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More Book beastThe Best-Read Presidents
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In honor of Presidents' Day, The Daily Beast ranks the top 19 presidents who were the most avid readers and book collectors, from James Buchanan to Theodore Roosevelt. Plus, find out what books they read.
We judge our presidents on their economic, military, and political accomplishments, but what of their reading? Is there perhaps a connection between the best-read presidents and those who sit near the top of rankings of the best presidents in history? The Daily Beast scoured biographies, presidential libraries, and available records to come up with our list of the presidents who were the most avid readers. The list is based on the size of their libraries, references to their reading habits, and what the types of books they read. From FDR’s 22,000-volume library to Thomas Jefferson’s reading in several different languages, we’ve compiled the ultimate presidential bibliophile list.
View Our Gallery Of The Bibliophile Presidents
Next we compared our results to a recent C-SPAN poll of prominent historians ranking the best presidents in American history. The results are not surprising—the top-ranked presidents all made our list near the top of presidential readers. There are a few surprises like Millard Fillmore, surely a justly forgotten president, who also happened to be responsible for creating the White House library.
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AngryJ
I love how the pictured link to this list suggests Obama is one of the best read Presidents...I guess reading your Blackberry emails doesn't count. Of course, they did add Bill Clinton...which surprises me because I thought reading a McDonalds Menu wouldn't count either...
sandyej
AngryJ is hurling accusations with the speed of the wind and might want to remember that Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar - hardly an indicator of a non-reader.
Get thee to the library, o AngryJ!
AngryJ
My point about Clinton was meant to be funny, which I still think it is. No doubt he is well read, I think he is very intelligent. I just had to take a dig at him because I could...my thoughts on Obama remain the same.
Picachu
You are probably angry because your head is so far up your ass it cuts off oxygen to the brain, simulating Alzheimers, which often causes its victims to go into fits of rage. You are just a scared angry little man who is frustrated because the world isn't what you think it ought to be. BTW Obama - first in harvard law graduating class - likewise not likely to be a non-reader. You however, the last thing you read was probably a birther or teabagger web site. Of course you probably don't need to read, because Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck tell you what to think, so why bother.
flyoverland
I've never heard he graduated "first" at Harvard. Is that accurate, or are you confusing being editor of the law review?
jkim83
yeah I think Obama was selected by his classmates as editor of the Law Review. I don't think it corresponded with his ranking in class. I'll admit that Obama is an intellectual but even the slide said that being well-read doesn't necessarily translate into being a good president.
AngryJ
Picachu, nice name, unfortunately reading Manga will never help become someone who is considered "well read." Also, I am sensing a much greater sense of anger from you, so I suggest you pull your head out of your ass.
On the note of Obama. The New York Times claimed "He was the First Black to be elected to Head the Harvard Law Review." A prestigious role indeed, but it has little to do with how much he read as Harvard stopped using GRADES as a basis in 1970. He was ELECTED by 80 other PEERS. Historically significant - sure, prestigious - definitely, requirements - a vote.
Oh BTW, He is actually half black and half white. Last time I checked, skin color doesn't mean jack sh!t, if I wanted to bring race into this I could say it was his white half that helped him. Though I believe you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover...pun intended.
The last thing I read was your silly response, time that would have been better spent reading....well anything...even Manga.
camper
I don't care what anyone else says...Jack Kennedy is the only only president mentioned who could be called a redhead and even then it might be an exageration.
CoddledEgg
The list is pretty good with a little bit of politicking thrown in.
Nixon should probably be much higher- he is one of the smartest people ever to be President. Hoover is also is inexplicably low for someone who did his own Latin translations.
Lincoln is way, way too high. They have him between a guy who has a personal library of 7,000 book and one who read in 4 languages. What is "he read deeply" even supposed to mean?
