I’m not quite sure where I picked up The Adams Chronicles: Four Generations of Greatness by Jack Shepherd [1975, Little, Brown and Company, ISBN 0-316-78497-4]. It cost me $2.00, whereas it sold new, at its second printing in 1976, for $17.50, and used at a previous time for $5.98. I bought it thinking it would be a good history read. It was, and I’m glad I parted with the two.

The book covers four generations of the Adams family, beginning with John, second president. he was the fourth generation of Adamses born in America, but the first we know anything about. For many years history regarded him as almost an accidental founding father—an elitist, a monarchist, a distruster of rule by the people. More recent scholarship has returned him to a place of prominence among the American revolutionaries.

Much of John Adams’ writings fueled the Revolution. An example is his recording of James Otis’ argument, in 1761, against the Writs of Assistance. Since Otis was later deranged and burned most of his personal papers, most of what we know of this opening salvo of rebellion against England comes from John Adam’s notes. I was happy that Adams wrote an opinion about this event that accords with my own: “Independence was then and there born.”

John Quincy Adams is treated fairly by the book. His diplomatic successes, his failed presidency, his later Congressional career, and his efforts against slavery and for the Union are all described. I knew less about him than I had about John, and this book went a long way toward filling my educational gap.

I knew even less about the next two generations, having heard of Charles Francis Adams but knowing nothing about him or his career or his sons. They are treated in the book in less depth than the two presidents, which I suppose should be expected. Charles Francis Adams and his four sons who lived to adulthood—John Quincy II, Charles Francis Jr, Henry, and Brooks—spent less and less time with politics and more with literary and business pursuits.

Charles Francis Adams had a diplomatic and political career, even being considered for nomination as presidential candidate once, but he also spent much time editing his grandparents’ and father’s writings. Charles Francis Jr. began as a journalist but went into railroads, becoming president of the Union Pacific Railroad until he was forced out just before the Panic of 1893. Henry Adams did mostly writing, primarily of history but also a couple of novels. John Quincy II had a political career, trying to rebuild the Democratic party after the Civil War. Brooks, the youngest, had the least paragraphs in the book. He led a quiet life of writing and described himself as “a crank, very few people can endure to have be near them…as soon as I join a group of people they all melt away and disappear.”

The author made a valid attempt to show the family’s faults alongside their good qualities; yet I sense he was not neutral (duh; the subtitle tells me that). He generally likes the Adamses and sees them as a positive force in American history. The writing is good and captivating. It took me only fourteen sessions to get through the 452 pages, including the historo-babble filled Introduction by Daniel J. Boorstin. The book is well illustrated, and has an adequate index.

By 21st century standards, the book can be faulted for its lack of documentation. It has no footnotes. Thus it would be classified as a popular rather than a scholarly history. The bibliography implies the author relied primarily on original family writings. Some notes as to sources would have been nice.

While this is a good book, a worthwhile read, it is not a keeper. If I do any more study on the Adamses I would want to do it from the primary sources. As soon as I note a few things from the bibliography, off to the garage sale pile it goes.

It used to be that I picked up most books about the JFK assassination and read and kept them. Then I started picking up bios of JFK, always used. In June I bought at a thrift store A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy by Thomas C. Reeves (1991, Prima Publishing, ISBN 1-55958-196-4). I began reading it right away, finishing its 491 pages (including notes) in about a week.

The opening paragraph of the Preface is instructive:

It seems that I have always liked John F. Kennedy. I first saw him on television in 1956 when I was an undergraduate. The young senator was courageously struggling at his party’s national convention to win the vice presidential nomination, and I was taken with his good looks, energy, inspiring language, and grace in defeat. A look at Kennedy’s credentials as a war hero, intellectual, and liberal convinced me that he had a splendid future.

That tells the framework of where the author is coming from, but you sense a “but” coming. The Preface goes on to describe how the early biographies and memoirs of JFK were totally positive, what he later terms the Camelot School of Kennedy historians. Such people as Schlesinger, Sorensen, O’Donnell and Powers rushed out books that showed JFK to be a president who would have been envied by both Washington and Lincoln had they been alive.

