Happy Presidents Day! Hopefully you’re off of work or school or whatever you have going on.
In honor of the holiday I took it upon myself to look into the history of U.S. presidents who have written books. The practice is fairly common today for outgoing presidents to write books about their presidencies. These often become mega bestsellers. I’m certain that President Obama will be writing about killing Bin Laden, the Affordable Care Act, and being the first African-American president in our nation’s history once he’s out of office. But that’s not happened yet, so let’s look at the books already written by former presidents.
Barack Obama
The current president has written a few books already, one of which was released during his presidency. I think most people know that he was a New York Times bestselling author before reaching the Oval Office. His books are The Audacity of Hope, Dreams from my Father, and Of Thee I Sing. The third title on that list is a letter to his daughters in which Obama writes tributes to great Americans and discloses that he sees their traits in his daughters. I haven’t read the book, but I definitely will at some point.
George W. Bush
Bush wrote the memoir Decision Points shortly after leaving office in 2009. It’s hard not to want to log into your Amazon account and order this book if you haven’t already done so. We had the September 11th attacks, wars started in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the start of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression during his presidency. It doesn’t matter what you think of Bush the president, I’d recommend this book so you can gain a new perspective of the realities of American presidency.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Before becoming president, Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II. If you know nothing about the war, just know that there weren’t too many people with more important jobs during the war than his. He wrote Crusade in Europe in the years between the end of the war in 1945 and him taking office in 1953. The book tells the story of the war from his eyes. This man was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of France and Germany, which is reason enough for you to read it.
John F. Kennedy
We all know the story of Kennedy’s assassination and we’ve heard the conspiracy theories surrounding that dreadful day. But JFK also wrote Profiles in Courage in which he profiled the heroic acts of eight Americans during different time periods in our nation’s history. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
There have been many more presidents who have written books including Calvin Coolidge, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and more. This list on Goodreads has plenty to pick from.
Johnny Reads 