INSTEAD OF LOOKING AT POLITICIANS' SEX LIVES, WE SHOULD BE EXAMINING THEIR LIBRARIES

Today's NY Times delves into the role of personal libraries in the lives of CEOs.

Personal libraries have always been a biopsy of power. The empire-loving Elizabeth I surrounded herself with the Roman historians, many of whom she translated, and kept one book under lock and key in her bedroom, in a French translation she alone of her court could read: Machiavelli’s treatise on how to overthrow republics, “The Prince.” Churchill retreated to his library to heal his wounds after being voted out of power in 1945-- and after reading for six years came back to power.

Over the years, the philanthropist and junk-bond king Michael R. Milken has collected biographies, plays, novels and papers on Galileo, the renegade who was jailed in his time but redeemed by history.

It took Dee Hock, father of the credit card and founder of Visa, a thousand books to find The One. Mr. Hock walked away from business life in 1984 and looked back only from his library’s walls. He built a dream 2,000-square-foot wing for his books in a pink stucco mansion atop a hill in Pescadero, Calif. He sat among the great philosophers and the novelists of Western life like Steinbeck and Stegner and dreamed up a word for what Visa is: “chaordic”-- complex systems that blend order and chaos.

In his library, Mr. Hock found the book that contained the thoughts of all of them. Visitors can see opened on his library table for daily consulting, Omar Khayyam’s “Rubáiyát,” the Persian poem that warns of the dangers of greatness and the instability of fortune.

I often write about what music inspires congressional candidates. The question doesn't always lead anywhere but sometimes music is fundamental in the lives of some of these guys and they answer with enough honesty and passion to help form some kind of an opinion about how they might behave in office. This week, for example, Jon Powers, a former school teacher turned Army Captain turned non-profit CEO turned congressional candidate, spoke eloquently and knowledgeably about music, as had Darcy Burner the week before and Jamie Eldridge the week before that.

Perhaps a glimpse into what books have been meaningful in politicians' lives would be revealing. Like Bush and Camus, not to mention the three Shakespeares? No, we have to expect honest reporting, not Rovian spin, if we're going to look at data and expect meaningful analysis.

The last legitimately elected U.S. president released a list of his 21 favorite books (alphabetically by author):

"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," Maya Angelou.

"Meditations," Marcus Aurelius.

"The Denial of Death," Ernest Becker.

"Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963," Taylor Branch.

"Living History," Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"Lincoln," David Herbert Donald.

"The Four Quartets," T.S. Eliot.

"Invisible Man," Ralph Ellison.

"The Way of the World: From the Dawn of Civilizations to the Eve of the Twenty-First Century," David Fromkin.

"One Hundred Years of Solitude," Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

"The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes," Seamus Heaney.

"King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa," Adam Hochschild.

"The Imitation of Christ," Thomas a Kempis.

"Homage to Catalonia," George Orwell.

"The Evolution of Civilizations: An Introduction to Historical Analysis," Carroll Quigley.

"Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics," Reinhold Niebuhr.

"The Confessions of Nat Turner," William Styron.

"Politics as a Vocation," Max Weber.

"You Can't Go Home Again," Thomas Wolfe.

"Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny," Robert Wright.

"The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats," William Butler Yeats.

Make of it what you will, I would very much like to take a look at the personal libraries of his wife, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani (if it were screened for porn first), Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson.

Before the 2004 election, the Washington Monthly wrote about the pitfalls of candidates answering the question, "What's your favorite book?" (which, I want to note, is very different from answering the question, "May I have a few hours to browse your personal library?").

ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked Sen. John Edwards to name his favorite book. Edwards replied that it was I.F. Stone's The Trial of Socrates. On the surface, that seemed to hit just the right note. It's plausible that an ex-trial lawyer like Edwards would enjoy a book about the ultimate historical trial, and by choosing that particular title-- a serious inquiry written for a popular audience-- Edwards conveyed a sense of weightiness without appearing snobbish. But the choice also opened him up to criticism. Conservative commentator Bob Novak fumed on CNN's "Capital Gang": "That's incredible! Did Senator Edwards know that Izzy Stone was a lifelong Soviet apologist? Did he know of evidence that Stone received secret payments from the Kremlin?" Novak's rant illustrated how the slightest stumble on the book question can come back to hurt a candidate.

What a candidate chooses to read may seem like a small thing. Yet a person's literary tastes can be very revealing, as anyone who's ever scanned a stranger's bookshelf can attest. Book choices are especially prized by reporters, who use them as material for the narratives they write-- narratives that often define candidates in the eyes of voters. Remember Michael Dukakis? His phlegmatic 1988 campaign was perfectly symbolized by his choice of vacation reading: a book entitled Swedish Land-Use Planning. Even if you knew nothing else about the Massachusetts governor, this tidbit suggested he was solution-oriented, practical to a fault, and probably not the sort of guy who'd be a lot of fun to have a beer with. Which is, of course, exactly the person the Democrats got.

