Enjoy a Book

Presidents' Day: 44 Reasons to Read

Douglas Brinkley's biography of Theodore Roosevelt, The Wilderness Warrior (2009), details this outdoorsman's life, beginning with his youthful days as an amateur ornithologist that were the roots of his passionate fight as U.S. president for the creation of national parks and the preservation of other natural areas.

In The Road to Monticello (2008), Kevin Hayes takes readers inside the head of Thomas Jefferson. He uses the third president's library and the marginal notes he left in the books he read to follow the evolution of Jefferson's intellect.

No one pairs the historical and the hysterical the way Sarah Vowell does. In Assassination Vacation (2005), she takes a sometimes laughable, sometimes irreverent, and sometimes very serious look at the murders of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. Who else but Vowell would travel the country to visit sites related to violent death and call it a vacation? Rick Steves, she's not.

And in Mark Updegrove's Baptism by Fire (2009), he examines how eight presidents who took office in times of crisis met the challenges they inherited. President Obama, you're in good company!

Ask a librarian to help you find these and other books about presidents, first ladies, vice presidents, history, and more.