Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Lincoln’s Game of Thrones

Lincoln by Gore Vidal

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Much has been made of Abraham Lincoln’s political genius. He is often painted as a savant, manipulating both his opponents and allies to align with his will as he navigated the treacherous years of the American Civil War. Gore Vidal brings this to life in a continuation of his Narratives of Empire series. Although not the second book in publication order, it is the second one in sequence, with one loose connection to the first (no spoilers although Vidal clearly wants to thread the story). Burr, […]

More American Leadership

Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin

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This book was a birthday gift from my sister last year and I loved it. I previously read Team of Rivals which deserves every word of praise it garners so I was excited to read another book by DKG. This book highlights four different American presidents: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. DKG points out that she is only focusing on LBJ’s civil rights policies, and avoiding his handling of the Vietnam War. I also learned that DKG was an intern for […]

Was It Really Friendship?

Mrs. Lincoln & Mrs. Keckley: The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Former Slave by Jennifer Fleischner

Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave & Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley

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  While noodling on the internet one day, I came across an article about Mary Lincoln’s personal dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckley. A former slave from Maryland who’d bought her own freedom, Keckley was a master mantua-maker who got herself the coveted position of dressmaker to the president’s wife. There was a little link at the bottom of the article about Keckley’s memoir, and it was too enticing to pass up. Happily, even though it was published in 1868, my library had a copy of it! The […]

Meets All the Hype

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

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I wanted to read this book for years. I even bought it an Audible during a sale at one point but I put off reading it due to its length.  I was really just looking for the right time to commit to it fully. That happened this summer as my family and I moved back across the country from California to Virginia.  My wife and the kids flew as our children are really young.  I drove with the dogs and rocked out to a few […]

Stick with Doris Kearns Goodwin

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One of the issues with being a history nut (besides the fact that people tell you to get a better hobby, have you tried knitting?) is that you end up covering the same ground a lot. Normally that’s pretty interesting; I’ve read way too many books about the Roosevelts, but I’m able to glean something new from each new book. Unfortunately, sometimes you read a history book that’s decent, but it doesn’t really give you something new. Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and […]



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