Jay's Picks

The newest installment in the ambitious "American Presidents" series is Gail Collins' biography of William Henry "Tippecanoe" Harrison. If you are unfamiliar with this series, you should check it out. The publisher claims, "It is the aim of the series to present the grand panorama of our chief executives in volumes compact enough for the busy reader, lucid enough for the scholar. Each volume will be an incisive, meditation-length biographical essay that focuses on the subject's presidency, even as it offers a distillation of his life, character, and career." These are great reads. I highly recommend them, especially if you're interested in a concise biography of one of the lesser-known presidents. And most of them are lesser-known.

Isabel Wilkerson's inspiring story of the epic Great Migration of African Americans' journey from the deep south to the north and west. Ms. Wilkerson spent years researching and interviewing hundreds of people and collecting their stories. She focuses most of the book on three people with very different experiences and outcomes. For someone like me who knew very little about the Great Migration, this was eye-opening, heart-breaking, inspiring. It made me sad, angry, disgusted, ashamed -- but also amazed, astonished and hopeful. You will not soon forget Ida Mae, George, and Robert.

Oh my goodness read this book! Frans de Waal is a Dutch primatologist who has spent his career working with bonobos and chimpanzees. In his latest book he suggests that humans are not the only species capable of emotional responses like empathy and altruism. In fact, we have more in common with our animal forebears than once thought. I feel that anyone who's ever owned a dog or a cat knows that animals are extremely empathetic, loving and sensitive. You will love this book. Why we humans feel we hold the monopoly on such complex emotions is crazy to me. De Waal feels that we are, by nature, not merely selfish and warring -- we have inherited a great capacity for love and empathy too. Thank goodness!

OK, this is the definitive biography of Kentucky's first lady Mary Todd Lincoln. Jean Baker ferociously defends Mary's much-maligned behavior during her White House years as well as her difficult years after the assassination. Did you know Mary Lincoln's childhood home in Lexington is the only historic site dedicated to a First Lady? Rock on Mary! Rock on.

Larry McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove" is one of those novels that you say to yourself "Oh yeah, I'd like to read that someday." Well, what are you waiting for??!! McMurtry's story of Texas ranger's trek north to Montana is filled with adventure, love, betrayal, death, daring escapes, and glorious characters you will not soon forget. And when you're done, you must read "Comanche Moon," "Dead Man's Walk," and "The Streets of Laredo," the other books in the series. And then read everything else he's written. McMurtry is the greatest. I mostly read non-fiction...I make an exception, always, for Larry McMurtry.

I don't read much fiction, and it seems that when I do they are EPIC in size and scope. But "Pillars of the Earth" is one of those. A richly textured historical novel about the building of a medieval English cathedral and the generations of people that helped build it. Engrossing.