Christmas Reading 

Christmas Reading

I have no recommendations, only some plans.

I'm going to try to act on this recommendation from David Adesnik of Oxblog (via Kevin Drum):

President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, by Lou Cannon. "This is simply the best book ever written about the Reagan presidency. Its author was a White House correspondent for the Washington Post who had covered Reagan since his days in the California State House. President Reagan is a weighty tome, but the writing is fluid and almost all of the chapters can be read as stand alone pieces."

Similarly Drum's own recommendation:

[blockquote] The Power Broker, Robert Caro's spellbinding, Pulitzer-winning biography of New York's Robert Moses. If you're only going to read one book from my bookshelf, that's it.[/blockquote]

I just bought a book on the British Empire at the time of Victoria's Diamond Jubillee--more on that later. I'm still hoping to read some more essays by Lord Salisbury, but that will probably have to wait for the new year.

I've promised my son that I'll re-read the first Dune. He's been reading the whole trilogy. He's whetted my appetite, and there's something to be said for having some reading in common with him.