Summer Reading

My reading over the summer --- focusing on what I learned

The new FDR biography by Jean Edward Smith will likely be the standard one-volume biography of Franklin Roosevelt for generations to come. It is excellent. What I learned that I didn't know was the build-up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. No, there is no evidence that FDR knew of the attack beforehand, but US officials did think that Japan would strike somewhere. You get the impression that war with Japan might have avoided with the right diplomacy. This book makes it seem like the US pushed into Japan into attacking us. Was this what FDR wanted.

Khaled Hosseini's THE KITE RUNNER is marvelous. Everyone should read this book. I can't believe I took so long to read it.

Carl Bernstein's biography of Hilary Clinton, A WOMAN IN CHARGE, is tremendous. I come away from this book with greater respect for Senator Clinton. I learned many things about her life that I did not know.

Still left to read this summer ---

Salinger's FRANNY AND ZOOEY

J.M. Coetzee's DISGRACE

Emory Thomas's biography of Robert E. Lee