In Author in Chief, one of the most interesting books I have read in recent years, Craig Fehrman “tells the story of how, when, and why America’s presidents began writing books — and why Americans have been been so consistently drawn to reading them. The modern idea of an author (powerful and isolated, reaching a national audience) is a new one. So is the modern idea of a president (powerful and isolated, setting ther national agenda). These ideas grew up together, but it took time.”

For example, in the Epilogue, Fehrman suggests that it’s easy to list similarities that Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama share, “in part because Obama and his supporters have been listing them for a long time. (When Obama described the White House in The Audacity of Hope, the occupants he mentioned were Kennedy and Lincoln.) Both were lanky lawyers, who ended up in Illinois. Both won the presidency in part by writing two of the most successful campaign books in American history.

“From a reader’s perspective, though, the most interesting thing about Obama and Lincoln are their differences: The difference between riding a horse to Robert Stockwell, Merchant, to buy whatever book you can find, and driving a car to Barnes & Noble to buy the book you want; the difference between the efficiency of the steam press and the efficiency of downloading an e-book; the difference between transporting books by train and distributing them through centralized, computerized warehouses. A reader buys a book and begins to read — it’s a familiar act, an act with its own history and an act that’s never been easier. Those are all incentives for a politician or any author to make their book as good as it can be.”

If you’re eager to read a really interesting work of non-fiction, look no further than Author in Chief and two others just as rewarding: Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Leadership in Turbulent Times and Nancy Koehn’s Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Uncertain Times.

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Craig Fehrman is a journalist and historian who has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, among others. He lives in Indiana with his wife and children. Remarkably, Author in Chief is his first book.

Author in Chief: The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the Books They Wrote was published by Avid Reader Press (February 2020).