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Meet a Few People Who Care About Reading
When I read about great people—people I admire or whose lives inspire me—and find out their dreams were driven by books they read, it affirms me. It verifies my heartfelt belief that reading matters, that books make a lasting difference. So who cares about reading? Who are some of these history-makers who led book-powered lives?
This fact might surprise you, given the often-prevailing attitude toward politicians, but many of our U.S. presidents have placed enormous stock in reading—including current officeholder George W. Bush. I’ve mentioned his reading habits elsewhere in this book. He’s a voracious reader.
And he’s in good company. Throughout history, many of our greatest leaders led lives shaped, in large part, by books. Let’s meet a few of them.
George Washington
America’s first George W., George Washington, was also an avid reader. According to biographer Edward G. Lengel, “Reading ... provided him a lifetime of pleasure and learning that gradually compensated for his early deficiencies in spelling and grammar . . . An enthusiastic book collector, he also opened and read most of what he purchased.” Washington is known to have been partial to books on agriculture, natural history, and military history and theory. Clearly, he applied much of what he read.
Longtime Yankees broadcaster
Mel Allen was an avid reader. Devoured
everything from biographies about famous
figures like Franklin Delano Roosevelt
and Winston Churchill to mystery novels
to book-of-the-month selections.
—Stephen Borelli, author
James Madison
All I’ve learned about America’s Founding Fathers tells me they all believed in the power of reading. Lynne Cheney writes of James Madison:
Rightly known as the father of our Constitution, he was the prime mover behind that magnificent document and known as well as the primary author of the Bill of Rights.
The knowledge that enabled these achievements came in large part from reading, an occupation to which Madison dedicated himself from his youngest years. Even as a boy, he knew the power of the printed word to enlarge experience. He saw how books could teach about times and places that one could otherwise never know.
During his college years . . . Madison encountered more books than he had ever seen before and well-trained minds to test himself against . . . As early as 1783, Madison began an intensive course of reading to assess the alternatives [to the Articles of Confederation]. He implored his friend Thomas Jefferson, then in Paris, to send him books.
In spite of the fact that he never traveled far from where he was born, Cheney points out, Madison profoundly influenced the shaping of American thought. “And from within it,” she writes, “using books as his lever, he managed to move the world.”
Benjamin Franklin
Though never a U.S. president, Ben Franklin is without doubt one of our greatest statesmen, and called by editor Blaine McCormick, “America’s Original Entrepreneur.” In Franklin’s autobiography, adapted by McCormick, Franklin wrote: “Since my childhood I’ve loved reading, and every cent that came my way I used to purchase books.” Franklin’s love of books and readings was evident to his father, who set him to work as a printer, apprenticing to his older brother, James, when he was just twelve years old. One wealthy customer, who also noted young Franklin’s passion, invited him to read any of the books in his extensive library. These volumes exposed Ben’s young mind to a variety of writing styles and thoughts, all of which eventually wove themselves into the person this great statesman later became. Through books, Franklin honed his writing skills, continually challenging himself to become better at what he was already good at.
January 17, 2006, marked the 300th anniversary of Ben Franklin’s birth. What a rich legacy he left, through his many inventions—including the bifocals for which I am grateful today—his bold stance for liberty, his powerful entrepreneurial spirit and sense of persistence, and so much more.
Perhaps above all, Franklin was a prolific author and a man who lived a singularly remarkable life. As a printer who worked with movable type, Franklin had rich opportunities to work with words. It’s no wonder he learned to use them so well. Franklin stirred hearts and minds to action with his pioneering newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette. As a diplomat, he defined America, and is largely regarded today as the First American. Books framed and formed this singular life.
Abraham Lincoln
Not only was he one of history’s greatest leaders, Abraham Lincoln was one of history’s most devoted readers. Doris Kearns Goodwin writes of Lincoln, “Books became his academy, his college. The printed word united his mind with the great minds of generations past. Relatives and neighbors recalled that he scoured the countryside for books and read every volume ‘he could lay his hands on.’ At a time when ownership of books remained ‘a luxury for those Americans living outside the purview of the middle class,’ gaining access to reading material proved difficult. When Lincoln obtained copies of the King James Bible, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Aesop’s Fables, and William Scott’s Lessons in Elocution, he could not contain his excitement. Holding Pilgrim’s Progress in his hands, ‘his eyes sparkled, and that day he could not eat, and that night he could not sleep.’”
