My brother Bill from Oregon recommended this book. It’s a great companion to Undaunted Courage which is one of my favorite books of all time. Though not as compelling or as historically rich as Undaunted Courage, this is a great story of 1812-era America and the foresight of John Jacob Astor as he tried to […]

Here is my second Pulitzer Prize book to read this year. This one is so much more approachable for me, because it is a book of great literature disguised as a book about history. It juxtaposes two lives: a blind young woman from France and a young engineer from Germany during the rise and fall […]

My dad has always loved Mark Twain, so I reread or read for the first time – Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, and Roughing It were all wonderful. I laughed out loud on several of the passages. Common sense goes a long way, and Twain loves characters who either mock or defy common sense.