Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the Men of the White House

I love books that profile the Presidents and there are many different angles to be explored out there. Here is yet another entry that says it deals with "secret lives." A bit of a teaser that line as one may think we have some very intriguing and unknown tales between the covers. Well kind of, what we get is a synopsis of what their terms produced, mostly common knowledge. But after this, topics are brought up unique to each man (yep still all men) some which has been out there before and some new uncovered material.

In chronological order we see the blemishes and peccadillos of each and every one exposed for what they were or did. I'm don't know anything of Cormac O'Brien (could he be related to Conan?)but one does soon enough get a show more glimpse into his political orientation particularly toward our more recent occupants. President Obama portrayed as an all round cool guy. El Presidente Donald, not so much. In fact he provides quite a buffet of venom venting here. In general a fun read with insights into the oh so real people that took up the mantle. show less

You can read my full review here: https://thebeerthrillers.com/2023/04/26/book-review-secret-lives-of-the-u-s-pres....

Excerpt:

"The book is pretty straight forward. Each chapter is about 3 – to – 4 pages and covers each preisdent in sequential order. Some are a little bit more interesting than others, and some are a bit more ‘known’ than others (in the sense that its not bizarre weird trivia about the person).

(I can only imagine if they make an edition of this when it gets to Donald Trump.) For the most part, a lot of the chapters are typical histories of their time in office and their greatest scandals / offenses, with bits of esoteric knowledge of each president thrown in.

It is interesting to see what level of scandals show more different presidents have, and how thats impacted their political careers and how well their time in office went. It certainly seems like the scandals have ramped up over time. What “passed” for scandals in the 1800s and early 1900s are just mere blips on most Presidential tenures these days. "
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Full review here: https://thebeerthrillers.com/2023/04/26/book-review-secret-lives-of-the-u-s-pres.... show less

At first glance, this seems to be a somewhat crass look at the presidents, one that's content to dig up dirt on all of them and isn't concerned about any actual history. In point of fact, while it's written with a certain amount of irreverence, there are actual bits of history here, and while it's entirely too short to give anymore than a brief overview of each chief executive, it is a nice little primer on the presidents.

There's a very funny personal story about Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents, one that's far better than any review I could possibly post, so I'll lead off with it.

A good friend of mine, who was a contestant on Jeopardy! back in 2005, kept this book in her bathroom. (Better reading than Playboy, I suppose.) When I was selected to be a Jeopardy! contestant myself in 2012, she advised me that one of the categories that most frequently came up was the U.S. Presidents. And since my head is a black hole when it comes to most bits of U.S. history, I decided to pick this book up myself to help study for my appearance.

As it turns out, I never did get any Presidents categories on the show. But I found the book to be a quick and informative (if show more not nearly as scandalous) read as was promised. Some Presidents, it turns out, just have a more fascinating history than others. But despite the fact that the material didn't always live up to the promise, I can tell you that it did help me grasp a better understanding of our nation's leaders and how they fit together as a tapestry, as opposed to just rote memorization of who held office when and for how long.

If only Alex had decided to query me about American History as opposed to Latin American History... show less

I read this book because I wanted a quick guide to the lives and personalities of the lesser known presidents, and that's exactly what it provides -- useful and very short biographical sketches of ALL the presidents. It doesn't provide much in the way of big secrets, except for the even worse than one expected philandering of some recent occupants of the office; for many presidents, "secret" lives simply equals personal lives. But that's no problem, the book gave me what I wanted. It's interesting amusing, and a very quick and easy read. Look elsewhere for profundity.

Now, this is the kind of book I really enjoy reading. Full of
fascinating obscure facts and written in brief paragraph form so that
you can pick it up, read a little bit, then lay it down without having
to worry about "catching up" again when you come back to it. It covers
every President from Washington to Bush II, revealing little-known
tidbits and facts I never knew before. It's heavily illustrated with
full page caricatures of each president, detailed stats and factoids,
plus some really fascinating insight into what made each one of them
truly tick.

I enjoyed it. 5

As a U.S History teacher, this book makes a great way to "hook" students in when teaching about all the Presidents. Some of the information is well know, but each has something you may not know, that the history books leave out. Very humorous stories will get your attention about our country's leaders.