Casanova Was a Book Lover

I've been dabbling in a book I recently found in my own boxes of
stored-away books.

Casanova Was a Book Lover and Other Naked Truths and
Provocative Curiosities About the Writing, Selling, and Reading
of Books by John Maxwell Hamilton published in 2000 by the
Louisiana State University Press

The section on politicians who wrote is preceded by a quote from
Dan Qualye's 1989 Christmas Card:
"May our nation continue to be a beakon [sic] of hope"

And H.L. Mencken commenting that Warren G. Harding wrote
"the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a
string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line;
it reminds me of stale beansoup, of college yells, of dogs barking
idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur
creeps into it."

After referring to all the presidential book authors who didn't actually
write their own books, Hamilton notes: "Jimmy Carter is the lone
modern president who may qualify as a legitimate author..... His
campaign biography, however, has all the style of a high school term
paper; his poetry is not poetic; and memoirs such as Keeping Faith
and Living Faith are cloyingly self-righteous......One exception is his
book on fishing. It is almost lyrical, says Leo Ribuffo, a historian
working on a study of the Carter presidency."

He reminds us that when Ronald Reagan's former press secretary,
Larry Speakes, "revealed that he had manufactured quotes for the
Great Communicator and didn't bother to show them to the president
beforehand........Speakes lost his cushy job at Merrill Lynch Pierce
Fenner and Smith as a result. As for Reagan, he said he hadn't noticed
that Speakes was putting words in his mouth."

"Kennedy's authorship of Profiles in Courage is intensely debated,"
Hamilton writes, "Historian Herbert Parmet has made the strongest
case that blue-ribbon historians gave liberal counsel, the Library of
Congress staff and others did substantial research, and various
people drafted chapters. Nevertheless, Kennedy went on to describe
the book as his own work and accepted the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for
biography the way a full-fledged author would. One of the real
authors, Jules David, a Georgetown University professor, received
seven hundred dollars cash and no royalties."

Two of our worst presidents, Grant and Hoover, were two of the best
writers, and they did write their own books.

About Clinton: "remember that [his] troubles over Monica Lewinsky
began with onetime White House staffer Linda Tripp's book idea..."

Hamilton's book was published before he could evaluate the present
occupant of the White House whose one famous connection with a
book was when he continued reading My Pet Goat to school children
after being informed of the 9/11 attacks. Perhaps he found the story
too engrossing to stop.

Other sections include books published after an author is dead, either
by them or written by others: "W.I.P. Write in Peace". The Ten Most
Stolen Books, with the Bible being Number One, book reviewing,
author tours, book contracts, bestseller lists, and so forth. There is
much interesting and solid information as well as all the trivia, and it is
fun to read.

It was the very book to thumb through and read at random while I sat
in a medication - induced stupor - Got over the cold, I thought, but it
relapsed into bronchitis.

Get a copy of this book for reading when you don't feel like
concentrating too hard, or for when you can only read in snatches.