1
Washington: A Life
Author: Ron Chernow
Rating: 10/10 would read again
Pages: 822
Learned: Washington's dentures were actually made from slaves teeth, not wood.
Read: May 2020
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I decided to formally document and read the US President biographies in order starting in 2020. When I started on this journey I was documenting my progress on Twitter - hence the summaries that are all around 180 characters - but wanted to get off Twitter around 2024 for obvious reasons. I decided for each biography I read I would include the Title, Author, a rating of how much I enjoyed the book, how many pages the book was, something new I learned about the president from reading the book, and the date I finished the book. If you are viewing this on mobile, click the photo of the book to see my summary. Lastly, I want to give a shoutout to this internet stranger who published his own journey through the Presidential biographies on his blog. Without this blog, I would have been totally lost on which biographies to pick for each president, so thank you. Enjoy!
2
John Adams
Author: David McCullough
Rating: 8.5/10 McCullough is an incredible biographer but John Adams is not the most interesting subject
Pages: 651
Learned: Adams & Jefferson, lifelong friends, died on the same day July 4,1826.50th anniversary of the United States
Read: December 2020
3
Jefferson: A Great American's Life and Ideas (Abridged)
Author: Saul K Padover
Rating: 8/10
Pages: 185
Learned: Jefferson was a great farmer and helped popularize many foods in the US including tomatoes which, at the time, Americans believed to be poisonous.
Read: December 2020
4
James Madison
Author: Richard Brookhiser
Rating: 6/10 book didn't cover Madison's character in depth
Pages: 250
Learned: Doctors offered Madison medicine to prolong his life so he could die on July 4th like his two predecessors and successor. He declined the medicine and died on June 28th.
Read: January 2021
5
James Monroe: A Life
Author: Tim McGrath
Rating: 8/10
Pages: 577
Learned: In his first U.S tour as president, Monroe toured a school for the deaf. The founders of the school added the word "president" to their lexicon. The sign is a nod to the hat Monroe wore on his tour.
Read: December 2021
6
John Quincy Adams
Author: Harlow Giles Unger
Rating: 9/10
Pages: 313
Learned: The Gag Rule (1836) originates from Quincy Adams saying "Am I gagged or am I not?" after being banned from saying the word "slavery" on the House floor
Read: January 2022
7
The Life of Andrew Jackson
Author: Robert Remini
Rating: 5/10 Jackson is a tough read in general. I also didn't love this book bc it wasn't always chronological
Pages: 360
Learned: While president Jackson was gifted "The Big Cheese" - a literal 1400 pound block of cheddar cheese
Read: February 2022
8
Martin Van Buren
Author: Ted Widmer
Rating: 7/10 short but was an interesting and funny read!
Pages: 172
Learned: Martin Van Buren's lasting legacy is his contribution to the English language - popularizing the phrase "ok" which was a tribute to his hometown of Old Kinderhook, New York
Read: March 2022
9
Mr. Jefferson's Hammer, William Henry Harrison and the Origin of the American Indian Policy
Author: Robert Owens
Rating: 2/10 was super dry
Pages: 250
Learned: A quote I liked summarizing a president who exemplifies America and all it's flaws "The student of history's challenge, it seems, is to neither praise nor bury Caesar but simply to try to understand him"
Read: April 2022
10
President Without a Party: The Life of John Tyler
Author: Christopher Leahy
Rating: 7/10 Good writing just a little confusing because the book wasn't always chronological
Pages: 414
Learned: Tyler had 15 children and still has a living grandson to this day!! His grandson is 93 (update his grandson died in May 2025)
Read: September 2022
11
Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America
Author: William Borneman
Rating: 7/10 Good writing but focused on the events that happened during his presidency rather than his character
Pages: 359
Learned: Polk's presidency saw the U.S almost double with the acquisition of Texas, Oregon territory, and California territory
Read: October 2022
12
Zachary Taylor
Author: John Eisenhower (President Eisenhower's son!)
Rating: 8/10
Pages: 141
Learned: Zachary Taylor was the first to use the term "First Lady" in his 1849 eulogy on the death of Dolley Madison
Read: October 2022
13
Millard Fillmore
Author: Paul Finkelman
Rating: 5/10
Pages: 137
Learned: Basically that he sucked.. a quote that wraps it up: "Fillmore was always on the wrong side of the moral and political issues of the age: immigration, religious toleration, equality, and most of all, slavery"
Read: November 2022
14
Franklin Pierce
Author: Peter Wallner
Rating: 5.5/10 7/10 for the first book and 4/10 for the second - the books were comprehensive but the subject wasn't great
Pages: 637
Learned: Pierce's bestie was the American novelist, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Read: January 2023
15
James Buchanan
Author: Jean Baker
Rating: 7/10 and props to the first woman author in this series!
Pages: 152
Learned: Buchanan was the only president who was a lifelong bachelor. There was and is historical speculation that he had a lifelong romantic relationship with William Rufus King. Unfortunately none of their decades worth of correspondence remains as the families of both Buchanan and King burned all their letters to each other.
Read: January 2023
16
LINCOLN
Author: David Herbert Donald
Rating: 9/10
Pages: 599
Learned: Lincoln faced an assassination conspiracy on his way to Washington after being elected president. He ditched his tall hat and wore a disguise on his train from Baltimore to DC to avoid the assassin
Read: January 2023
17
Andrew Johnson
Author: Hans Trefousse
Rating: 3/10
Pages: 379
Learned: Johnson was drunk at Lincoln's second inauguration and it left him with a bed reputation throughout his presidency
Read: February 2023
18
GRANT
Author: Ron Chernow
Rating: 9.9/10
Pages: 959
Learned: A quote that stuck with me "By backing radical Reconstruction as best he could, Grant made a greater effort to secure the constitutional rights of black Americans than any other president between Lincoln and Lyndon B. Johnson."
