I enjoyed Fred Kaplan’s biography of Abraham Lincoln from the perspective as Lincoln the writer. He has created the same biography for Thomas Jefferson, His Masterly Pen: A Biography of Jefferson the Writer. From the publisher: “As he did for Abraham Lincoln and John Quincy […]

I’ve been waiting for this new novel from David James Duncan since I read his novel, The Brothers K, which was published nearly 30 years ago. It’s called Sun House, and it is hard to describe. Here is the publisher’s description of the book. “An […]

I am reading a very good history of one of the most important judges in our nation’s history. The book is called The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, America’s Judicial Hero, written by Peter S. Canellos. Here is the description from the […]

I am currently reading a well-written inside narrative account of how Alan Mulally turned around Ford when they were on the brink in the mid-2000s. I would highly recommend it for anyone interested in business, history and the cultural icon of the blue oval. American […]

Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life by Zena Hitz From the publisher: “In an overloaded, superficial, technological world, in which almost everything and everybody is judged by its usefulness, where can we turn for escape, lasting pleasure, contemplation, or connection to […]

The Future of Money by Eswar Prasad From the publisher: “We think we’ve seen financial innovation. We bank from laptops and buy coffee with the wave of a phone. But these are minor miracles compared with the dizzying experiments now underway around the globe, as […]

Journey to the Edge of Reason: The Life of Kurt Gödel by Stephen Budiansky From the publisher: “Nearly a hundred years after its publication, Kurt Gödel’s famous proof that every mathematical system must contain propositions that are true—yet never provable—continues to unsettle mathematics, philosophy, and […]