Ocean State Libraries

No matter what else was going on in his life or where he was—travelling to make movies for G.E., in the California governor's office, at the White House, or on Air Force One, and sometimes even from across the room—Ronald Reagan wrote letters to Nancy Reagan, to express his love, thoughts, and feelings, and to stay in touch. Through letters and reflections, the characters, personalities, and private lives of a president and his first lady...

"Presidential books have made an enormous impact on American history, catapulting their authors to the national stage and even turning key elections. Beginning with Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, the first presidential book to influence a campaign, these books have cast fresh light on the private drives and self-doubts that fueled our nation's leaders. Fehrman shows that the story of America's presidents and their books opens a...

"In 1932, New York City, top reporter Lorena "Hick" Hickok starts each day with a front page byline--and finishes it swigging bourbon and planning her next big scoop. But an assignment to cover FDR's campaign--and write a feature on his wife, Eleanor--turns Hick's hard-won independent life on its ear. Soon her work, and the secret entanglement with the new first lady, will take her from New York and Washington to Scotts Run, West Virginia, where impoverished...

Dear Mr. President presents a delirious potpourri of 87 letters, written by people from all walks of life, from children to the working man to the very famous. This carefully selected batch of letters includes the letter from a ten year old Fidel Castro to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940 requesting ten bucks; an offer from Annie Oakley to President McKinley to raise a company of fifty American lady sharpshooters in the event of a war with Spain; a scrawled...

"Fred Kaplan's Lincoln offers penetrating insights on Lincoln's ability to explain complex ideas in language accessible to a broad range of readers and listeners." - James M. McPherson, The New York Review of Books "A fine, invaluable book.... Certain to become essential to our understanding of the 16th president.... Kaplan meticulously analyzes how Lincoln's steadily maturing prose style enabled him to come to grips with slavery and, as his own views...