One of my favorite biographies of all time is Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. He is an amazing biographer and I love the way he composes his thoughts. It seemed to me that I was reading prose rather than just plain history.
As anyone who knows me can attest, my favorite subject of history is George Washington. I love and revere this man so much. I am a bit defensive when I hear criticism of him.
One more preliminary point..
I made a promise to myself that I would not not buy another book from Costco until I had read more of the ones I already have.
So much to my surprise when shopping there yesterday, I saw a brand new book, over 800 pages long, written by one of my favorite biographers on my favorite subject. The binding is wonderful and it was just calling me, "Buy me! One more book will not hurt. You are going on a long trip next week. I will be your companion!" It all made sense to me.
Then I opened the jacket and began to read about this volume. I was disturbed at what I read. It seems to be a psycho-biography where a person comes along many years later and peels back the cranium to seen what was going in there... (i.e. Fawn Brody and her biography of Joseph Smith - "No Man Knows My History")
I think I want to be open to all information but prefer to read biographies written by fans of the subject matter, not mere critics. If you want to read a well-written biography of Washington, Joseph Ellis's "His Excellency" will fill the bill.
So what to do?
I decided to download the audiobook and give that a try. The reader is Scott Brick, the same narrator that did Alexander Hamilton. He has a terrific voice.
Stay tuned. Maybe after over 40 hours of listening, I can come back and recommend or not recommend this book.