Msbeachwood
Such vitriol! You certainly are angry(J)
PamB12
AngryJ----WHAT are you angry at? Clinton left our economy 100 times better than what he found it! Obama thrown into the biggest mess ever created by Republicans. Are you one of those sheeple that the Republicans convinced that Democrats are gonna ask you for an extra dollar? I would gladly go back to Clinton's tax structure, if we got the Surplus instead of deficit, the JOBS , the housing market, the Stock Market results, etc. Why do you guys hate America so much, you would rather let a Republican get back in office, and do what you just watched for 8 years? BTW, did bush ever finish that coloring book , or My Pet Goat?
reardongalt
If Clinton wasn't so busy getting his Vienna Sausage worked on, he would have told Sandy Burglar to authorize the Special Forces take the shot on Bin Laden when they had him in their sites on three separate occasions.
3000 Americans would still be alive.
We love America. It's you and the rest of the Moocher Class that we hate.
word2thewyz
reardongalt's probably doesn't want you to remember that when Clinton did launch missiles at bin Laden, his critics responded by yelling "Wag the Dog!" And it wasn't Clinton who let bin Laden escape from Tora Bora.
AngryJ
PamB12, I am one of those hard working people that pays enough taxes to cover your welfare check and food stamps, you should be more polite to me.
pennsykid2000
Typical comments from someone ill-informed. Clinton was a Rhodes scholar and Yale Law grad, Obama editor in chief of Harvard Law Review. How could either one not be well-read? If you'd bothered to read "Dreams from my father" then you'd know that only someone very well-read could have written such a fine memoir. He's not included in this list because it covers past presidents.
Msbeachwood
I don't think you can teach at the University of Chicago and not be well read. Obama was elected president of the the Law review because at the time there was a real political polarization at the Law School, and the more conservative law students felt that they could work with Obama. He was not an ideologue.
Apaw-1
Hey pennsykid2000. You're right. This list covers past presidents. So, why is Obama's picture shown between JFK and FDR? It's because the media is always on the alert to show Obama in the most favorable light. Many people won't go into the gallery of photos to see the ranking and conclude that Obama was rated right up there with them. My comments do not mean that I think Obama isn't well read, he is. It's how the media treats him.
camfield
Apaw-1:
Perhaps it's because Obama is pictured carrying a book, his place marked with his fingers.
Apaw-1
Hey, camfield, I still don't understand why any photo of Obama was inserted between JFK and FDR, even if he was hold a book. The photo might suggest that Obama reads, but we already should know that. He's even probably well read. But, Obama is NOT a past president and, therefore, was excluded from this survey. Also, his photo should NOT have appeared here either. Don't you just love it when the media is on your side?
Msbeachwood
Yeah, We need to call out Fox News and CNN on their biased coverage of Obama. They are just too much.
designerwoman
Angry and ill informed. Who are these people? Is there any hope for bipartisan spirit?
Jack McKee
No mention of Harry Truman, one of the most voracious presidential readers of the 20th century? One look at the last photo in David McCullough's popular biography of Truman -- books piled everywhere -- shows what a bad omission this is. And FDR wasn't, frankly, much of a reader. He was a rare book collector.
word2thewyz
Agreed. Anyone familiar with Harry Truman knows what a reader he was. One of his favorite sayings was "the only thing new in the world is the history you haven't read." Assuming a book collector is well-read is like assuming that a wine collector is a drunk.
RobbyS
About JFK. Horse manure. Calvin Coolidge, who was a Greek scholar, was better read than Jack. And compared with TR, none of these guys compares. Teddy had what they used to call a photographic memory. Jefferso, of course, had a great librasry. On the other side, Lincoln was not much of a reader. Bill Herndon would get a whole crate pf books from the east and invite Lincoln to share them. But --according to Herndon--Lincoln did not read much besides the Bible, Shakespeare, and the papers. I think he had lazy eye and so was a slow reader.
winston1
obama is an avid reader of Saul Aliksky's handbook.
