I’m an investment banker, private pilot and avid fan of American history. I also enjoy Thai food, camping, Robert Ludlum novels and anything containing chocolate. And somehow I’ve ended up with a flower farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains…
Three decades ago I left Texas to attend Brown University and experience all four seasons. A few years later I left Rhode Island with a Chemical Engineering degree and the understanding that snow is seriously overrated.
Given my fascination with the presidency and love of great writing, in 2010 I began collecting the best biographies of each of the presidents. In late 2012 I embarked on a quest to read them all – beginning with George Washington.
This site was initially created to log my journey and organize my thoughts. But 260 presidential biographies later it has evolved into something a bit larger…
I finished my first pass through the presidents on Presidents’ Day 2019 – after six fascinating years. Now I’m reading presidential biographies from my follow-up list as well as great biographies of non-presidents.
That journey is being documented at http://www.thebestbiographies.com.
Stephen Floyd
January 2022
My Journey Through the Best Presidential Biographies 
As a frequent visitor, I was curious if you are still posting and sharing your wealth of knowledge with your readers?
Regards, BTP
Steve…is the Longevall JFK now 3 volumes? Any news from Thomas Knock on George McGovern?
Frank, the Logevall series looks to be 3 volumes when complete. Volume 2 should be out next year. Timing of volume 3 is only theoretical at this point (much like the last installment of Robert Caro’s series on LBJ…)
After more than a decade focused on biographies (most of which was directed at the presidents) I’m taking a few months “off” – catching up on some fiction, learning a foreign language and building up a backlog of presidential bios to read when I’m refreshed. Shouldn’t be too much longer as I only have the Harry Potter series left to get through before I get “serious” again 🙂
I just found your site and I’m very excited. One of my goals is to read a bio for each president and your list is invaluable for finding the best fit for me.
I hope you enjoyed the Harry Potter series. It is one of my family’s favorites!
Welcome aboard, and congrats on your presidential goal. You are sure to find it entertaining and enlightening!
Steve – just a note of thanks for this site. I’m a frequent visitor as I continue my journey through the presidents. I’m at 30/46 (counting GC twice). I sincerely appreciate the work you have put into this site.
Bill, thanks! I’m curious if you have an unexpectedly favorite president so far…or a biography that really impressed you?!?
Just letting you know I appreciate this site. I am working my way through the Presidents and your reviews are a very helpful guide.
I just wanted to comment how much I appreciate your work on here, Steve!
Hello Stephen – I started my biography journey last November and am currently on Martin Van Buren. You site has helped me choose which biographies to read – thanks. Question: you only reference two biographies for William Henry Harrison – the one by Robert Owens and the one written much earlier, in 1939 by Cleaves. There are a number of other options – do you have any updated feedback on any of them? E.g. – the columnist Gail Collins has written one.
I have not yet read any other bios of WHH including the Collins bio you referred to. But if I were in the mood to do so, I would almost certainly read that one next. Some of the American Presidents Series bios have been surprisingly good given the limitations inherent in their brevity. If you do read it, please let me know what you think so I can get to it sooner rather than later if it’s worthwhile…
Hi Stephen – just a note of appreciation. I use your impressive overview on this website to guide choice of reading when it comes to presidential biographies. Thank you for making this available. As a Dane and European, American political history continue to fascinate me as it is also the history of the modern world and the incessant pursuit of materialistic wealth and the “unfinished agenda” of democracy.
I’m often intrigued by the number of visitors my site gets from non-North American locations, and I’m always interested to hear “why,” so thanks for the note! With everything going on in US politics these days, it seems to me that anyone with a bit of intellectual curiosity (and honesty) should be fascinated by where democracy broadly (but also in a US context) finds itself and how we got here. I now frequently find myself wondering how the US made it more than two centuries without ending up with an “outlier” outcome such as the one we’re living through now. We’ve had some great presidents and some really regrettable ones, but the system has always steered itself toward a democratic center. I’m certainly curious to see where we head from wherever it is we are, and I do really wonder what historians in 50 or 100 years are going to think about US politics in the early 21st century…(!)
So glad to come across your website. I thought I was unusual with my interest of presidential bios, happily not. Some favorites include Vols. 1-4 of Caro’s LBJ, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals and The Bully Pulpit, and Candace Millard’s Destiny of the Republic. I look forward to keeping up with your website and your readers. Christine
Christine, there are a surprising number of people interested in presidential biographies…and quite a few who are determined to read at least one on every president! Your favorites list overlaps significantly with mine, and among my favorite authors are Caro, Chernow, Remini and DKG(!)
Steve,
I stumbled across your site in my own undertaking of completing all of the presidential bios. Thanks so much for the recommendations and rolodex of resources – it has certainly made this venture much easier.
