Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Wintertime reading

I purchase very few books, either eBooks or real ones with paper pages.  The library satisfies most of my reading needs, now that it's possible to check out books for the Kindle or Nook from my easy chair at home.  Sometimes I will see a current book recommended that can only be found at the library in real-book form... as a matter of fact, I have one waiting for me now.  "The Oregon Trail: a New American Journey", a New York Times best seller.  We'll pick it up today.  
For some reason I decided that Margaret Truman's book about her father, Harry Truman, was worth paying for and bought the Kindle edition.  Thanks to the fact that Amazon lets Cliff read any book I purchase, we are both in the process of reading it on our devices.  Cliff is a lot farther along than I for the simple reason that I keep getting notice that one or another of the books I put on hold at the library is waiting for me.  Library books, of course, have to be read in a certain amount of time, so I take a break from the Truman biography to read them.  

We are both loving everything about the Truman book, and learning a lot, too.  The events during Harry Truman's presidency happened during our childhood, so neither of us knew much about that time in history.  The only thing I remember about Harry Truman from my childhood is that my parents didn't like him (staunch Republicans, you know) and that they had a poor opinion of Margaret's singing.

What I love best about the book are the many excerpts from letters Harry wrote during his life, and he must have written thousands.  You can't possibly read them without seeing the true nature of the man.  I've seen him describe national events to his mother and sister, to his wife and daughter, that put a whole different perspective on things than what history books would give.

I especially enjoy seeing the way he loved and interacted with his family in the letters.  He talks about himself in the third person when he writes to his daughter, calling her "sistie" and saying things like, "your old dad misses you", teasing her for not writing back to him and asking if her arm is broken.  

I've always been interested in Missouri's favorite son.  This book lets me get acquainted with him in a way I would never have thought possible.  I don't see how anyone could read the book and not love the man.  

5 comments:

  1. I remember reading that particular book, and I absolutely loved it. My first memory of a presidential election was when Dwight Eisenhower succeeded Truman in office, so Margaret's book about her dad fleshed out a lot of history for me. Thanks for reminding me.

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  2. I have read several books about Harry Truman... My aunt Helen luckey was his personal secretary at the truman library...If you look her up on Google you can see many pictures of her and truman...She was a civil servant at the time the library started she was the second person hired to help with the library...I went to the Truman library with her more than once. But as a kid I did not realize what an important job she had and how special she was...I was named after her. She was my Mom's middle sibling...She was very smart and very pretty and really thrived in a mans world...Only recently did I realize how special she must have been to get to the position she did...look her up....

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  3. I've gotten in the bad habit of buying books on the kindle app, just because the three week library loans can be tricky when I'm working. Once I retire, I'll be able to read more, I hope! I've always loved Harry Truman, a plain speaker like me. :) And a Democrat like me as well.

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  4. Sister Helen, Patsy told me all about that aunt of yours, and shared a picture of her from the Internet. We only communicated in the comment sections of our blogs, and I couldn't find where it was she told me all this, but she surely did. I will always regret that I didn't get to meet Patsy.

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  5. I will read this book.

    And oh I miss my Patsy!

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