturalistsā€”is as profound for readers today as it was in 1901.


Take in John Muirā€™s detailed observations of the sights, scents, sounds, and textures of Yosemite, Yellowstone, and forest reservations of the West. Be reminded (as Muir sagely puts), ā€œWildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.ā€


John Muirā€™s warmth, humor, and passionateā€¦


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Book cover of Cold Warrior

Cold Warrior by Robert Tucker,

During the 1970s and 80s, the Soviet Union penetrated the corporate economy and financial systems of the United States to engage in industrial espionage.

Cold Warrior is the story of Kasia Kerenski, a street mime who is ā€œdiscoveredā€ to work as a Hollywood actress. Coerced into becoming a double agentā€¦

Book cover of The Virginian

Thomas Bailey & Katherine Joslin Why did I love this book?

Theodore Roosevelt loved this book because of his own interest as a historian in telling tales of how the West was won. Wister was a friend of Rooseveltā€™s from their Harvard days together, and the President actually worked as a friendly, informal editor of the novel, even advising Wister on the final shape of the story. We love this book not only because it is the first evocation of Western cowboy mythologyā€”perhaps the most popular American storyā€”but also because it in many ways replicates Rooseveltā€™s experience as a Dakota rancher in the mid-1880s, an experience he chronicled. Roosevelt and Wister remained close friends until his death. Wister went on to be an adviser and friend to such writers as Ernest Hemingway who was angered by Rooseveltā€™s editing of the novel.

By Owen Wister,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Virginian as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Still as exciting and meaningful as when it was written in 1902, Owen Wister's epic tale of one man's journey into the untamed territory of Wyoming, where he is caught between his love for a woman and his quest for justice, has exemplified one of the most significant and enduring themes in all of American culture.

With remarkable character depth and vivid descriptive passages, The Virginian stands not only as the first great novel of American Western literature, but as a testament to the eternal struggle between good and evil in humanity and a revealing study of the forces thatā€¦


Book cover of The Jungle

Thomas Bailey & Katherine Joslin Why did I love this book?

Theodore Roosevelt read this book in manuscript and didnā€™t much like it, but fully understood, as a good reader and adept politician, that it would cause trouble. The President thought Sinclair a ā€˜hysteric,ā€™ and despised his socialism, still knowing the book would be a widely heralded bestseller about the meat packing industry in Chicago, and the melodramatic trials of the Lithuanian immigrants who worked there. We love the book because it makes compelling reading to this day. The furor of the public response to the sanitary conditions in the packing plants brought about the momentum that Roosevelt needed to get the Food and Drug Administration established. Sinclair joked, ā€œI aimed for Americaā€™s heart, and hit its stomach.ā€ Contemporary readers might be surprised to see a president shaping federal policy because of what some muckraker had written.

By Upton Sinclair,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked The Jungle as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

First serialized in a newspaper in 1905, The Jungle is a classic of American literature that led to the creation of food-safety standards.

While investigating the meatpacking industry in Chicago, author and novelist Upton Sinclair discovered the brutal conditions that immigrant families faced. While his original intention was to bring this to the attention of the American public, his book was instead hailed for bringing food safety to the forefront of people's consciousness.

With its inspired plot and vivid descriptions, Upton Sinclair's classic tale of immigrant woe is now available as an elegantly designed clothbound edition with an elastic closureā€¦


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Book cover of The Stark Beauty of Last Things

The Stark Beauty of Last Things by CĆ©line Keating,

This book is set in Montauk, under looming threat from a warming climate and overdevelopment. Now outsider Clancy, a thirty-six-year-old claims adjuster scarred by his orphan childhood, has inherited an unexpected legacy: the power to decide the fate of Montaukā€™s last parcel of undeveloped land. Everyone in town has aā€¦

Book cover of The House of Mirth

Thomas Bailey & Katherine Joslin Why did I love this book?

Theodore Roosevelt and Wharton were children of Old New York and shaped by the values of the Gilded Age. They were intellectual and highly creative, and both were little inclined to settle for a soft, safe life that often comes with great wealth. Roosevelt knew and admired Edith Wharton and loved her novel because she tells the truth about money and happiness. As Wharton put it, ā€œA frivolous society can acquire dramatic significance only through what its frivolity destroys.ā€ Her bestseller in 1905 tells the story of Lily Bart. He loved the novel because he too understood the destructive power wielded by ā€œthe malefactors of great wealth.ā€ He worked during his Presidency to give everyone ā€œa square deal.ā€ We love the novel because it resonates with readers today as we live through our own gilded age. 

By Edith Wharton,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked The House of Mirth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A bestseller when it was published nearly a century ago, this literary classic established Edith Wharton as one of the most important American writers in the twentieth century-now with a new introduction from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan.

Wharton's first literary success-a devastatingly accurate portrait of New York's aristocracy at the turn of the century-is considered by many to be her most important novel, and Lily Bart, her most unforgettable character. Impoverished but well-born, the beautiful and beguiling Lily realizes a secure future depends on her acquiring a wealthy husband. But with her romantic indiscretion, gambling debts, and a maelstromā€¦


Explore my book šŸ˜€

Theodore Roosevelt: A Literary Life

By Thomas Bailey & Katherine Joslin,

Book cover of Theodore Roosevelt: A Literary Life

What is our book about?

We tell the story of Theodore Roosevelt as a writer and a reader, literary activities he pursued relentlessly from the time he could read and hold a pencil until the day before he died, when he wrote his last review for The New York Times. During his not very long but intensely lived life, he read untold thousands of books, wrote 47 of them, thousands and thousands of letters, scores of speeches, articles, and reviews. Some say he read a book and dozens of newspapers and magazines a day even while he was in the White House. We review and assess this life in language, painting a complex and somewhat demythologizing portrait of a fascinating, heralded, and often written about American man of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Book cover of Up From Slavery
Book cover of Our National Parks
Book cover of The Virginian

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Interested in Teddy Roosevelt, Wyoming, and slaves?

Teddy Roosevelt 46 books
Wyoming 51 books
Slaves 106 books