But the “but” comes. By 1975, twelves years after Dealy Plaza, the literature began to take on some negatives. By 1977 it was exploded by Judith Cambell Exner’s book revealing her affair with him. In the decade after that, the Camelot School did their best to maintain the illusion of excellence of JFK’s life and presidency, but it was only a matter of time until more truthful, more balanced books and articles began to come forth.

Some time ago I read Seymour Hersh’s The Dark Side of Camelot, published in 1997 but researched beginning around 1992. I was shocked at some of what I read in that. Well, not really shocked, as I had already come to know that JFK was not the man many thought he was. But before that book I assumed his failings were in personal character, not in his job duties.

Hersh exploded that myth. Except it had already been exploded by Reeves, five years earlier. Hersh spent a lot of time on Kennedy’s womanizing. Reeves does also, but he goes more into the failings in doing the job Kennedy was elected to do, as well as in credentials. Here are some of the items that are well explained.

• PT 109 and war record. I need to read some more on this, but Reeves says that in all of WW2 one, and only one, PT boat was ever rammed by a Japanese ship, and that was PT109, under JFK’s watch. The reason: these boats were so fast that they could easily out maneuver a much larger vessel. That this PT boat was rammed was a blight on JFK’s war record. He showed some heroics in rescuing his men, but it was an apparent lapse on his part that cause the boat to be sunk in the first place.
• Profiles In Courage. I had heard something about this book being significantly edited, by Ted Sorensen, and that JFK should not have been given full credit for it, certainly not a Pulitzer. But Reeves shows convincingly that Kennedy had almost nothing to do with the writing. Sorensen did it all, including the research. And the Pulitzer was won because papa Joe Kennedy bought it. As I say, Reeves is quite convincing.
• Kennedy’s health. Hersh showed how JFK’s health was a basket case, which seemed to be at its best right when he became president. Reeves fills in some gaps Hersh left out (or, since Reeves came before Hersh, that Hersh decided didn’t need to be covered). Massive doses of medicinal drugs and “feel-good cocktails” kept JFK going. Reeves says even Jackie took amphetamines with JFK.
• Work ethic. Reeves explodes the myth (and Hersh spread the ashes) of JFK supposedly being a hard worker as president, as he had been a slackard legislator. At first he barely worked half a day, though later the demands of office grew on him and he was forced to put in longer hours. One disturbing event Reeves documents is the separation of Kennedy from the nuclear football, when JFK furtively traversed tunnels under New York City to get to a two-hour stand. And Reeves speculates that, given JFK’s normal MO, this could have happened many times.
• Political expediency. Reeves says JFK had no core of beliefs upon which to base policies. Everything he did (except maybe the Cuban Missile Crisis) was done based on “what will get me re-elected?” This is why he became ineffective in dealing with Congress; of course, many of them did not respect Kennedy because of his poor record as representative then senator. But this book is quite revealing in how the political calculation pretty much trumped any consideration of “what is best for America?”

I’m out of time for tonight, but will come back to this in another post in a day or two. Let me say the book is well worth the read if you can find it, even at full price instead of 50 cents as mine cost. It’s going into my library.

I’m not done with my taxes. Made little progress over a snowy weekend, but made excellent progress last night. So I now feel comfortable taking an evening to write things I enjoy, such as a book review of How Now Shall We Live? by Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcy [Tyndale House Publishers, 1999, ISBN 0-8423-1808-9]. I finished reading this on March 9, after having begun it Feb 11. I took a couple of more days to go through some of the notes that I skipped while reading, then brought it to the Dungeon to write my review. It sat docilely on my work table awaiting this day.

I picked this book up used, for $1.99, at some used book store. I bought it more because of Coulson’s name and having liked the two or three of his books I’ve read before. I didn’t really know what it was about, even from a little bit of reading on the dust jacket. It’s about world view, specifically Christian worldview. So it agrees with a buzz-word topic of the 00 decade.

