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Notes on the State of Virginia.
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Craig Fehrman spent ten years writing Author in Chief, his book on presidents and the books they wrote. When readers would learn about his research, they'd always ask -- "Are any of them worth reading?" The answer turned out to be a definitive yes! Presidential books have won elections, redefined careers, and shaped America's place in the world. It's easy to eye-roll at modern political volumes, but for most of American history, books have been our popular culture -- and presidential books have changed our nation. Here are a few of the books that will reward readers today.
Carter has written a huge number of books, including a historical novel and a volume of poetry, but this one is definitely his best. Like Coolidge's, it’s simple, detail-driven, and always personal, capturing Carter's Georgia childhood and connecting it to bigger issues like the Great Depression and the Jim Crow South. There's a handful of shorter, more intimate books by ex-presidents—not only Carter’s but also Harry Truman’s Mr. Citizen and Dwight Eisenhower’s At Ease—and these books always read better and reveal more than their authors’ official presidential memoirs. I wish more ex-presidents would follow Coolidge in writing that punchy and personal book first, about their White House years. If they tried this approach, they would find that it makes everyone a winner—not just the presidents but also their readers.
In this powerful memoir, former President and bestselling author Jimmy Carter writes about the powerful rhythms of countryside and community in a sharecropping economy. He offers an unforgettable portrait of his father, a brilliant farmer and strict segregationist who treated black workers with his own brand of 'separate' respect and fairness; and his strong-willed and well-read mother, a nurse who cared for all in need. He describes the five other people who shaped his early life, only two of them white; his eccentric relatives; and the boyhood friends with whom he worked the farm and hunted with slingshots and boomerangs,…
Craig Fehrman spent ten years writing Author in Chief, his book on presidents and the books they wrote. When readers would learn about his research, they'd always ask -- "Are any of them worth reading?" The answer turned out to be a definitive yes! Presidential books have won elections, redefined careers, and shaped America's place in the world. It's easy to eye-roll at modern political volumes, but for most of American history, books have been our popular culture -- and presidential books have changed our nation. Here are a few of the books that will reward readers today.
Grant’s book is deservingly celebrated as the best presidential book, even if it's mostly a work of military history. Still, my favorite parts are the character descriptions. They show a surprising side of Grant: as a reader, he was America’s first full-blown fiction-loving president, and his obsession with novels clearly influenced his own writing. If you have the Library of America edition, you can quickly turn to the book’s sketch of Lincoln (page 469), which captures that president’s graciousness, and the sketch of Robert E. Lee (page 732), which captures Grant’s.
"This fine volume leaps straight onto the roster of essential reading for anyone even vaguely interested in Grant and the Civil War. The book is deeply researched, but it introduces its scholarship with a light touch that never interferes with the reader's enjoyment of Grant's fluent narrative."-Ron Chernow, author of Grant
Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs, sold door-to-door by former Union soldiers, were once as ubiquitous in American households as the Bible. Mark Twain, Gertrude Stein, Henry James, and Edmund Wilson hailed them as great literature, and countless presidents, including Clinton and George W. Bush, credit Grant with influencing their own…
Craig Fehrman spent ten years writing Author in Chief, his book on presidents and the books they wrote. When readers would learn about his research, they'd always ask -- "Are any of them worth reading?" The answer turned out to be a definitive yes! Presidential books have won elections, redefined careers, and shaped America's place in the world. It's easy to eye-roll at modern political volumes, but for most of American history, books have been our popular culture -- and presidential books have changed our nation. Here are a few of the books that will reward readers today.
This book is the forgotten classic of presidential writing—a blockbuster in its own time and a model for how modern political memoirs could be better. Coolidge was a stunningly good writer. (The New York Times called him “the most literary man who has occupied the White House since 1865.”) In his autobiography, he included many memorable stories, including one about his son, Calvin Jr., and his summer job picking tobacco. “If my father was president,” one of the laborers told him, “I would not work in a tobacco field.” “If my father were your father,” Calvin Jr. replied, “you would.” Yet the most memorable passage comes later, when the president describes Calvin Jr.’s shocking death. “In his suffering,” the most powerful man in the world wrote, “he was asking me to make him well. I could not.”
Amity Shlaes reclaimed a misunderstood president with her bestselling biography Coolidge. Now she presents an expanded and annotated edition of that president's masterful memoir.
The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge is as unjustly neglected as Calvin Coolidge himself. The man caricatured as 'Silent Cal' was a gifted writer. The New York Times called him 'the most literary man who has occupied the White House since 1865.' One biographer wrote that Coolidge's autobiography 'displays a literary grace that is lacking in most such books by former presidents.'