Lincoln committed much of what he read to memory, convinced that people throughout history could not possibly have understood the capacity of their minds to improve before the printing press was invented, making reading possible for all mankind. I don’t know about you, but that thought arrests my attention. To think there was a time when people would not have had the capability to expand their minds—and that we now have books freely available for the expanding. How can we ignore the power of a book? That Lincoln committed so much to memory speaks to the notion he knew that as books had so relatively recently appeared on the historical scene, they could be taken away.
While U.S. presidents read about other presidents for guidance and solace, partly why presidents read is the reason that we all read: to relax, to replenish our energy, and to go into another era, another time.
—Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential historian
“Everywhere he went, Lincoln carried a book with him,” Kearns Goodwin wrote. “He thumbed through page after page while his horse rested at the end of a long row of planting. Whenever he could escape work, he would lie with his head against a tree and read . . . Reading the Bible and Shakespeare over and over implanted rhythms and poetry that would come to fruition in those works of his maturity that made Abraham Lincoln our only poet-president.”
He once borrowed a volume called Life of George Washington, by Parson Weems, from a neighbor who lived sixteen miles away. The book was so badly damaged during a rainstorm, Lincoln vowed to work and repay the price of the book. He did two full days of labor pulling corn. Abraham Lincoln knew the value of words.
Lincoln also knew the loneliness of being a reader in a world of nonreaders. Today we readers exult in the joy of sharing our latest word treasures with one another, but Lincoln was a world apart from those who lived in his little farming community. There were few with whom he could share the thoughts and feelings that books stirred within him. As he grew, what he lacked in formal education, he made up for through diligent, determined reading.
The where, when, and how of reading mattered not to Abraham Lincoln, who said, “The books, and your capacity for understanding them, are just the same in all places . . . Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other thing.”
In love as in life, Lincoln found himself attracted to intelligent, well-read women. Mary Todd, writes Kearns Goodwin, “shared Lincoln’s love for discussing books and poetry.”
Learn the lesson of Lincoln’s life: books shape your decisions, your thoughts, and your actions. Who wouldn’t love to have this man’s mastery of oratory?
Harry S. Truman
Biographer David McCullough tells this story of Harry Truman: “In the evenings he would turn to his books and become wholly immersed. ‘You could talk to him if he were reading, and you wouldn’t get an answer.’ Indeed, Margaret [Truman] could not recall her father sitting down quietly at home without a book in his hand.”
Further, McCullough notes, “President Truman was a prodigious reader, and each night he would carry home a portfolio, often six or eight inches thick. The next morning he would have gone through all that material and taken such action as was needed.”
I never recall being bored—not once—because we had a houseful of books.
—Harry S. Truman
As a youngster, McCullough writes, Truman and a pal once vowed to read every volume housed in their high-school library, encyclopedias included. “Reading history, to me, was far more than a romantic adventure,” Truman once said. “It was solid instruction and wise teaching which I somehow felt that I wanted and needed.” When asked once what her father’s idea of heaven would be, daughter Margaret quickly responded, “Oh, to have a good comfortable chair, a good reading lamp, and lots of books around that he wanted to read” (Truman, Simon & Schuster, 1992).
I think old Harry was on to something.
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill, the late British prime minister and one of the greatest world leaders of all time, had difficulty navigating school. Do you know anyone like that? While strides are continually being made, there will always be students for whom traditional classroom structure fails.
Here’s what Churchill did about it. “Churchill recognized that his formal education had been inadequate for a would-be politician,” writes biographer Steven F. Hayward.
“So I resolved to read history, philosophy, economics, and things like that,” admitted Churchill. “It was a curious education.”
Because his reading was largely self-guided, Churchill read unhampered by “experts” to advise his choices. While serving military duty in India, “Churchill read as much as five hours a day, often ‘three or four books at a time to avoid tedium.’” Churchill’s reading list included such “bestsellers” as Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the history volumes of Thomas McCauley, Plato, Aristotle, and Charles Darwin—to name a handful. When it came to reading, Churchill was no slouch. He seemed to understand this principle: great vision comes from great ideas, and great ideas are often found in books.
Ronald Reagan had the smarts . . .
He craved reading, a love that he got from
his mother . . . Reagan once told me, . . .