The book was somewhat heavy to get through, despite Coulson’s and Pearcy’s attempts at lightness and levity. Points of what a Christian world view consists of are illustrated with personal stories, both true and made-up, of people who lived out certain points: the New York cop who walked a beat and made a difference as he modeled Christ to those he encountered (true); a Hollywood producer who had to make choices about his films (fictional); and others.

Those were good. Actually, there’s nothing wrong with the rest of the book. Coulson explains that everyone has a worldview, and that worldview must answer three primary questions:

Where did we come from and who are we?
What has gone wrong with the world?
What can we do to fix it?

This leads into the section titled per the book: How now shall we live (i.e., in response to answers to the first three questions)? Coulson and Pearcy do an excellent job presenting the Christian answers to the three primary questions, and backing those answers up with a variety of references, both scriptural and extra-scriptural.

The book has extensive notes, which serve as a sort of reference to the Christian worldview. In fact, the entire book is almost a reference book, rather than a reading book. Oh, you can’t just jump into the middle, find a subject, and expect to use the book in refuting arguments against non-Christian worldviews–that is, unless you’ve already read the book. If you have, then you can use it as a pure reference book, with the excellent notes, index, and bibliography.

I will come back another day and write some more about this, as I don’t think I’ve done it justice. It’s 491 pages of text (plus notes, bibliography, and index) are, as I’ve said before, a bit difficult to sit with and read it cover to cover. But I’ll give my standard wrap-up in this post, and save a more detailed analysis for another day. This book was definitely worth the price, and would have been at full price. It’s a keeper, and shall be permanently in my library among its Christian counterparts. If you have not read much on worldview, this would be an excellent book to start with. Read it with concentration, and unhurriedly.

I would write more, but I’m anxious to write several other things tonight, including a political piece on friend Chuck’s blog. The wife went to OKC today to help with daughter, son-in-law, and grandson. I went straight from work to critique group tonight, but was the only one to show up. Must have had my signals crossed. Now I must use the solitude wisely.

This one I picked up somewhere–a used book store or thrift store, I think–because of Twain’s fame. As a writer, I should read what was successful, even if long ago, and see if I can learn from it.

I put this one in the reading pile somewhat arbitrarily, after Foxes Book of Martyrs and before Coulson’s How Now Shall We Live, trying to mix up new and old, fiction and non-fiction. This was a good place for it. Twain’s humor comes through in every short story, and I needed some humor. Some of it cause me to laugh out loud.

But, being a little less than half way through, I am laying it aside. Why? It’s just too much all at once. So far the forty stories I’ve read have all been humorous, none dramatic. Oh, the humor has its dramatic moments, such as encounters with thieves in “The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm”, though the drama quickly turns to humor.

They have all been excellently written in the first person, which gets tiring. Even when Twain uses a third person narrator, the narrator talks to the reader and finds a reason to switch to the first person point of view of the one he is narrating about. Writing gurus caution against too much use of the first person. Twain does it well, but it’s all too much and I’m laying it aside.

The stories vary in length, which is good. While more deal with western USA setting than other regions, Twain does situate some stories in other places, which is good. One tires of all western venues; it becomes too much.

Twain does not spoon feed his readers. He lets us think for ourselves and find the humor in his subtleties. And Twain is certainly subtle. His humor is that of the straight man in a comedy duo–Abbot rather than Costello, Laurel rather than Hardy, Rowen rather than Martin. Occasionally, however, Twain takes the voice of a vaudevillian story teller or a California tall tale teller. All this is good.

Tonight I finished “The Diary of Adam and Eve,” its twenty-two pages a two-night read. I knew it would be a hoot when it started: “Monday. This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way.” And it was a hoot.

But its all too much and I am laying it aside, placing it somewhere lower in my reading pile. I’ll come back to it. Twain wrote these over fifty years, and designed each to be a complete read in itself, not to be read collectively. Perhaps that’s why it’s all too much. But come back to it I shall, at its next appointed time in the reading pile.