This idea originally began with my Fiction Fast. To explain: I tend to get into certain literary “kicks” every so often, which is good because my “kicks” span a wide range of literary genres, and bad, because I sometimes get hooked on one particular genre for an indefinite period of time. I like having these “kicks” due to the fact that I feels it is an organized (or as organized as you’re going to get) method of reading. With all the millions of thousands of books in the world, it would be easy to feel overwhelmed, especially when you like reading as much as I do. I would love to read everything. Thankfully I am a practical person and realize that this cannot be done. Ever. Thus, my “kicks” come into being, allowing me to choose any author in one genre at a time. For instance, my mystery “kick” involved Agatha Christie, Josephine Tey, Ngaio Marsh, Rex Stout, Dorothy Sayers, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and you get the picture. If I like an author, I may just pause in my general reading and proceed to devour everything they ever wrote. Agatha Christie is just such a one. I can safely proclaim that I’ve read everything by her. Can I remember what each & every book is about? No. I know that most books deal with murder and locked doors and a crapload of suspects but she is such a good author in her field that I thought it worthwhile to read all her books.
Recently, I was in the midst of a major fantasy tear. It was so good that it was consuming me. Literally consuming me! First, though, I have to admit that I can and will read 4 or 5 books at a time. Normally, I like to read different types of books (one fantasy, one spiritual, one history, one educational, etc) but every so often I find myself picking up more than one book of a given type. That was when my fantasy kick began to permeate every aspect of my reading list. As some of you may know, most fantasy is written in a series which roughly translated to me reading at least 3 series’ at a time. Confusing? A little. The bigger problem though was realizing that real life had become what I was reading about and not what I was living. I stopped going out with friends or going anywhere but work. I read while eating, driving (only in traffic), during tv shows, at work, at parties and in the bathroom. I had at least one book with me AT ALL TIMES just in case, you know, for those irksome seconds when you have nothing to do. I ran through Robert Jordan, JK Rowling (twice), Robin Hobb, George RR Martin, Brandon Sanderson, Patrick Rothfuss, and Neil Gaiman like a house on fire. I bought purses that looked like you could fit an entire encyclopedia britannica in them so that I would be able to tote around my library. If someone paused in conversation, I felt my hands itching for my purse and the book within. I would start conversations like, “So then Harry says to Hermione…” or “I wonder if Mat Cauthon would have liked me” like I was a character in the book!
I have nothing bad to say about the fantasy genre at all. In fact, my issue is that it is too good and that I had so much trouble putting those books down. In a strange way, though, that is why I ended up here. As addictions go, reading is probably not the most heinous but it is time consuming, not to mention financially stunting. In a moment of clarity, I realized that I had to stop reading but as a true addict, I qualified it by deciding to fast fiction only. Nonfiction then became my new drug o’ choice but I was again faced with the dilemma of what to read. With the whole expanse of nonfiction to choose from, I experienced a suffocating sensation of dread. My God, where on earth would I start? Days of frustrated lip-biting ended when I had a conversation about an American President and I heard myself saying, “You know, I really don’t know much about that one.” It was as if a bright light expanded in my mind and I decided then and there that here was something I could do something about! Here was a piece of knowledge lacking and not just a piece, more like a continent. For when I reviewed my knowledge of my own Presidents, I could not be denser. Not only would I be inevitably learning something new with my new research project but I would be fulfilling the terms of my fiction fast.
What follows are the fruits of this project. I have tried to find one definitive biography for each president that includes a pretty recent publication date and a doable number of pages. By this I mean that I tried to choose books between the 190-page juvenile biographies and the 1000-page tomes detailing every aspect of each president’s life. I did quite a bit of research on the books that I decided to use, looking into the authors’ backgrounds and the ratings on several websites. I also checked at my local library because I sure as hell did not want to own 44 extra books (I already have a substantial library at home and am running out of room as it is). Upon reading the books, I wanted to critique the books in two different ways. First, I wanted to focus on the actual President being covered in the book and all the interesting things that I found there. Secondly, I felt I needed to spend time on the way the book was written, the author’s bias, the style of writing and the sources used. In this way, I hoped to provide a comprehensive analysis of the President and the book.
The journey into Presidential history begins now. Let’s see what old George Washington was like, shall we?
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