I finally finished reading The President’s House on Thursday. It’s a comprehensive two-volume history of the White House, 1,231 pages long, from the building of the house through the present; the Clinton and Bush II years are covered in an epilogue, because most of their administrations’ papers haven’t been released yet. I bought it the day after Christmas and started reading it over the holidays. Every workday from the beginning of the New Year until last week, I lugged the first volume, and then the second, back and forth with me on the subway and train to and from work.
I know so much more about the house, the presidents and their families than I did when I first started. Fascinating stuff.
And now I have to find a new book to read on my commute. Until I do, I’m catching up on my New Yorkers.
I’m reading David McCullough’s biography of Theodore Roosevelt’s early years, “Mornings on Horseback,” and it’s great. I went to the Theodore Roosevelt birthplace during my last visit to New York, so this is a good followup. Plus, it’s under 400 pages and McCullough writes so well.
My train reading the past week has been Neal Stephenson’s Anathem which is excellent if you like speculative fiction/sci-fi.
Before that, though, I’ve been working through both Das Kapital and Glinert’s Grammar of Modern Hebrew.