Ulysses S. Grant claimed to smoke 7 to 10 cigars a day. When word got out of the president’s love of stogies, people sent him more than ten thousand boxes of cigars. Grant finished his 200,000- word Personal Memoirs only a few days before his death from throat cancer, so he never saw the work published. Grant’s cancer and the forfeiture of his military pension when he became president bankrupted him, but his popular autobiography ultimately brought in $450,000 for his family.
Personal Memoirs: Ulysses S. Grant remains one of the finest accounts of the Civil War ever written. The book was published with the help of his friend Mark Twain in 1885, the same year that Twain came out with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Herbert Hoover wrote 19 books, including one called Fishing for Fun and to Wash Your Soul.
John F. Kennedy is the only president to have received a Pulitzer Prize, for his book Profiles in Courage.
Jimmy Carter authored 33 books, many of which have been best sellers. Carter is our longest-lived president and the chief executive who has spent more years than any other after being president. He wrote most of his works after his presidency and some with his wife Rosalynn as co-author. In 2003, Carter wrote a novel The Hornet’s Nest, a fictional story of the Revolutionary War in the South. He was the only president to have published a novel, until Bill Clinton teamed with mega-seller James Patterson to author The President is Missing (2018).
But our most writerly president is Theodore Roosevelt, whose piston energy generated forty-seven books, including The Rough Riders (1899), a best-selling memoir before the author became a popular president.
Using the hints provided, name the authors in chief who wrote each of the following books.
1. Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company & Conversation (1748)
Rule 1 might be “Don’t lie about chopping down cherry trees.”
2. Letters on Freemasonry (1833)
This author’s dad was also a president and author.
3. The Autobiography of _____ (1860)
This president’s autobiography was chock full of the author’s policy statements from his debates with Stephen Douglas. The first edition sold out in a blink and propelled him to the highest office in the land.
4. Fireside Chats
Radio broadcasts that aired 1933-1944.
5. Crusade in Europe (1948)
World War II experiences.
6. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969 (1971)
The author was the fourth president to become chief executive after the assassination of his president.
7. A Time to Heal (1979)
Healing after the resignation of the author’s predecessor.
8. The Art of the Deal (1987)
The author is the quintessential wheeler dealer.
9. In the Arena: A Memoir of Victory, Defeat, and Renewal (1990)
A president who resigned reflects on his long career in the political arena.
10. An American Life (1991)
Opening line: “If I’d gotten the job I wanted at Montgomery Ward, I suppose I would never have left Illinois.”
11. My Life (2005)
More than a thousand pages, this is the heftiest of presidential memoirs.
12. The Audacity of Hope (2006)
This book helped a freshman senator ascend to the presidency for two terms.
Answers
1. George Washington 2. John Quincy Adams 3. Abraham Lincoln 4. Franklin Roosevelt 5. Dwight D. Eisenhower 6. Lyndon Johnson 7. Gerald Ford 8. Donald Trump 9. Richard Nixon 10. Ronald Reagan 11. Bill Clinton 12. Barack Obama