100 books like George Washington Carver

By Christina Vella,

Here are 100 books that George Washington Carver fans have personally recommended if you like George Washington Carver. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Einstein: His Life and Universe

Andreas Kluth Author Of Hannibal and Me: What History's Greatest Military Strategist Can Teach Us About Success and Failure

From my list on biographies to help make sense of your own life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always loved well-told stories of people who came before us, because I’ve always assumed that their lives offer us lessons. Subtle ones, perhaps, but important ones. That’s how, many years ago, I came across the Parallel Lives of Plutarch, who’s been called history’s first biographer. Eventually, I decided to have my own stab at interpreting the biographies of historical figures, and to weave history, philosophy, and psychology into (hopefully) gripping stories. As a journalist and a dual citizen of the US and Germany who’s also lived in the UK and Asia, I naturally looked all over the world for the right characters. And I still do.

Andreas' book list on biographies to help make sense of your own life

Andreas Kluth Why did Andreas love this book?

Some of life’s greatest adventures, triumphs, and disasters are intellectual (which is why I compare Albert Einstein to Hannibal in my own book). As a young iconoclast, Einstein completely blew up the conventional wisdom in science. He found a new way of thinking about gravity, time, space, light, and the whole universe. Being eccentric, he came to embody our notions about the mad scientist. As a human being, he could be endearing but also cruelit’s not clear whether he ever met, or cared about, his disabled daughter Lieserl. But the most intriguing lesson of his life to me is that even such a genius could get mentally stuck. It’s as if, in his later years, his imagination had been thrown into prison.

By Walter Isaacson,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

By the author of the acclaimed bestseller 'Benjamin Franklin', this is the first full biography of Albert Einstein since all of his papers have become available. How did his mind work? What made him a genius? Isaacson's biography shows how his scientific imagination sprang from the rebellious nature of his personality. His fascinating story is a testament to the connection between creativity and freedom. Based on newly released personal letters of Einstein, this book explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk - a struggling father in a difficult marriage who couldn't get a teaching job or a doctorate - became…


Book cover of Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist

Mark Denny Author Of Their Arrows Will Darken the Sun: The Evolution and Science of Ballistics

From my list on science and technology.

Why am I passionate about this?

Trained as a physicist and employed for twenty years as an engineer, my great interest in the application of science then led me to write. I authored technical papers on the physics underpinning venerable machines such as pendulum clocks and waterwheels; these were read by the chief editor at Johns Hopkins University Press, who invited me to turn them into a popular science book–the first of fourteen. Often, technological advances were made empirically–the development of sailing ships, bridges, or pocket watches–by working people with no formal knowledge of science, yet their designs survive as triumphs of human thought, as well as useful machines.

Mark's book list on science and technology

Mark Denny Why did Mark love this book?

Put plainly, this biography of a key figure in the history of science is so beautifully written. Of course, it is knowledgeable and full of historical details, yet so enjoyable to read that I felt sorry it ended after a mere 800 pages.

The characters–eccentrics, heroes, villains–are many and various and expertly placed in their historical perspective. The authors' enthusiasm for their odd, unorthodox, and brilliant subject is very clear, as is their writing.

By Adrian Desmond, James A. Moore,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A biography of the naturalist disputes misconceptions, including Darwin's status as a true scientist, discussing how Darwin concealed his theory of evolution for twenty years, agonizing over its implications and the impact it would have on his social standing.


Book cover of On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson

Liz Heinecke Author Of Radiant: The Dancer, the Scientist, and a Friendship Forged in Light

From my list on meeting fascinating historical figures.

Why am I passionate about this?

I adore non-fiction books that read like novels. After ten years of working in research labs, my master’s degree in biology led me to a new career in science writing. I recently dove into the worlds of narrative non-fiction and history when I wrote Radiant, the Dancer, The Scientist and a Friendship Forged in Light. Immersing myself in Belle Époque Paris to research and intertwine the stories of Marie Curie and the inventor/dancer Loie Fuller helped me discover a passion for telling the stories of important figures forgotten by history. 

Liz's book list on meeting fascinating historical figures

Liz Heinecke Why did Liz love this book?