Because the book question is so fraught with peril, candidates have increasingly figured out that they need to game the system. That's evident on the campaign trail today where, reporters say, Democratic candidates are toting the perfect "safe" book: volume three of Robert Caro's award-winning biographical series on Lyndon Johnson, Master of the Senate. The book is popular, serious, and imparts just the sort of gravitas presidential aspirants seek. Like a guy who reads Dostoyevsky in Starbucks to attract women, many candidates seem to choose books designed to impress reporters--though reporters, like women, often see through the charade. Says USA Today political columnist Walter Shapiro (who first unearthed Dukakis's book choice), "The number whom I've seen carrying the Caro book is greater than the people who've actually read it or finished it."

...During the 1988 presidential race, the book question became de rigueur. After Shapiro exposed Dukakis's soporific choice, reporter Brit Hume asked Republican vice-presidential candidate Dan Quayle to identify any work of literature, art, or film he'd experienced in the previous two years that had had a particularly strong effect on him. Quayle rattled off three books, Richard Nixon's 1999: Victory Without War, Sen. Richard Lugar's Letters to the Next President, and Bob Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra, about the fall of the Russian empire. Fine books all. But rather than impart to Quayle the mien of wisdom he'd no doubt hoped for, his choices, which seemed several grade levels beyond his intellect, telegraphed his very desperation to be taken seriously-- the need for which was underscored later when Quayle remarked that Paul Johnson's Modern Times was "a very good historical book about history."

...In 2000, Bill Bradley staunchly refused to answer the book question, insisting it was irrelevant to his fitness for office. But even this non-answer proved revealing. It showed that Bradley considered himself above having to play the game. Which in turn reinforced the notion that he was aloof, a criticism that stuck and came to characterize the Bradley campaign, much as Dukakis's dullness had characterized his. In the end, even Bradley himself seemed to recognize this. When he withdrew from the race, he began his announcement speech by joking, "I want to begin this morning with a discussion of my favorite books."

Also in 2004 we got a look into what Bush and the various candidates vying to defeat him said they were reading.

George W. Bush
President George W. Bush's favorite books range from Texas history to criticism of 1960s counterculture. According to the website of the Arizona Republic, AZCentral.com, Bush's favorite books are The Raven: A Biography of Sam Houston by Marquis James (Univ. of Texas Press); Robert J. Samuelson's The Good Life and Its Discontents: The American Dream in the Age of Entitlement (Vintage), a book that delves into the modern American psyche in regards to the "American Dream"; and The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties' Legacy to the Underclass by Myron Magnet (Encounter), which argues that the honorable intentions of 1960s liberals produced tragic consequences by ultimately creating today's underclass.

Howard Dean
In terms of the Democratic candidates, Howard Dean's list of preferred books offers insight into the political and social philosophies of the former Vermont governor. In his memoir Winning Back America (S&S), Dean lists as one of his favorites Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (Metropolitan/Holt), a Top Ten July/August 2001 Book Sense 76 pick. Other titles noted were All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (Harvest), Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey (Penguin), To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Little, Brown), and Truman by David McCullough (S&S).

Wesley Clark
A spokesperson for retired Army general and former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO Wesley Clark cited Pat Conroy's The Great Santini (Bantam), a novel about a Marine fighter pilot and his family, as Clark's favorite book. In addition, Clark has authored Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat (PublicAffairs), which was followed up with the recent Winning Modern Wars: Iraq, Terrorism, and the American Empire (PublicAffairs), an analysis of the Iraqi occupation by the U.S.

John Edwards
North Carolina Senator John Edwards' choice of books bespeaks an interest in history. According to the Arizona Republic, Edwards favorite book is The Trial of Socrates by I.F. Stone (Anchor). Additionally, the senator appeared on the MSNBC special news show Hardball: Battle for the White House in October and told host Chris Matthews that he had just finished The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Doubleday) and thought it was a "great book." Edwards, who is also an attorney, wrote Four Trials (S&S), an account of four of his courtroom experiences.

John Kerry
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry's campaign office told BTW that the senator recently read Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan (Random House) and that Trinity by Leon Uris (Bantam), an epic novel taking place during Ireland's struggle for independence, ranks as one of his favorites. In addition, the Arizona Republic's website lists Flags of Our Father, a nonfiction book about Iwo Jima by James Bradley and Ron Powers (Bantam), and Undaunted Courage, a biography of Meriwether Lewis that details the opening of the American West, by Stephen Ambrose Pierce (S&S), as favorites of Kerry's as well. Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran who is now serving his fourth term in the Senate, wrote the autobiographical A Call to Service: My Vision for a Better America (Viking Press) and The New War: The Web of Crime That Threatens America's Security (Touchstone), an overview of international crime published in 1998.

Dennis Kucinich
U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich's office told BTW that Kucinich favored the works of Studs Terkel and that the congressman had recently finished reading The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq by Christopher Scheer, Robert Scheer, and Lakshani Chaudhry (Seven Stories). Kucinich, who, in 1977, became mayor of Cleveland at the age of 31, is the author of A Prayer for America (Thunder's Mouth), a collection of speeches.

I took a look on some of the current presidential contenders' Facebook pages and saw their choices in literary diversion. John Edwards is still sticking with The Trial of Socrates but has added David Shipler's The Working poor: Invisible in America and Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer.

Obama, aside from the obligatory Bible chose Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, Lincoln's Collected Writings, Shakespeare's Tragedies, Taylor Branch's Parting the Waters, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, and Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self-Reliance. I bet Bob Novak wouldn't be able to flap his lips over that list!