Read: April 2023
19
Rutherford B. Hayes
Author: Hans Trefousse
Rating: 7/10
Pages: 150
Learned: The election of 1876 (when Hayes was elected) was very similar to the 2000 election of Bush. Both presidents lost the popular vote, Florida played a crucial role, and the Supreme Court had to be involved
Read: July 2023
20
Destiny of the Republic James Garfield
Author: Candice Millard (second female author in the series)
Rating: 10/10
Pages: 301
Learned: In an effort to save Garfield (who was assassinated) Alexander Graham Bell invented the metal detector to try and find the bullet lodged in Garfield's back.
Read: July 2023
21
The Unexpected President: The Life and times of Chester A. Arthur
Author: Scott Greenberger
Rating: 4/10
Pages: 244
Learned: Arthur frequently wrote and received letters from some random woman, Julia Sand, who gave him political advice throughout his presidency.
Read: September 2023
22 & 24
An Honest President: The Life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland
Author: H. Paul Jeffers
Rating: 6.5/10
Pages: 364
Learned: During Cleveland's presidential race, his opponent uncovered that Cleveland had a child out of wedlock, which was known as the "Halpin scandal". He still won the election, so slay.
Read: November 2023
23
The Presidency of Benjamin Harrison
Author: Homer Socolofsky
Rating: 2/10 literally a textbook
Pages: 208
Learned: Six new states were admitted into the Union during Harrison's presidency, which is the largest concentration of new states for any administration
Read: February 2024
25
The President and the Assassin
Author: Scott Miller
Rating: 8/10 read like a novel!
Pages: 350
Learned: I guess I just learned that anarchy was a big thing during the turn of the century. McKinley was shot by anarchist, Leon Czolgosz
Read: April 2024
26
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt / Theodore Rex / Colonel Roosevelt
Author: Edmund Morris
Rating: 9.5/10
Pages: 1,905
Learned: I decided to read a trilogy of books on Roosevelt's life and naturally landed on Morris books since the first book of the series won a Pulitzer in 1980. After reading almost 2,000 pages on the guy, I do feel like I know a fair amount about him now. Don't give me a martini and ask me anything about Roosevelt or you'll be stuck listening to me for god knows how long (Nicky, Susie, and Gerrit can attest to this). Before starting the books, I knew Roosevelt was a big conservationist and zoologist but I was not aware of how big of a hunter he was. After leaving the presidential office, he set out on an African safari and just killed hundreds of hippos, lions, rhinos, etc. Reading about that safari for like 100 pages was probably the hardest part of this series. I also didn't know about Teddy's exploration of the Amazon river that he took with his son Kermit. The third book in this series covered a lot of this exploration. His son committed manslaughter on the trip and a bunch of the crew died along the way. They eventually found a previously undiscovered river in the amazon which is now called the Roosevelt River.
Read: May 2025
26
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt / Theodore Rex / Colonel Roosevelt
Author: Edmund Morris
Rating: 9.5/10
Pages: 1,905
Learned: I decided to read a trilogy of books on Roosevelt's life and naturally landed on Morris books since the first book of the series won a Pulitzer in 1980. After reading almost 2,000 pages on the guy, I do feel like I know a fair amount about him now. Don't give me a martini and ask me anything about Roosevelt or you'll be stuck listening to me for god knows how long (Nicky, Susie, and Gerrit can attest to this). Before starting the books, I knew Roosevelt was a big conservationist and zoologist but I was not aware of how big of a hunter he was. After leaving the presidential office, he set out on an African safari and just killed hundreds of hippos, lions, rhinos, etc. Reading about that safari for like 100 pages was probably the hardest part of this series. I also didn't know about Teddy's exploration of the Amazon river that he took with his son Kermit. The third book in this series covered a lot of this exploration. His son committed manslaughter on the trip and a bunch of the crew died along the way. They eventually found a previously undiscovered river in the amazon which is now called the Roosevelt River.
Read: May 2025
26
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt / Theodore Rex / Colonel Roosevelt
Author: Edmund Morris
Rating: 9.5/10
Pages: 1,905
Learned: I decided to read a trilogy of books on Roosevelt's life and naturally landed on Morris books since the first book of the series won a Pulitzer in 1980. After reading almost 2,000 pages on the guy, I do feel like I know a fair amount about him now. Don't give me a martini and ask me anything about Roosevelt or you'll be stuck listening to me for god knows how long (Nicky, Susie, and Gerrit can attest to this). Before starting the books, I knew Roosevelt was a big conservationist and zoologist but I was not aware of how big of a hunter he was. After leaving the presidential office, he set out on an African safari and just killed hundreds of hippos, lions, rhinos, etc. Reading about that safari for like 100 pages was probably the hardest part of this series. I also didn't know about Teddy's exploration of the Amazon river that he took with his son Kermit. The third book in this series covered a lot of this exploration. His son committed manslaughter on the trip and a bunch of the crew died along the way. They eventually found a previously undiscovered river in the amazon which is now called the Roosevelt River.
Read: May 2025
27
The William Howard Taft Presidency
Author: Lewis L Gould
Rating: 7/10
Pages: 215
Learned: Taft is the only president who also served on the Supreme Court (1921-1930). I also generally learned that Taft was really conservative and appointed like 7 supreme court justices during his presidential term, which shaped the US with a conservative court for years after his presidency.
Read: December 2025
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