· The President’s Club, Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity by Nancy Gibbs (’78) and her colleague at Time, Michael Duffy. This book is an authoritative history of the surprising ways presidents have learned from their predecessors. It breathes life into our presidents (from Truman to Obama) in unexpected combinations. Their depiction of Johnson gave me new insight into the loneliness of the presidency. No wonder our chiefs each sought out the few remaining who knew what the weight of the office felt like. From the symbiosis between Truman and Hoover, which effected the feeding of starving post WWII Europe, to the friendship struck up between former rivals Ford and Carter on the long plane ride back from Sadat’s funeral, to the unlikely collaboration between Clinton and Nixon, I was so often struck by amazing tidbits that my husband had to buy his own copy just so he could read in peace. (I see that Nancy is leaving Time after serving as its first woman editor-in-chief. I will watch with interest to see what she does next. I hope it’s write more books).