“Mike, Nelle told me that if you learn to
love reading you will never be alone.”
—Michael Deaver, Reagan campaign advisor
George S. Patton
Would you believe that George S. Patton, one of the greatest leaders in U.S. military history, suffered from dyslexia? They didn’t call it that back when he was a boy, but nonetheless, he displayed all the classic symptoms. He had tremendous difficulty recognizing and comprehending written words. Today, we’ve given that problem a name, and we’ve discovered ways to treat it, but back in Patton’s day, it was simply known as being “slow.” Children like Patton were set back in school and ridiculed by their peers.
To what do we owe Patton’s victory over this dark difficulty? Biographer Alan Axelrod attributes it to Patton’s parents, who refused to look the other way, and to a personal drive to be not simply normal, but more than normal. By the time he emerged from the world of private tutors to enroll in a private boys’ school at the age of eleven, Patton had become a history buff. He avidly read the accounts of great captains of the past—Scipio Africanus, Hannibal, Caesar, Joan of Arc, Napoleon Bonaparte, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson.
“Those who knew Patton as an adult,” Axelrod writes, “could not help but observe that he was an avid reader . . . The historical figures of whom he read were superimposed upon his own experience. Lifelong, he devoured libraries of history, especially the history of ancient conquest, general military history, and the memoirs of celebrated generals.”
Books fueled this young man’s dreams. They gave him heroes and role models and hope. Who knows how much America owes to those writers throughout the ages who have taken time to write about great men and women like George S. Patton? It is their lives—most often lives that have overcome tremendous obstacles—that become the inspiration, the spark that ignites greatness in others.
Billy Graham
Billy Graham is one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century and beyond. What’s the secret of his significance? One key factor, certainly, is his keen mind, fed by a heart that’s continually hungry to learn. A lifelong passion for personal growth has helped make Billy Graham a man with much to offer a hurting world. This fervor has ignited his message and set hundreds of thousands of hearts afire over the years.
One life in particular that has been forever impacted by the influence of Billy Graham is that of his daughter, Ruth. In her book A Legacy of Faith: Things I Learned from My Father, Ruth Graham tells us, “Now in his late eighties, my father spends hours each day reading, usually propped up in his bed, which is framed on each side by bookcases—in fact, the room’s paneled walls are lined with bookcases . . . My father doesn’t read with a lot of props like notebooks and highlighters. He just takes notes, usually with felt-tip pens, in the book or Bible he happens to be reading. I have a Bible that contains his handwritten sermon notes in the margins and an outline inside the front cover . . .”
Though he’s largely retired from speaking, Graham’s relentless drive keeps him going. It hones his mind to stay active, sharp, and alive. “Because he loves to read, I usually give my father books for Christmas,” Ruth Graham continues. “One year I gave him a biography of George Washington that he referenced several times during dinner conversation. Following the September 11th attacks, he did extensive reading on Islam and its history, often raising the subject for discussion when I visited him.”
Without doubt, it’s this love of books and reading that has given him an edge in delivering life-changing messages over his long career. Ruth Graham affirms this when she writes, “If there is an area in which my father has consistently done his best, it is in preparation for preaching . . . He understands that the grace of God needs a prepared mind on which to operate.
“My father read all that he could on relevant subjects—the works of people like John Stott, James Montgomery Boice, and other Bible scholars and theologians.”
The power of preparation, as Graham’s career testifies, is not necessarily about reading to create the perfect four-point message. “Ruth [Graham’s wife and Ruth Graham’s mother] . . . believed, as I did,” Graham said, “that God would give me the message and bring to remembrance in my preaching the things I had studied. This was always the most effective preaching . . . Hence, I picked each sermon topic carefully, read myself full, wrote myself empty, and read myself full again on that subject.”
Wouldn’t you love to have a life that makes the kind of difference Billy Graham’s has? Books, as Billy testifies, are the key to that influence.
In a recent article, the eighty-seven-year-young evangelist confessed, “The greatest regret I have is that I didn’t study more and read more. I regret it because now I feel at times I am empty of what I would like to have been.” Does that comment from this amazing man stun you? It certainly does me. He understands the difference books can make in who we become. Don’t miss that!
