George Washington!

[Shoshana O'Keefe]

Well that was certainly a nice meeting of the book club.  Thanks so much to all of you who came, and those of you who sat this one out, you were missed and I hope you will come to the next one!  Special thanks to Mike for bringing the bourbon, which felt like a nice way to honor our subject, and which I have spent most of the rest of the afternoon regretting.  

For those of you who were absent, we had a very dramatic pick for next time.  We first drew Lyndon Johnson, and while that's a pretty good pick, people seemed excited about the possibility of choosing between two, so we drew again.  Mike, who seems to have a knack for picking presidents good enough to be featured on Mt. Rushmore, chose George Washington!  We took a vote and it was 4 - 4.  None of our absent members could be reached immediately to break the tie, so we resorted to flipping a quarter, which landed displaying the face of the one it chose and it was all set.  Nobody seemed upset - it's a damned good pick (although I voted for Johnson).

So, there seem to be two pretty appealing biographies out there.  The first - a mercifully short one - is called His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph Ellis.  It's well reviewed and was the Washington book chosen by At Times Dull, the presidential biography blog.  It's 352 pages long.  I think I'm going to opt for this one on length alone - I just need a break from the brick sized books.

The other one for the more ambitious of you is called George Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow.  It won the Pulitzer in 2011 for biography, and it's 928 pages long.  My friend who has read it says it's comprehensive but he doesn't like the style of the author.  But you might very well disagree with that.  

Our meeting should be after Summer, right around when school starts.  As usual, I'll be in touch closer to the date to check in and nail down a time.

Looking forward to seeing you all then!  In the meantime, please enjoy this preview of the hip hop musical about the life of Alexander Hamilton that's being produced right now, somewhere on the East Coast.  I'll be buying a ticket (both plane and theater) as soon as they announce the dates.  Anyone who wants to come with me, let me know.

Shoshana

[Krzysztof Odyniec]

also this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7iVsdRbhnc&feature=kp

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[Gabriella Raymond]

We're about to watch a PBS documentary about a daring young GW in "The War that Made America," yay public library!

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