The Coolidge who emerges in these pages is a model of character, principle, and humility…
Craig Fehrman spent ten years writing Author in Chief, his book on presidents and the books they wrote. When readers would learn about his research, they'd always ask -- "Are any of them worth reading?" The answer turned out to be a definitive yes! Presidential books have won elections, redefined careers, and shaped America's place in the world. It's easy to eye-roll at modern political volumes, but for most of American history, books have been our popular culture -- and presidential books have changed our nation. Here are a few of the books that will reward readers today.
Another forgotten book, Where’s the Rest of Me? covered Reagan’s early life and set him up for his post-Hollywood pivot. Reagan was always more literary than his opponents understood, and in this book he managed to define his sunny political image several years before his famous political aides showed up to help. I discovered this after finding a set of letters no other Reagan biographer had seen, but you could also see it just by reading his book’s opening, which is far too strange and memorable to get past a good flack:
The story begins with the close-up of a bottom in a small town called Tampico in Illinois, on February 6, 1911. My face was blue from screaming, my bottom was red from whacking, and my father claimed afterward that he was white.
The punch line: “Ever since my birth,” Reagan wrote, “I have been particularly fond of the…
I find the archaeology of here to be just as interesting and enlightening as any faraway land. For those of us at universities, that means that the campus itself is worthy of historical, archaeological, and anthropological study. I have been San Diego State’s University History Curator for decades and never tire of uncovering new insights into an institution with a 125-year history, nearly 500,000 alumni, and a bevy of bizarre tales. Whether it be hidden student murals, supernatural claims from the gridiron, or disputed dinosaur footprints, the immediate landscape of our workplace is often full of historical treasures.
Whereas many books research the history of higher education are full of lofty ideals and collegiate high jinks, Alan Taylor’s book Thomas Jefferson’s Education is an insightful yet sobering look at the historical context and inception of the University of Virginia. This text is no hagiography and details how Jefferson’s university was deeply intertwined with slavery and many of the elitist vices common to Virginia gentry.
By turns entertaining and tragic, this beautifully crafted history reveals the origins of a great university in the dilemmas of Virginia slavery. Thomas Jefferson shares centre stage with his family and fellow planters, all dependent on the labour of enslaved black families. With a declining Virginia yielding to commercially vibrant northern states, in 1819 Jefferson proposed to build a university to educate and improve the sons of the planter elite. He hoped they might one day lead a revitalised Virginia free of slavery-and free of the former slaves.
Jefferson's campaign was a contest for the future of a state and…
I am a historian of early America who previously practiced law for 20 years. I have both my PhD and JD from the University of Virginia. I have taught at the University of Virginia, George Washington University, Hamilton, Oberlin, and Randolph Colleges. I have also worked at Jefferson’s Monticello for many years. While American history is often misused for narrow political ends, I am convinced that good history is not only fascinating but can assist us in understanding our world and current challenges.
Like many of us who read a lot of history, I can easily forget that the founders were very human, with their likes and dislikes, friends and enemies,
Cogliano explores for the first time the personal relationship between two of the most well-known Virginians, the first and third presidents. It turns out that they were close friends,… until they weren’t.
The first full account of the relationship between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, countering the legend of their enmity while drawing vital historical lessons from the differences that arose between them.
Martha Washington's worst memory was the death of her husband. Her second worst was Thomas Jefferson's awkward visit to pay his respects subsequently. Indeed, by the time George Washington had died in 1799, the two founders were estranged. But that estrangement has obscured the fact that for most of their thirty-year acquaintance they enjoyed a productive relationship. Precisely because they shared so much, their disagreements have something important to…
Long before I began writing my first fictional story and way before I researched for my first nonfiction paranormal book, I gave up ignoring the voices in my head and began writing horror, fantasy, and six nonfiction books on the paranormal in Virginia. Besides learning a new piece of history or legend I never knew before, the research for my nonfiction books and articles inspired me to incorporate it into my horror or fantasy fiction. I enjoy writing fiction, but I believe I learn as much as my readers when I write nonfiction.
Before other authors (including me) published books on Virginia’s ghosts and legends, it was L. B. Taylor who’d written many spooky tales that haunted the Old Dominion in a long span of books, including this one. Not just Virginians, but as someone who moved here in 1985, I learned about the state’s many ghosts, monsters, and legends that taught me a new view of the state. No one needs to live in Virginia to enjoy reading this book.
The Old Dominion has been one of the nation's most embattled states. Serving as center stage for both the American Revolution and the Civil War, it is also one of the most haunted. In addition to the sagas of the tragic spirits from these wars, this volume includes stories on the female stranger of Gadsby's Tavern in Alexandria, the mysterious stone showers in Newport, the ghost hound of the Blue Ridge, Mad Lucy of Williamsburg, and the spirits of native sons Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, and Edgar Allan Poe.