While I knew that Rachel Carson was involved in starting the environmental movement with her revolutionary book Silent Spring, I had no idea that she was also a best-selling popular science author who wrote lyrical books about the ocean. It was fascinating to learn about her life and the challenges that she faced in while standing up to big chemical companies, whose profits were threatened by her writing. 

By William Souder,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked On a Farther Shore as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Published on the fiftieth anniversary of her seminal book, Silent Spring, here is an indelible new portrait of Rachel Carson, founder of the environmental movement

She loved the ocean and wrote three books about its mysteries, including the international bestseller The Sea Around Us. But it was with her fourth book, Silent Spring, that this unassuming biologist transformed our relationship with the natural world.

Rachel Carson began work on Silent Spring in the late 1950s, when a dizzying array of synthetic pesticides had come into use. Leading this chemical onslaught was the insecticide DDT, whose inventor had won a Nobel…


Book cover of The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World

Howie Singer Author Of Key Changes: The Ten Times Technology Transformed the Music Industry

From my list on innovators and innovation.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve spent my entire professional life dealing with how technology impacts business. I started out writing code to improve the operations of retail stores and factories. I managed teams developing products from videophones to cellphones. I’ve had a front-row seat to the evolution of the music business, from selling CDs to streaming files to billions of fans. These experiences provided the background for writing a book about tech disruption in the music business, starting with the phonograph and leading to Generative AI. The books on this list gave me the broader historical perspective I needed and the context to understand how other industries dealt with their own seismic changes.

Howie's book list on innovators and innovation

Howie Singer Why did Howie love this book?

It is impossible to overestimate the breadth and importance of Edison’s contributions to our lives. But Stross gave me a much better picture of Edison as a relentless competitor who often struggled to develop the business practices and processes to achieve commercial success with his numerous inventions.

The fact that I could visit the Menlo Park historical site in NJ to see things for myself made the book come alive.

By Randall E. Stross,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Thomas Edison’s greatest invention? His own fame.

At the height of his fame Thomas Alva Edison was hailed as “the Napoleon of invention” and blazed in the public imagination as a virtual demigod. Starting with the first public demonstrations of the phonograph in 1878 and extending through the development of incandescent light and the first motion picture cameras, Edison’s name became emblematic of all the wonder and promise of the emerging age of technological marvels.

But as Randall Stross makes clear in this critical biography of the man who is arguably the most globally famous of all Americans, Thomas Edison’s…


Book cover of The Secret Garden of George Washington Carver

Sigrid Schmalzer Author Of Moth and Wasp, Soil and Ocean: Remembering Chinese Scientist Pu Zhelong's Work for Sustainable Farming

From my list on inspirational scientists for children.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a historian of science who specializes in modern China. My professional life revolves around teaching history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and writing for academic audiences. But my not-so-secret dream has always been to write for children. I've been a regular visitor to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, where I've gorged on illustrated books for children. Encouraged by a chance meeting with a publisher’s representative attending an event at the Carle, I decided to distill my academic book, Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China, into a children’s story. I’m proud that my fans now include elementary-school students. (And at least one professional historian admitted he read the kids’ version first!)

Sigrid's book list on inspirational scientists for children

Sigrid Schmalzer Why did Sigrid love this book?

The first chapter book I checked out from the school library when I was in third grade (in 1980) was a biography of George Washington Carver. I have always remembered how inspiring I found his story. This new picture-book biography is a beautiful addition to what is now a very large number of children’s book tributes to Carver’s legacy. Morrison’s use of light and color results in stunning images to illustrate Carver’s motto and the book’s central theme, “Regard nature. Revere Nature. Respect nature.”

The story follows Carver from childhood, when he first learned to experiment by gardening in a secret plot tucked in the woods of the farm where he grew up, to his days as a young scientist in the laboratories of Iowa Agricultural College and the Tuskegee Institute, the time he spent traveling through the southern countryside bringing new agricultural knowledge to poor farmers, and finally his…

By Gene Barretta, Frank Morrison (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Secret Garden of George Washington Carver as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 4, 5, 6, and 7.

What is this book about?

The inspirational story of George Washington Carver and his childhood secret garden is brought to life in this picture book biography by the author-illustrator team behind Muhammad Ali: A Champion Is Born. 

When George Washington Carver was just a young child, he had a secret: a garden of his own.

