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Friday, May 07, 2004
Big Brother or the Wave of the Future
The Biographer
Yesterday I met Ron Chernow, whose biography of Alexander Hamilton is receiving praise from all corners these days. As we discussed the promising sales of the new book, Chernow expressed concern about the many headline-grabbing political books that threaten to drown out his new biography. According to Chernow, the folks at Penguin, navigating the crowded release calendar, deliberated over the "street date" and took special care to avoid overlapping with Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack. Before there was any release date to worry about, Chernow spent years researching the book and sifting through the voluminous papers of the prolific writer. He even uncovered some previously undiscovered writing that Hamilton had done as a stringer for newspapers in New York. I asked Chernow what he's reading at the moment, and he said, almost sheepishly, that these days he feels obligated to keep up with books about Hamilton's era because he is always asked about this or that new book at his many speaking engagements. Among his favorites from the recent crop are An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America by Henry Wiencek and "Negro President" : Jefferson and the Slave Power by Garry Wills.It Begins Again
It was inevitable. It looks like The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason may succeed The Da Vinci Code as the next pseudo-religious, conspiracy theory, mega-blockbuster bestseller.- C. Max Magee @ 11:27 AM ~ comments: 0 ~
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