My US President Biography Reading Project

Page created: 2026-04-26
Draft!
 This page is a draft and may be incomplete, incorrect, or just a stub or outline. I've decided to allow myself to put draft pages on my website as an experiment. I'm hoping they will:
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Sometime in 2025, I got the idea that I would like to learn the history of my country by reading biographies of the Presidents of the United States.

In my younger days, I always tried to find the "best" book on a subject so I could learn the subject in one pass and move on. But my new wiser, older brain has learned the value of different perspectives. I knew there would be a fair amount of overlap between the presidents. My hope was that the different perspectives would give me a better, more well-rounded view of various historical events.

But I was on the fence about how much overlap I wanted. After reading a wonderful account of Washington’s entire life, followed by a book focused almost entirely on John Adam’s presidency, I made up my mind: I wanted more than just the overlap of administrations. I wanted as much overlap of lives as I could get.

In searching for biographies, I found this wonderful website by Stephen Floyd:

https://bestpresidentialbios.com/

"Given my fascination with the presidency and love of great writing, in 2010 I began collecting the best biographies of each of the presidents. In late 2012 I embarked on a quest to read them all – beginning with George Washington."

What I love about Steve’s reviews is that he doesn’t just say "this is the best one", but lists several recommended books for each president depending on what type of book you’d like to read. This has been extremely helpful since I’ve decided I want to read whole-life biographies which contain details and context outside of just the presidency itself and I want to read fairly entertaining books that are fun to read.

The books (most recent first) - TODO: link to the individual reviews!