Reading List
Susan Page
Washington Bureau Chief at USA Today
Susan Page has covered Washington for four decades and runs USA Today’s bureau there, having reported on eleven presidential elections and ten White Houses. She moderated the 2020 vice-presidential debate. Her books are biographies of women who were underestimated in their own time: The Matriarch on Barbara Bush, Madam Speaker on Nancy Pelosi, and a life of Barbara Walters. Her reading runs almost entirely to biography, and to people who were written off before they were reckoned with.
Patriot
A Memoir
by Alexei Navalny · 2024 · Memoir
“After he was poisoned in 2020 and evacuated to Germany for treatment, Navalny returned to Russia knowing that prison was likely and death possible. The opposition activist continued to defy Russian President Vladimir Putin anyway.” — via Article
Janis
Her Life and Music
by Holly George-Warren · 2019 · Biography
“A brash musical trailblazer who sensed the power of the blues, Janis Joplin would find her place as the impassioned queen of rock, but she could never escape her personal demons.” — via Article
Personal History
by Katharine Graham · 1997 · Memoir
“But after her husband's suicide, she became the first female Fortune 500 CEO and the fearless publisher of a top newspaper, including during its war with President Richard Nixon.” — via Article
Nightingale’s Song
by Robert Timberg · 1995 · History
“This book intertwines stories of five Annapolis graduates, each shadowed by their service in Vietnam . One of them is maverick John McCain, whose life is explored in depth.” — via Article
John Lewis
A Life
by David Greenberg · 2024 · Biography
“For the rest of his life, John Lewis bore a scar on his forehead from the police beating he endured during the 1965 civil rights march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala.” — via Article
Harriet Tubman
The Road to Freedom
by Catherine Clinton · 2004 · Biography
“This is the definitive portrait of a legendary figure. Tubman escaped slavery and broke the rules of race, gender, and the legal system to lead enslaved people to freedom on the Underground Railroad. She was also a scout and spy for the Union Army.” — via Article