"You can tell a lot about a president — or a presidential candidate — by what he reads, or says he reads."So says Jon Meacham, the author of this article
It's a great read about the books that have shaped McCain and Obama. Both men are readers, and impressed me a bit with some of their titles. You can read the article yourself to see the list of books.
This article ties in nicely with an NPR piece I heard last month about how both men listed For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway, as an important book in the shaping of their characters and worldviews, especially McCain.
Meacham concludes:
Both candidates are fond of Robert Penn Warren’s “All the King’s Men,” a novel about a corrupt Southern governor modeled on Huey Long, though he is also a kind of Jacksonian figure. The last line of the novel reads, “Soon now we shall go out of the house and go into the convulsion of the world, out of history into history and the awful responsibility of Time.” Either John McCain or Barack Obama is about to make that same journey. “I was born for the storm,” Andrew Jackson once said, “and a calm does not suit me.” Born for it or not, the 44th president, whoever he is, is in for rough weather.
6 comments:
Ooh--I am reading it ASAP. I love the picture you put with this post.
I want a button that has Harper Lee's name on it.
The picture is the accompanying NY Times graphic. I liked it too! Nice graphic illustration, NYT!
everything the NY Times does is so pretty and good ... well, almost everything.
Does this mean that if I write Harry Potter down as a favorite book read, that I will never get elected? Do you think they write down "certain
titles that they may have only skimmed in school, but because they seem "good". HMMMMMM.
That's a possibility, however, I think these two guys actually read. McCain knows that Hemingway novel inside and out. YOu have to remember that HP wasn't around when McCain was a young person. :) We're lucky!
Truman came home with a little mini newspaper about the candidates, and Barack Obama wrote that his favorite children's book was Harry Potter. McCain's was Tales of King Arthur. So Marni, you *could* get elected.
. . . but what if the paparazzi gets a hold of some of Jon's stage makeup photos? I see a potential campaign fiasco there. :)
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