James A. Garfield
If that name doesn’t immediately ring a bell, it’s because this twentieth president of the United States held office for just one hundred and twenty days before an assassin’s bullet ended his career—and his life. Garfield was a man who lived his dash well, accomplishing several great things during his brief time in office as a result. In an article for Investor’s Business Daily (May 26, 2006), Curt Schleier describes a man with a voracious hunger to learn and a passion to help his fellow man—desires fed largely by reading. Before composing his inaugural address, Schleier wrote, “He read the inaugural addresses of all of his predecessors, evaluating what he felt they did right—and wrong.”
Garfield understood that reading is our key to understanding the past and preparing for the future. He knew that without the records of his predecessors, without the tracks they had laid for his journey, his presidency would be shallow at best.
Dare to be like James A. Garfield, and all the other great people we’ve spent time with in this chapter.
In addition to these great historical figures, many other influential people have expressed gratitude for the ability to read . . . people like columnist William Raspberry, born in 1935 to a poor but loving black family in Mississippi, who thanked his parents for instilling in him a desire to read. That desire led to a forty-year career of persuading American thought through Raspberry’s own way with words.
Tech leaders like Yang Yuanging, chairman of Chinese PC maker Lenovo, have had their thinking influenced by books. In a USA Today article, Yuanging listed the books Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras, and The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman, as valuable resources for solid principles of the past and insight into future trends. I’d say he should know, wouldn’t you?
Note to Bookstore Owners: Tap into the Power of Personality
What do you do when you’ve found something that excites you? If you’re like me, you rush to tell someone else. You’re hoping they’ll get excited, too. Books offer many opportunities like that. When I read a great book on sports, I know many people in my profession who’ll also enjoy the read. I can hardly wait to recommend it. Books on history, biographies that charge my batteries, leadership books that make their points in fresh new ways—those all go on the reading list on my website.
We’ll talk more about bookstores later on, but right now, while we’re talking about the “who” factor, I want to address bookstore owners. Do you know who works for you? Have you got any idea what readers and potential leaders you have on your own payroll?
Not long ago, I read a piece in Publishers Weekly that got my attention. Columnist Seth Godin addressed the contemporary bookstore experience from the customer-service perspective.
Tell me, have you ever walked into a bookstore intent on buying one book, and come out with several more, just because a sales associate recommended them? If you have, I’m guessing it wasn’t last week. Or last year. Too many stores today rely on flashy displays, bestseller lists, and merchandising techniques to sell books, and too little on the personal side. “Handsold” books, says Godin, are giving way to self-sold books. And I say it’s a shame—not simply because of the obvious boost to your bottom line, owners, but because of the crying need for positive interaction between sales personnel and buyers. I’m sure it betrays my age, but I recall when those folks behind the counters, the smiling faces stocking the shelves, were the ones we went to with questions, the experts we asked for advice. We expected them to be knowledgeable—and they did not disappoint us.
When you sell a man a book, you don’t sell him twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue—you sell him a whole new life.
—Christopher Morley, early twentieth-century writer and editor
No more. In all too many cases, a question today is met with a shrug, an excuse, or a cold, uninformed reply—and that’s if we can even find someone to ask! One of the charms unique to the old, dusty bookstores was the passion of the bookseller. We can do without the dust, but we do not have to give up the passion. Encourage your sales associates to read and recommend their favorite books. You’ll be surprised what it does for your sales, your frontline enthusiasm, and your customer loyalty, as well. Here’s Godin’s advice: “If I ran a retail store, I’d get rid of a third of the books and rearrange the rest into a circle of discovery. I’d find clerks who were excited to be there and reward them for telling stories about the work that’s there to be discovered. I’d hire a dozen summer interns at a time and let them get good at telling stories . . . I’d remember every customer.
“I’m not talking about going through the motions—I’m talking about reinventing the bookstore, turning it into a destination where customers fulfill desires they might not even have known they had before they walked through the door.”
I’m not a retailer, I’m a customer . . . but I believe Godin is right on the money.
Clearly books have cared for and fed many great minds. Shouldn’t they nourish yours? While we’re on the subject, I’ll bet I can surprise you with a few others I know who are passionate about reading.
“I’m already reading twenty-five other books, so why am I buying this one?” I asked a friend. “Do you think this is a disease?” “Yes,” interjected the cashier. “But it’s a good disease to have.”
—Joe Queenan, New York Times Book Review essay, August 8, 2006