Here, he rolled dirt between his fingers to check if plants needed more rain or sun. He protected roots through harsh winters, so plants could be reborn in the spring. He trimmed flowers, spread soil, studied life cycles. And it was in this very place that George’s love of nature…


Book cover of Founding Friendships: Friendships Between Men and Women in the Early American Republic

Alexis Coe Author Of You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington

From my list on George Washington.

Why am I passionate about this?

Alexis Coe is a presidential historian and the New York Times bestselling author of You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington, which was also Audible’s best history book of 2020 and Barnes and Nobel's nonfiction Book of the Month. She was a producer and appeared in Doris Kearns Goodwin's Washington series on the History Channel.

Alexis' book list on George Washington

Alexis Coe Why did Alexis love this book?

“I am always yours” was not George Washington’s usual signoff. It was reserved for Elizabeth Willing Powel, a dear friend who often gets short shrift in Washington biographies. Cassandra Good’s book isn’t devoted to the General, but what's there can't be found anywhere else.

By Cassandra A. Good,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Founding Friendships as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"When Harry Met Sally" is only the most iconic of popular American movies, books, and articles that pose the question of whether friendships between men and women are possible. In Founding Friendships, Cassandra A. Good shows that this question was embedded in and debated as far back as the birth of the American nation. Indeed, many of the nation's founding fathers had female friends but popular rhetoric held that these relationships were fraught with
social danger, if not impossible.

Elite men and women formed loving, politically significant friendships in the early national period that were crucial to the individuals' lives…


Book cover of The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783-1789

Christopher Beauregard Emery Author Of White House Usher: "Who Killed the President?"

From my list on presidents from a White House insider’s perspective.

Why am I passionate about this?

During my twenty-nine nears in the federal government, I maintained a Top Secret clearance while being a CIO, Chief Architect, & Director of various things with the White House, US Congress, Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice, where I served in a senior management role for the National Security Division, the agency responsible for serving as the liaison between the Attorney General and the Intelligence Community. Today, my passion is writing about my White House experiences, in both fiction and non-fiction.

Christopher's book list on presidents from a White House insider’s perspective

Christopher Beauregard Emery Why did Christopher love this book?

This is a fantastic book about George Washington after the end of the war for independence, travelling to Annapolis resigning his military commission to the Confederation Congress then going home to farm for what he believed would be the remainder of his life, only to be talked into being our first president. Very well written and taught me a lot of what I thought I already knew!

By Edward J. Larson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Return of George Washington as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"An elegantly written account of leadership at the most pivotal moment in American history" (Philadelphia Inquirer): Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edward J. Larson reveals how George Washington saved the United States by coming out of retirement to lead the Constitutional Convention and serve as our first president.

After leading the Continental Army to victory in the Revolutionary War, George Washington shocked the world: he retired. In December 1783, General Washington, the most powerful man in the country, stepped down as Commander in Chief and returned to private life at Mount Vernon. Yet as Washington contentedly grew his…


Book cover of Inventing George Washington: America's Founder, in Myth and Memory

Don Glickstein Author Of After Yorktown: The Final Struggle for American Independence

From my list on political biographies that are well written.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in Massachusetts, which produced four presidents and untold presidential candidates including Mitt Romney, Mike Dukakis, John Kerry, Elizabeth Warren, and Gov. William Butler, who ran in 1884. My first career was as a newspaper reporter and editor, and I worked for papers in Massachusetts, New York, Colorado, and Washington state. I’ve dabbled in politics myself, working as a campaign press secretary for the late Washington Gov. Booth Gardner. Newspapers gave me an abiding hatred for adverbs, the passive voice, and bias in word selection. (No, historians shouldn’t use “patriot” in describing the Revolution’s American rebels, because loyalists and Indian nations were just as patriotic in their own minds.)

Don's book list on political biographies that are well written

Don Glickstein Why did Don love this book?

If there’s a common trait of Republican and Democratic politicians, it’s that George Washington is always fair game to hijack. We’re told that Washington was devoutly religious or that he was a deist; that he was a true democrat or a slave-holding aristocrat; that he single-handedly smote the British; that he believed in states’ rights or supported a strong federal government. Washington is anything you want him to be. Lengel, who helped edit the Washington papers, begs to differ. His short book tackles many of the Washington myths with an easy writing style for general readers and endnotes for those who want to double-check his debunking.

