Another Presidents' Day, another presidents' book. More than a decade into our quest of reading a book about every U.S. president, we managed yet one more in the last year. This time: Lyndon Johnson.
I finished "Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President" by Robert Dalleck in October. I normally avoid abridgements at all costs -- it feels like cheating! -- but this one was created by the author of a multi-volume biography, and I wasn't willing to expend quite so much time on LBJ. Even so, I seem to remember it was several hundred pages, so it was a compromise.
Before the book I hadn't known too much about Johnson except for a bit about his fight for civil rights. The book was eye-opening in many ways -- his early life and entry into politics come to mind, and especially his struggles during Vietnam. It also gave a glance into what we'll read about next, with Nixon.
I expect Nixon will be interesting but not exactly a fun read, so we might have to wait until the cold weather and snow go away before we choose the next book. It's hard to read about corruption when the temperatures outside are already so depressing.
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