As a girl growing up in the 1960s, I loved books that were set in the past—Anne of Green Gables, A Little Princess, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn were among my favorites. But those books weren’t historical fiction because they were written back then. So discovering that I could set my own books in the past was a thrill. I love evoking the sights, sounds, and smells of the past. And I especially love describing what my characters wear. Vintage clothes are my passion and being able to incorporate that love into my work is an ongoing delight.
Here’s another one about tony people leading their tony lives, this time in the hills of West Virginia which is home to the Greenbrier Resort, a real place that catered to the rich and famous. This novel follows the story of four members of the Zelner family—Jews in a decidedly inhospitable environment.
It’s the women who really stand out. First, there is scrappy, defiant Sylvia, unhappy in her marriage and seeking consolation in another man’s bed, and then later, her daughter Doree, who, like her mother, chafes against the restrictions imposed by class and religion. But Doree is more adept at navigating a hostile world and finds happiness in a way her mother never did.
The mother-daughter relationship, by turns fraught, contentious, and tender is at the heart of this story, and it won my heart too.
Four generations. One remarkable hotel. Countless secrets.
Nestled in the hills of West Virginia lies White Sulphur Springs, home to the Greenbrier Resort. Long a playground for presidents and film stars, the Greenbrier has its own gravitational pull. Over ten decades, four generations of the Zelner family must grapple with their place in its shadow . . . and within their own family.
In 1942, young mother Sylvia is desperate to escape her stifling marriage, especially when it means co-running Zelner’s general store with her husband. When the Greenbrier is commandeered for use as a luxury prison, Sylvia finds her…
I’ve always enjoyed the intrigue of the mystery and the constant back and forth of the twists and turns offer in a well-written novel. The tremor of my nerves at the base of my neck as I try to figure out the culprit and their intentions, has always enticed my imagination. To, me, those sensations are mind stimulating, and are only born through reading.
If you like reading fast action and involved mysteries, you’ll enjoy Patricia Cromwell’s novel, Isle of Dogs. This action-packed story delves into the historical plots surrounding a small island off the coast of Virginia, where it is said ancestors of long-ago pirates reside, and to this day a sunken treasure remains at the bottom of the sea off their shores. The Governor of Virginia decides to build speed bumps on the small island where the preferred mode of transportation is golf carts. Disarrays begin, so State Trooper Andy Brazel is assigned to investigate and discovers a gang’s intentions to raid the island in search of the treasure.
Isle of Dogs is the final book in the Andy Brazil series, following the success of Hornet's Nest and Southern Cross, from bestselling author Patricia Cornwell.
Chaos breaks loose when the Governor of Virginia orders that speed traps be installed on all streets and highways, and warns that motorists will be caught by monitoring aircraft flying overhead. But the eccentric inhabitants of Tangier, fourteen miles off the coast of Virginia in the Chesapeake Bay, respond by threatening to secede and set up an independent state, claiming that their independence lies in the history of America's first settlers, those who set…
I'm an herbalist dedicated to teaching people practical approaches to herbalism and creativity. I do this on my Substack, in clinical intakes with my herbal clients (I work mostly with artists), and in workshops and classes. My life and herbal practice revolve around food. I’ve cooked professionally for over 15 years, worked on organic farms, and grow food at home for myself and pollinators in my region. The best bet we have at caring for ourselves and our communities is through the food we grow, buy, prepare, and eat. I like to say most people are already doing herbalism, they just don’t know it's happening in their kitchens at breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day.
Who doesn’t love a cookbook that includes A Thermos of Hot Virginia Country-Style Beef Consommé as the first item on a picnic list?
The Taste of Country Cooking is a cookbook and narrative of life in Freetown, Virginia where Lewis grew up. I feel comforted and assured reading Lewis’ stories and recipes. Here is an expert relating a way of life where eating is seasonal, healthful, and communal.
Recipes are directions on how to prepare and serve food, sure, they’re also medicinal formulas (lemonade is technically medicinal!), ethnobotanical records, and historical documents intimately tied to how humans all over the world live lives. I am a sucker for cookbooks tied to seasons, foodways, and history.
Lewis’ recipes are presented seasonally and organized into menus linked to events: Emancipation Day Dinner, A Cool Evening Supper, Morning-After-Hog-Butchering Breakfast. Food is what we eat but also who we are.
In this classic Southern cookbook, the “first lady of Southern cooking” (NPR) shares the seasonal recipes from a childhood spent in a small farming community settled by freed slaves. She shows us how to recreate these timeless dishes in our own kitchens—using natural ingredients, embracing the seasons, and cultivating community. With a preface by Judith Jones and foreword by Alice Waters.
With menus for the four seasons, Miss Lewis (as she was almost universally known) shares the ways her family prepared and enjoyed food, savoring the delights of each special time of year.