WalterR
This article demonstrates that reading, while useful, does not automatically endow a president with wisdom. Buchanan, while well read, was worse than useless as a president. Carter was the worst president in my lifetime. A somewhat more revealing statistic is number of books written by a president that are still read years after their presidency.
jmckee
Carter the worst of your lifetime? Did you die before W became president?
BellaFurie
Richard Nixon may have admired the works of "conservative historian Paul Johnson", but only after he left office. Until that time, Johnson was a socialist, becoming conservative in the mid-to-late '70s.
If Nixon, while President, was reading Johnson, then he was absorbed by the thinking of a left-wing, British intellectual, as well as that of Tolstoy, a Russian, pacifist, anarchist.
This suggests chilling alternatives: that reading fine writing offers little influence, or that it offers a moderating influence.
Msbeachwood
Does the concept that you might read material that doesn't bolster what you think you already know mean anything?
We would all do well to keep our minds open to workable solutions; it is the only way forward.
It is interesting to note that Richard Nixon and Ted Kennedy were very close to closing to an agreement on universal health care. In his book Ted Kennedy states that his greatest regret is having held out for too much, and allowing the deal the collapse.
BellaFurie
>Does the concept that you might read material that doesn't bolster what you think you already know mean anything?<
- A fair point. However, this article claims Nixon's "favourite authors" were Johnson and Tolstoy, which I find hard to believe, particularly during his presidency. Most people who read widely are drawn to writers with different opinions from their own, but it's unlikely they would be "favourite".
Perhaps Nixon's Quaker upbringing influenced any sympathy he had for universal health care.
MadCharles
What books does Obama read ? No one seems to know and nobody asked during the campaign.
word2thewyz
It's a media conspiracy; alert the Teabaggers! But before you do, you might want to consider the possibility that your statement is total crap. I can't tell you how many times I heard and read last year about Obama's being influenced by reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,"
Perhaps YOU are the one who's not well-read...
Msbeachwood
If you really wanted to know the answer to this all you have to do google WHAT DOES OBAMA READ. Lots of entries, IF YOU CARE TO READ THEM.
msshay
I don't think you can get leadership abilities out of a book. A good background in history, I'm guessing would have to be a help. The president with a degree from Yale in history is BUSH! I suppose, that wouldn't count beings its Bush.
So far the only thing BRILLIANT I know about Obama, is the news people TELLING me he's brilliant. Don't see any signs of it personally. UNLESS, he wants America to fail, then he really is brilliant. Obama COULD end all of this by unsealing his records!
jeffb01
I always heard that JFK was the reason James Bond became so popular. The way I heard it, he was on vacation and the newspaper asked him what he was reading right now. He listed off a bunch of books that weren't exactly "easy reading". The one exception was "from russia with love". As a result, the book became a bestseller.
Foreignobserver
I am not an American, but like many all over the world I pay attention to the conversations. I believe the book in Mr. Obama's hand in this picture is Post American World by Fareed Zakaria, and having read it myself can say it is an excellent read. I recall the press making great fanfare of Mr. Obama's reading of Doris Kearns Goodwin's A Team of Rivals, and having an interest in knowing what stimulates the mind of an American president, I read that one. An amazing account of the life, work and impact of Abraham Lincoln, an extraordinary Republican. I am amazed at the direction that this topic has taken. I never imagined that the topic of what presidents read could be so emotive. God Bless America!
AlexHamilton
I'm a little shocked since, regardless what you opinions are on him (I could give two shits), George W. Bush was pretty much the most widely read president ever. Not too sure about the likes of Madison etc. but one of Bush's "things" was that he reads 5 books per week or something crazy. Principally military history. Fnar fnar, yes should have spent more time being president than reading, very droll, but still, in this list, credit where it's due.
apparently
This is true. I know advisors and friends of W's who would recommend a book that related to particular historical events that might help him. He'd read it quickly and write them with intellectual reviews of the book, ask questions and their opinions. One has to wonder about this list ...it seems more political than factual, doesn't it?
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