Reading: Oh, the people you’ll meet and the stuff you will learn

An earlier stack of reading material: some finished, some not

 Lately, two of my blogger/ writer/ reader friends have posted photos on Facebook books they’d read, or were reading, during a given time—a month, say. Except for the one who was reading MY latest book, I didn’t bother to investigate their comments or reviews. I’ve also read where many writers interviewed by the New York Times Book Review read several books at a time.

            With all the books available here, I decided to read one chapter in each of five books during the late evenings before retiring. Since I don’t read in bed, I made a sitting place on the loveseat in front of a tall table lamp. A coffee table holds the books, plus a stack of newer ones to begin as I finish one of the five. All of the ones on deck are by friends.

My eldest child is a voracious reader. At first, he devoured Civil War books. Then he moved to other wars; heavy stuff.

One day, David Shribman, of the Post-Gazette, whose column runs in the Saline Courier, listed the latest and newest books about presidents of the past. I emailed Gordon the list and offered to give him two for Christmas. He chose William Henry Harrison, and Coolidge. I ordered them posthaste.

The Coolidge tome was T-H-I-C-K; I knew a little about him, but I’d never learned about President Harrison. It was T-H-I-N, so I decided to read it.

Oh, the likenesses of the 1840 presidential campaign compared with the one we just lived through: name-calling, protests, riots, fake news and all. Author Gail Collins will surely allow me to quote from her book the following two instances.

If tweeting were possible in 1840, Horace Greeley’s analysis of the Jacksonian Democrats would have sounded like this: “[Blarney [tweet] Before Election] “Dear People! Nobody but us can imagine how pure patriotic, shrewd and sagacious you are. You can’t be humbugged! You can’t be misled! . . . You are always right as a book and nobody can gum you. In short, you are O.K.” (218 characters-- it would have taken two tweets to say it all.)

 But after the American Whigs and 67-year-old William Henry Harrison beat the Democrats and foiled Martin Van Buren’s second term, Greeley’s “tweet” to his party members went like this: "[Blarney After Election] You miserable, despicable, know-nothing, good-for-nothing rascals. . . Led away by Log Cabin fooleries! Gummed by coonskins! . . . Dead drunk on hard cider! Senseless, beastly, contemptible wretches! Go to the devil!”

I wonder what President Trump might have tweeted if he’d lost to Mrs. Clinton.

The American Whig Party, not directly related to the British Whigs, originally formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party. The Whigs supported the supremacy of the U.S. Congress over the Presidency and favored a program of modernization, banking, and economic protectionism to stimulate manufacturing. It appealed to entrepreneurs, planters, reformers and the emerging urban middle class, but had little appeal to farmers or unskilled workers. It included many active Protestants, and voiced a moralistic opposition to the Jacksonian Indian removal. Party founders chose the "Whig" name to echo the Whigs of the 18th century who fought for independence. (Wikipedia)

So much stuff I didn't know. Thank goodness for books. Oh, and I reviewed this book on Amazon.