Talk Elections

I've read about half of Bill Clinton's My Life and it's pretty good. Any others that you recommend?

Definitely read Nixonland by Rick Perlstein. It's about America from 1965-1972, and the chaotic period that ended Nixon being elected POTUS

Read Caro's books on LBJ.  There is nothing better.

This is correct.

Seconding Xahar/Ben on Caro, and I'd also like to suggest A Conspiracy So Immense by David Oshinsky, an INCREDIBLE bio of Joseph McCarthy.

I've been busy lately, but I've been trying to read Robert Kennedy: His Life by Evan Thomas and I've been liking it so far.

Good book, though I've only read about three chapters of it, including number 4, which was the Reagan one. It seemed kind of biased, though.

"Right from the Beginning" by Patrick J Buchanan, the book from before he went nuts.

It was actually pretty good. It explored what Conservatives were thinking during the sixties with things such as Vietnam and the Civil rights movement.

Team of Rivals is absolutely incredible.  I now feel ashamed it took me 5 years to get around to reading it.

Team of Rivals
Friends and Rivals: Healey, Crosland and Jenkins (Giles Radice)
Harold Wilson (Ben Pimlott)
Hugh Gaitskell (Brian Brivati)
Ian Macleod (Robert Shepherd)
Supermac: The Life of Harold Macmillan (D. Thorpe)
Gladstone (Roy Jenkins)
Disraeli (Robert Blake)
John F. Kennedy (Robert Dallek)
Robert F. Kennedy (Arthur Schlesinger)

Ele Alenius : Hidden paths - An autobiograpgy
An autobiography of a Finnish author, union man and socialist politician.

I don't read much in this category, but I did enjoy Chris Mullins's View from the Foothills.

I found RFK by Dick Schaap in the library a few years ago. I was struck by its being written by a sportswriter, so I decided to get it. It's picture-heavy and very odd, almost hagiographic, and written right before Kennedy died. It's like a window into a bygone world.

Actually, from what I've read, U.S. Grant's Memoirs are very well done, informative, and with wry humor. Good writer, and it's amazing that he basically wrote it while dying. Interesting and complex person was Grant.

Having read both of Perlstein's books, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus and Nixonland: The Making of a President and the Fracturing of America, I endorse both of them as excellent books and more importantly entertaining (for someone like me) books.

I really much enjoyed reading this. Especially about the ears when Alenius was leader of the SKDL.

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FDR by Jean Edward Smith is probably the best biography on Roosevelt, though The Defining Moment by Jonathan Alter isn't bad. I haven't finished Conrad Black's massive tome on the subject either, so I'll reserve judgment on that one.

Truman by McCullough is an absolute classic.

Nixonland is really good, too.

I like Born Again by Charles Colson