So far, I’ve found McCullough’s Truman to rank among the top, and I had the pleasure of visiting the Truman Library in Missouri on a trip earlier this year. I took your recommendation and read Chernow’s Washington, which was also fantastic. I’m now challenging myself to complete something from the Guilded Age…slowly trucking through Margaret Leech’s In The Days of McKinley before likely going on to Eisenhower or Polk next. I’ve found that reading out of order keeps it most engaging for me.
Appreciate all of the work put into this blog. From one Texas Brunonian (class of 2019) to another, happy reading!
Sincerely,
Jacqueline D
Jacqueline, it’s great to hear from a fellow Brunonian (and a Texan at that!) Congrats on your own journey through each of the presidents – it’s a relatively audacious undertaking but well worth the effort. You have lots of choices on Eisenhower so if that’s your next stop I’m sure you’ll be pleased. Polk is hardly less interesting, though you have fewer choices in what to read (which is unsurprising given his lack of fame – or infamy, but surprising given how impactful his presidency proved to be). Keep in touch on what you’re reading and especially regarding what you loved. I’m particularly interested to see what you think about LBJ (I hope you take the plunge and decide to read the Caro series which, in my humble opinion, is worth the time) and Teddy Roosevelt. Both LBJ and TR are utterly fascinating. And I can’t wait to see what you decide to read on FDR and Lincoln who provide too many good choices…!
Reading update:
Hi Steve: Hard to believe it’s been seven years since I posted my schedule on your blog (July 2018), on this very comment thread about my plan to read (at least) one bio per president in neat quartets and quintets with the plan to end in 2027. (won’t waste bandwidth with my whole list), but I was supposed to be on the following:
2023 Becoming a World Power (McKinley, T. Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson)
2024 Roaring Twenties, Depression, Second World War (Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, FDR)
2025 The Cold War, Civil Rights and Vietnam, Zenith of the Democrats: (Truman, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon).
2026: The Age of Reagan (Ford, Carter, Reagan, HW Bush)
2027: Post-Cold War, Cyber revolution, global economy, Radical Islamic Terrorism (Clinton, W. Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden)
Well plans don’t always work out, so I found myself a bit behind going into 2020 and then, like a lot of the country I got a bid turned off by presidential reading in early 2021 as half the country thought we just got rid of James Buchanan, while the other half thought he was just sworn in. (Not commenting either way on which camp I was in 🙂 ) Also I had some health issues such as two replaced knees in 2023.
Also, I ended up doing two of Lincoln and two of Grant, so that added time and here I am finishing “The Bully Pulpit” (since there are no really good bios of Taft. Hope that new one comes out for my second go round, after this one.
So, adjusting the schedule, I just completed a whole year on Teddy Roosevelt with “Mornings on Horseback” ( a high school graduation gift from 1983, that I finally read), Morris’s trilogy, (“Rise of Roosevelt” was amazing. One of the best bios I have ever read), “River of Doubt” and finally the one-two punch of Teddy and Taft with “Bully Pulpit.” Plan to finish the year with Scott Berg’s “Wilson.”
And then:
2026: Harding – FDR
2027: Truman – Nixon
and then 2028: things get crowded again. I never finished Steve Heyward’s second book of “Age of Reagan” so that was going to be Gipper #1 and I picked up Brands’ “Reagan” at some point. Then I saw that you had the highest rating for Bob Spitz’s book, which I bought, and then at Half Price books saw the double set of Lou Cannon’s tomes (Hey, need a critical book on the Gipper) and couldn’t help myself, bought Morgan’s book as well!
So, as I see it now it will be:
2028-29: Ford – GW Bush
And finally: 2030: Clinton – Trump II:
WE will be at least a year into Trump’s successor and, this is a personal point, I don’t care whether it’s JD Vance (or another GOP nominee) or a Democrat, in my view, this will be the start of a brand new quartet or quintet. Trump will put the coda on the last 30 years, and we will start again.
Just an update: Hope you are doing well.
So much to unpack here! First, welcome back with the update! It’s always interesting to see where judicious readers / presidential bio enthusiasts choose to spend their time. I really enjoyed your bit on TR – I thought Morris was great and vividly recall being totally entranced by River of Doubt (I even convinced my then-middle-school-aged kids to read it which got me a gold star from their mom…)
It’s going to be fun tracking your progress into 2026 an 2027. Will be busy for sure! Keep me updated-
Steve, we all are unique, every one of us. And, following, “you shall not covet” I shall not be jealous of your reading genius (love emoji, smile emoji.) Having said that, you are over the top gifted at reading – what a mind you have for reading! Thanks for your website. Bless you – may you live a long life and put all of your reading to good use. Warmest regards, Rebekah