Eleanor and Franklin

(Photo from About.Com: 20c History)

I've become obsessed with biographies of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, although I don't know exactly why. At the Printer's Row bookfair, the same one where I met Mary Morris, I picked up an old copy of Eleanor Roosevelt's This I Remember, the second volume of her four-volume autobiography, which covers her years with Franklin. It had a slightly ripped but original cover and the look of an old Book Club selection, something I often find irresistible. It was raining when Gary, Garrett, and I were at the stalls at the book fair, and we didn't have umbrellas or any sort of protection, so we scooted as close to the kiosks as possible to stay dry when I spotted the book. Instead of just putting it on the shelf (something I've been known to do with an old book I'll get to eventually) I started reading it and couldn't put it down. I've read a few biographies of ER, but this was mesmerizing and I read it late into the night on Saturday. I bought Jean Edwar d Smith's FDR (very good), Ted Morgan's FDR (same cover photo, same title, and a lot of the same material, although published more than 20 years ago, but somehow unsatisfying and absolutely tonedeaf when it comes to ER).

I'm still reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time and Blanche Wiesen's biography of ER. The male biographers of FDR so far are somewhat dismissive of ER, but Goodwin and Wiesen, especially, are much more sympathetic. And of course Wiesen, who is focusing on ER, writes extensively about the League of Women Voters, which I find fascinating. So I think a side trip to Hyde Park on the way home from Maine is in order. We'll see if that will fit in.