Source: Excerpt from Jacob Weisberg's The Bush Tragedy (Random House, 2008), pp. 227-28.

2-1-08

Jacob Weisberg: Bush Reads History Narcissistically

[Mr. Weisberg is the editor in chief of Slate. His book is February's HNN Book of the Month.]

[George W.] Bush is not a historical ignoramus. Contrary to what many assume, he does have an appetite for books, which has grown larger during his White House years. If we take his own claims seriously, reading history has become not just a pastime, but the dominant activity of his second term. With three weeks left in 2006, Bush told one writer he had already read eighty-seven books that year, as part of a competition with Karl Rove (who was ahead at 102). This is an almost implausible load. Michiko Kakutani, the daily critic for The New York Times, reviewed only sixty-seven books in 2006--and Bush's list included Mao: The unknown Story (801 pages), American Prometheus, a biography of Robert Oppenheimer (784 pages), and The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History (546 pages). And this came on top of his daily Bible reading. The White House press office has declined to release a full list, and some of the books Bush mentioned to others were thrillers about world and damsel-saving heroes, including the Travis McGee mysteries by John D. MacDonald and George Fraser's Flashman series. But the bulk of his reading appears to be serious popular history.

Related Links
Alan Brinkley: Review of Weisberg's book in the NYT