The most recommended books about JFK (John F. Kennedy)

Philip Collins was a speechwriter in Tony Blair’s New Labour government in the UK, and in this book he looks at 25 great speeches through history and picks them apart to show what they were trying to do and how they did it.

It’s very approachable, and full of insider knowledge, anecdotal nuggets, and a craftsman’s insight into speechwriting tricks – as well as mounting a firm and impassioned case for the importance of rhetoric to democracy itself. The jokes are good, too. “Barack Obama may be the best male speaker in living memory,” Collins writes, “and the second-best speaker in his own family.” 

Written in a deeply personal, even spiritual manner that incorporates a vast amount of research, this book moved Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to visit the assassination site in Dallas for the first time more than four decades after the tragedy. Douglass particularly investigates Lee Harvey Oswald’s involvement with American intelligence agencies and writes in a highly readable style that appeals to both average readers and researchers. He provides perspective on not just how Kennedy was killed, but why, as well as why the assassination is important to continue to research to this day.

While this is a non-fiction book, with the story that unfolds, you could be forgiven for believing it’s a work of fiction. That a US president, would send tens of thousands of US Army personnel into a state to quell an insurrection in the 20th Century is barely believable, but this is indeed what happened.

The remarkable book sets out the events which surrounded the heated and impassioned debate which evolved around the admission of James Meredith into the University of Mississippi, known as Ole Miss. 

The facts alone make this a compelling read, written in a journalist styling, making the read fast-paced and highly informative.

Author Priscilla McMillan was at the crossroads of history. She worked as a junior aide for Senator John Kennedy before she went to Moscow as a reporter during the height of the Cold War. There, in 1959, she interviewed an American marine who had recently defected to the Soviet Union. He was Lee Harvey Oswald. After JFK was killed in 1963, McMillan befriended Oswald’s widow, Marina, and spent hundreds of hours interviewing her. The result of McMillan’s unprecedented direct access to the Oswalds is an unmatched personal study of a troubled young man who turned into one of history’s most notorious assassins. 

I loved this book because of Johnathan’s fighting spirit. 

Many war stories are about the fighting – the soldiers’ stories. This story is about the thoughts and life of a boy who was a child at the start of World War ll. He tells of how his father goes off to war. He suffers through the blitz and losing his home. He is forced to live with other relatives, and eventually to go away from his family to another part of the country. 

It is interesting reading about a boy’s understanding and confusion about catastrophic events, and how these events shape his behavior, before eventually arriving at a more peaceful outlook on life.

The Dark Side of Camelot is Sy Hersh's controversial takedown of the Kennedy dynasty.

Sidestepping the conspiracy theories surrounding the president's murder, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter hones his spotlight on the man's life instead; a glamorous one riddled nonetheless with self-imposed scandals on a dizzying array of levels.

The book is loaded with volumes of interviews with retired Secret Service, CIA agents, and other insiders who knew a different John F. Kennedy than most of the public. Their revelations depict a man obsessed with revenge and sex in ways that nearly turned our Cold War hot.

An adage is that history books are written by the victors. The Dark Side of Camelot is proof that the truth-tellers have a say sometimes as well.

As a teenager, I was captivated by this fast-moving romp that didn’t pull any punches. With so many knockdown, drag-out action sequences, I couldn’t help wanting more. The author infused epic storylines with moments of heart-breaking humanity in a dark and dangerous world. This novel made me appreciate storytelling on a grand scale. Even now, it’s still a fun read. 

Eleanor Roosevelt became an expert on interpersonal relations. Her skill at advice-giving reached millions in her popular magazine columns. Toward the end of her life, Mrs. Roosevelt wrote an advice manual that conveyed her educational convictions, along with her behavioral precepts and positive outlook. As elsewhere, she focused on her own experience and on the all-important process of learning from experience, which she shared through anecdote and analysis. A lively bestseller of 1960, the book has appealed to readers ever since.

Whenever anyone writes about Dallas, Texas, odds are it’s going to include the rich, the seedy, and a murder.

In this case it’s the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. But this book is so much more.

It’s a history of the moneyed-powerful and the stepped on in early 1960s Dallas, setting up an understanding of how this murder that shook the world was destined to happen in the Lone Star State.

And it’s a book I have been recommending for 10 years, not simply because it’s a riveting read, which it most definitely is, but because—despite the passage of 60 years—it’s a reflection of the U.S. today.

A few months after President Kennedy’s assassination, Mrs. Kennedy sat down for a series of interviews with the historian and family friend Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Her eight hours of tapes, which remained sealed until a few years ago, are riveting and full of intimate, powerful details.

It is most rewarding to hear her whispery voice as she offers often pointed observations about the people and events that shaped her husband’s presidency.