By Edward G. Lengel,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Inventing George Washington as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“Lengel’s Washington is the archetypal American soldier—an amateur citizen in arms who struggles to learn an unfamiliar and demanding craft on the job....Outstanding.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) on The Glorious Struggle

Editor-in-Chief of the Washington Papers Project  Edward G. Lengel delivers an entertaining and erudite history of America's Founding Father. In Inventing George Washington, a captivating counterpart to Lengel’s General George Washington: A Military Life, the historian looks at Washington’s life and writings, at the creation of his mythos, and at what his legacy means for our nation and ourselves.


Book cover of His Excellency: George Washington

Winston Brady Author Of The Inferno

From my list on contemporary biographies on American leaders.

Why am I passionate about this?

The first biographer, Plutarch, wrote that “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." Biographies help kindle this flame by presenting a person who displayed such character and attempted such noble deeds that the reader should follow their example. The biographer narrates the events of a life well-lived and draws out examples for the reader of the virtues and vices, strengths and foibles, of the person whose life is on display. In this way, biographies help us to be better people by showing us either a model to follow or an example to avoid. 

Winston's book list on contemporary biographies on American leaders

Winston Brady Why did Winston love this book?

Consider Joseph Ellis’ Founding Brothers more of a series of biographies–portraits of great individuals shaping history for the better–of such individuals during the most important period of their lives and in the history of our country.

Ellis’ masterful work focuses on the relationship between the Founding Fathers in the latter half of the eighteenth century, which, as the title suggests, was fraught with all the difficulties and rivalries one might expect as brothers. Figures like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington were men not unlike the rest of us, driven by passion, ambition, and the vision to see the American republic become a beacon of hope and freedom for the entire world. 

Yet, these passions and contrary views of the American experiment in self-government, at times, spilled out into the open, and Ellis does a masterful job elucidating the rivalries between these great men and what was at stake…

By Joseph J. Ellis,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked His Excellency as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

National Bestseller

To this landmark biography of our first president, Joseph J. Ellis brings the exacting scholarship, shrewd analysis, and lyric prose that have made him one of the premier historians of the Revolutionary era. Training his lens on a figure who sometimes seems as remote as his effigy on Mount Rushmore, Ellis assesses George Washington as a military and political leader and a man whose “statue-like solidity” concealed volcanic energies and emotions.

 

Here is the impetuous young officer whose miraculous survival in combat half-convinced him that he could not be killed. Here is the free-spending landowner whose debts to…


Book cover of George Washington's Expense Account

Alan Pell Crawford Author Of This Fierce People: The Untold Story of America's Revolutionary War in the South

From my list on surviving an American presidential election.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a journalist who has written books on American history for the general reader but not an academic historian or specialist, though I have the utmost respect for both. I like to think I have an independent mind and that I look for ideas that challenge conventional wisdom but are rooted in good sense and critical intelligence. The books I have recommended here reflect this temperament and, I believe, an innate sense of the comic and absurd. These are desperately needed at a time when people take themselves much too seriously—as in a presidential election year. 

Alan's book list on surviving an American presidential election

Alan Pell Crawford Why did Alan love this book?

I recommend this book because it uses Washington’s own expense accounts submitted to Congress—$400,000 worth of reimbursements he expects—to cast a comic light on the sober and solemn business of war. We tend to take figures like Washington so seriously that we do not see the human—and humorous—side of their lives and works. Kitman did a superb job of showing the lighter side of commanding the Continental Army without diminishing Washington’s greatness.

I love this book because it is consistently amusing when so many books on George Washington are so serious in tone. Kitman manages to humanize Washington, which too few authors do, and in the process, helps the reader keep his or her perspective on the momentous events of the American past. Also, the book is just a lot of fun. We take ourselves much too seriously these days, especially in a presidential campaign year.

By George Washington, Marvin Kitman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked George Washington's Expense Account as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In George Washington's Expense Account -- the best-selling expense account in history -- Kitman shows how Washington brilliantly turned his noble gesture of refusing payment for his services as commander in chief of the Continental Army into an opportunity to indulge his insatiable lust for fine food and drink, extravagant clothing, and lavish accommodations. In a close analysis of the document that financed our Revolution, Kitman uncovers more scandals than you can shake a Nixon Cabinet member at -- and serves each up with verve and wit.


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