The best books about the White House

Many of my books have been on the British monarchy. Jackie was the only figure who came close to being an American queen. Her clothes drew me to her at first. Later, her decision to have an editorial career after her children were grown gave me the idea for a new biographical approach to her. I still admire Jackie for that, as well as for her low-key regality, about which she had a sense of humor.

I was born in Washington, D.C., in a hospital not far from the U.S. Capitol. I remember being awestruck walking through its halls on tours as a kid. As a journalist, I covered some hearings and interviewed Congress representatives and staff there. The attack on January 6, 2021, was more than a breach of a landmark, historic building representing the top legislative body in the country; it was an assault on the fabric of democracy itself. A tragic crime occurred there that left several people dead and many injured, both physically and emotionally. We must hold everyone involved, especially those at the top who planned this invasion, accountable for what occurred that day.

I became a historian because I am nosy. I like to know what is going on in other people’s lives. I study politics because I am fascinated by power—who has it? How did they get it? I took up this project not knowing much about First Ladies or Pat Nixon. My quest to know more led to the correspondence between Pat and her closest friend. The letters in these files allowed me to hear Pat’s voice describe her life as a politician’s wife, as Second Lady, and as a regular citizen. I feel privileged to be able to share that with the world.

Our obsessions with food and history mean that recipes are not the end of the journey, but the beginning. Recipes are an answer to a whole host of questions, challenges, and opportunities, and those are the stories that interest us. A recipe with no history is like the punch line with no preceding joke, incomplete at best.   

Lilian Terry’s background is quite out-of-the-ordinary. Born in Egypt in 1930 to Maltese and Italian parents, she undertook academic studies in Cairo and Florence. Terry studied classical piano until age 17, developing an interest in jazz in her early teens. She participated in a variety of ways with jazz in Europe, beginning in the 1950s. As a singer, she was an active performer and recording artist. At the same time, she produced radio and television shows for Italy’s RAI network, and this activity led to some of her encounters with major figures of American jazz. Seven of these interactions (most of which spanned decades) are the subject of Dizzy, Duke, Brother Ray, and Friends.

The defining event in my parents’ lives, World War II has always been in my blood. When I was growing up, it would surface now and again when old comrades came to visit or when we came across souvenirs from the war. My favorite was a carefully etched German map showing sea lanes in the Caribbean, exotic and somehow menacing at the same time. My curiosity piqued, I knew I wanted to be in the thick of history—which meant reading and writing about the war, getting my PhD in history, and becoming a Marine and an intelligence officer.  

Passionate military members are my jam, and I feel pretty confident writing about them. First, I write erotic romance myself, giving me something of an inside view of what makes a good erotic romance with a military vibe. Second, I read a lot of them. Even if the story is a mite slow, you’ve got that alpha military guy who’s going to pull the story out. Or at least, that’s the way it’s worked in every military erotic romance I’ve read. Last, as I mentioned earlier, I was raised in the Navy. I’ve seen lots of men in uniform and the sight never fails to give me a thrill. I think I recognize that passion when I see it.

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.

I have been intrigued by Eleanor Roosevelt since I was a little girl in Sedalia, Missouri, and my mother read me Eleanor's "My Day" columns in the Kansas City Star. Mother would look up and say, "I'm sure she is better than he is," referring, of course, to Eleanor being better than Franklin. My family was rock-ribbed Republican and disapproved of Franklin's policies. I wondered then—and still do—why my mother and other women of her era had so much reverence for Eleanor. I have been looking for the answer ever since.

When our two sons were younger, I ran a book club for moms. We met at the local library branch once a month—an excuse to get out of the house for some adult conversation. I frequently offer book suggestions to friends and family because I keep my finger on the pulse of what books moms want to read, especially in the summertime at the beach. Typically, I read three to four beach reads on vacation, and I like a variety of genres. I gravitate towards stories with some element of romance, fitting since I’m a sweet romance writer who loves a good book.   

As an economist with a PhD from the University of Chicago, I have focused my research on fixing Social Security and pension policy. I have researched and written about these issues for the U.S. and other countries around the world, as well as consulting on these issues in a number of countries. My career has included working at policy research offices in the Social Security Administration the Department of Labor (pensions), the International Labour Organisation in Geneva, Switzerland, AARP, and heading the Pension Policy Center. 

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.

While completing a Master’s degree in Victorian Studies at the University of London, I stumbled across a passing reference to a series of killings in 1831 in East London. I was astonished that I had never heard of these and further research resulted in my first book, The Italian Boy. Three books later I realise now that all my work is an attempt to squeeze out of the archives the less-recorded aspects of the everyday life of ‘marginalised’ people. And I guess that’s why I have selected the true crime books below – they all shine a bright light on previously little-known aspects of our world, and reveal the inter-relationship of victims, criminal, and location of the deed.

I became interested in Andrew Jackson as an undergraduate student who worked at his Nashville plantation, The Hermitage. Nearly thirty years later, I am still fascinated by Old Hickory. We wouldn’t be friends, and I wouldn’t vote for him, but I consider him essential to understanding the United States’ development between his ascension as a national hero during the War of 1812 and his death in 1845. That we still argue about Jackson’s role as a symbol both of patriotism and of genocide speaks to his enduring significance to the national conversation about what the United States has represented and continues to represent.  

I’m a picture-book author who wrote about Mahalia Jackson so more people would feel the sense of awe about her that I do. When I first read how she was treated by our own country, I was furious. But her amazing grace allowed me to focus on the positive aspects of her life, like she did.

Born and raised in the Chicago area, I worked in the automotive industry as a car salesperson and racing team manager, financial services as a Registered Representative, and a member of the Chicago Board Options Exchange. An expat in Panama since 2004, I worked in business development for several healthcare products and co-founded an air medical transport service. Over the last decade, I’ve represented two businesses delivering protective medical care to high-net-worth individuals where I learned care’s gold standard from former White House physicians. My research included the books I recommend here and inspired me to write the Expat Health Guide for current and future expats. 

As bedtime stories, I told our children my personal stories of life on a Pennsylvania farm with a city-slicker father who yearned to be a successful farmer. Growing up in a Jewish orphanage in the early 1900s, he dreamed of someday owning a farm and breathing the fresh air of the country. So many funny stories from the farm encouraged our children to say “Tell me a story when you were little, Mommy,” every night. I decided to write these down and they became my first memoir The Road Home. I love memoir and through my YouTube channel, I encourage others to “Write Your Story for Your Generations to Come.”

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.

I’ve been in love with business books since I was a child and I’m also a big fan of great story telling. I didn’t realize until recently that you can have both in one book! Discovering this genre of business books that inspire and delight while passing along new and useful insights was a wonderful surprise for me that I like to share with others. These gripping stories have opened up a whole new world for me and allowed me to learn and apply their lessons much more quickly. It’s simply more fun and easier to remember new wisdom when it’s carried forward in gripping stories.   

As a child, I loved reading books about time travel, and now as a historian, I do a sort of time travel for my job. I have always been especially drawn to reading women’s correspondence, particularly when the women involved were pushing against gender roles and finding ways to access political power. I approach doing history as if it’s an ethnography of a group of people with entirely different beliefs, norms, and even emotions from us today; after all, the past is a foreign country. I’m especially intrigued by uncovering how personal relationships worked in the past and how relationships with political figures allowed family and friends to access power.