Summary: There was so much hype surround David McCullough’s 2001 biography John Adams that I couldn’t help but be curious about the book. Then once HBO turned the tome into a miniseries that won multiple Emmy awards, I knew I would end up reading it — or at least attempting to. So I tried [...]
Summary: On January 15, 2009 U.S. Airways Flight 1549 ran into a flock of Canadian geese shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia. The craft lost both engines, and the pilot, Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, quickly determined that there simply wasn’t enough time to guide it back to LaGuardia or to Teterboro, another nearby airport in [...]
Summary: Sarah Palin is one of the most recognizable figures in American politics today. Plucked from relative obscurity on August 29, 2008 when Senator John McCain chose her as his running mate, there was an immediate media frenzy surrounding Palin. This frenzy lasted for the remaining two months of the election, and has continued [...]
Summary: American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House is the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of the seventh president of the United States penned by Jon Meacham. Because of the Pulitzer and some good reviews I’ve read, I decided to read this book. I went into it without any special interest in Jackson or any [...]
Summary: A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity is a memoir by news commentator Bill O’Reilly that strives to give people insight into how he became the man he is today. To do that, he tells many stories of his childhood and how those incidents, as well as the people involved in them, helped shape [...]
Summary: At about the age of 5, Cory Friedman started getting uncontrollable urges to move his body in certain ways or perform certain actions, such as tapping people, hopping, or shaking his head violently from side to side. His concerned parents brought him to doctors, and after an initial misdiagnosis that put the kid [...]
Book Summary: East to the Dawn by Susan Butler is a comprehensive biography of Amelia Earhart, the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an aircraft. As with most biographies, this book is laid out in chronological order, giving readers a detailed account of Amelia’s life from her earliest childhood in Kansas to her [...]
Summary: Chelsea Handler’s 2005 memoir My Horizontal Life gives readers a candid look at the sexual exploits of the comedienne’s mid- to late-twenties. Handler is very open about the fact that she likes sex and enjoys the company of males. She doesn’t care if a full relationship follows; one-night stands are perfectly fine to [...]
It’s been a long time since I’ve read a sports biography, but Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero comes highly recommended by a friend.
This “portrait” of Bonds is by former Sports Illustrated writer Jeff Pearlman and talks about how Bonds went from being one of the most [...]
Summary: In Sarah Palin: A New Kind of Leader, author Joe Hilley strives to show readers how the former governor of Alaska rose through the political ranks to become the vice presidential candidate on the Republican ticket in the historical 2008 election. Hilley traces Palin’s history of service, beginning with PTA involvement, and progressing [...]