#historicalbiographies – Rosepoint Publishing

Mark Twain by Ron Chernow #BookReview #HistoricalBiographies

Amazon Charts #5 this week

Book Blurb:

Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow illuminates the full, fascinating, and complex life of the writer long celebrated as the father of American literature, Mark Twain

Before he was Mark Twain, he was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Born in 1835, the man who would become America’s first, and most influential, literary celebrity spent his childhood dreaming of piloting steamboats on the Mississippi. But when the Civil War interrupted his career on the river, the young Twain went west to the Nevada Territory and accepted a job at a local newspaper, writing dispatches that attracted attention for their brashness and humor. It wasn’t long before the former steamboat pilot from Missouri was recognized across the country for his literary brilliance, writing under a pen name that he would immortalize.

In this richly nuanced portrait of Mark Twain, acclaimed biographer Ron Chernow brings his considerable powers to bear on a man who shamelessly sought fame and fortune, and crafted his persona with meticulous care. After establishing himself as a journalist, satirist, and lecturer, he eventually settled in Hartford with his wife and three daughters, where he went on to write The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He threw himself into the hurly-burly of American culture, and emerged as the nation’s most notable political pundit. At the same time, his madcap business ventures eventually bankrupted him; to economize, Twain and his family spent nine eventful years in exile in Europe. He suffered the death of his wife and two daughters, and the last stage of his life was marked by heartache, political crusades, and eccentric behavior that sometimes obscured darker forces at play.

Drawing on Twain’s bountiful archives, including thousands of letters and hundreds of unpublished manuscripts, Chernow masterfully captures the man whose career reflected the country’s westward expansion, industrialization, and foreign wars, and who was the most important white author of his generation to grapple so fully with the legacy of slavery. Today, more than one hundred years after his death, Twain’s writing continues to be read, debated, and quoted. In this brilliant work of scholarship, a moving tribute to the writer’s talent and humanity, Chernow reveals the magnificent and often maddening life of one of the most original characters in American history.

His Review:

Growing up in Hannibal, Missouri, along the banks of the Mississippi River, was a perfect environment for a dreamer like Samuel Clemens. His love for the river grew to the point where he figured his lifelong dream was to be a riverboat captain. He apprenticed under a captain who groomed him to command the barges down the mighty river. The young Samuel was a romantic dreamer and the job was perfect.

The cry of “Gold, Gold” found in the American River east of Sacramento drew him west and away from his boyhood home. He was always looking for the next big strike to take him away from life’s worries and into a princely lifestyle. He married a beautiful woman after a number of proposals and she was perfect for his needs. She also came with a substantial dowry and helped smooth his business ups and downs.

He worked in Carson City, Nevada, as one of the print setters for the local paper and soon dreamed of a machine that could automate the process. A good portion of his and his wife’s fortunes disappeared down that rat hole of a dream. He possessed a natural wit and excellent speaking skills and went on lecture tours away from his wife and daughters.

Sam had a caustic side and soon turned on people who did not perform as promised and could be extremely acerbic. Chasing the dream of an automated typesetting machine soon resulted in near bankruptcy. Speaking tours saved him and the family from the poor house. A late 19th century depression nearly caused the family to be completely destitute. Living in high style both in the U.S. and abroad was taking every cent they had.

This book describes a life of true love, chasing dreams, and living on the edge. It is mesmerizing and difficult to put down. The major drawback is the length of the book as it gets into aggravating minutiae with their offspring, relationships, and circumstances. Set aside a few weeks if you choose to read it. I tried. Really tried. But finally gave it up at approximately 46%. DNF.

We listened to the audiobook by this author about the life of George Washington on a trip, weighing in at almost 42 hours. If you love digging into biographies, the longer the better, and going back again and again to resume with something akin to an old friend, you may be able to hang in longer than I. Many people did. 4 stars – CE Williams

Many thanks to our local library for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book (and to renew it several times). Any opinion expressed here is my own.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: 19^th Century World History, Historical Biographies, Author Biographies
Publisher: Penguin Press
ISBN-13: 978-0525561736
ASIN: B0DH1VPLHY
Print Length: 1196 pages
Publication Date: May 13, 2025
Source: Local Library

Title Link(s):

Amazon-US | Amazon-UK | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: Ron Chernow won the National Book Award in 1990 for his first book, The House of Morgan, and his second book, The Warburgs, won the Eccles Prize as the Best Business Book of 1993. His biography of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Titan, was a national bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.

Happiness is a reading buddy

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow – #AudiobookReview – #ThrowbackThursday

in American Revolution Biographies

Book Blurb:

Pulitzer Prize, Biography/Autobiography, 2011

From National Book Award winner Ron Chernow, a landmark biography of George Washington.

In Washington: A Life celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation. With a breadth and depth matched by no other one-volume life of Washington, this crisply paced narrative carries the listener through his troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian War, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention, and his magnificent performance as America’s first president.

Despite the reverence his name inspires, Washington remains a lifeless waxwork for many Americans, worthy but dull. A laconic man of granite self-control, he often arouses more respect than affection. In this groundbreaking work, based on massive research, Chernow dashes forever the stereotype of a stolid, unemotional man.

A strapping six feet, Washington was a celebrated horseman, elegant dancer, and tireless hunter, with a fiercely guarded emotional life. Chernow brings to vivid life a dashing, passionate man of fiery opinions and many moods. Probing his private life, he explores his fraught relationship with his crusty mother, his youthful infatuation with the married Sally Fairfax, and his often conflicted feelings toward his adopted children and grandchildren. He also provides a lavishly detailed portrait of his marriage to Martha and his complex behavior as a slave master.

At the same time, Washington is an astute and surprising portrait of a canny political genius who knew how to inspire people. Not only did Washington gather around himself the foremost figures of the age, including James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, but he also brilliantly orchestrated their actions to shape the new federal government, define the separation of powers, and establish the office of the presidency.

My Review:

Okay, yes, I’m up for an occasional biography, but must admit I picked this one up strictly because I liked the narrator in a recent audiobook called Plum Island by Nelson DeMille. (And BTW, this audiobook garners the #1, 2, and 4 spots in the genres noted below I’m sure in part due to this narrator whose own bio of narrations is as impressive as extensive.)

So imagine my surprise when I realized I’d bitten into an almost 42-hour biography. (That pretty much covered our recent trip to Texas and back.)

A lot of information here that you don’t get from the textbooks, from Washington’s childhood through the French and Indian Wars, as leader of the Continental Army, General of the American Revolution, and finally his long and storied political life as our first President.

Let’s just say, once again, that I’m incredulous that we won that war after seven bloody years. Yes, we didn’t have the capability of sending timely messages then, but again and again, he was stymied by the lack of funds for food, clothing, and munitions much less than medical care for an untrained army easily susceptible to disease and unpredictable weather. And really, against even Loyalists, many of whom still staunchly refused any aid.

Perhaps it was a bit of prejudice against John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, but it wasn’t long before I was also glad it was Washington who took control and created the system we have today—Washington supporting a new government that featured a strong executive branch.

Difficult to put yourself back in the eighteenth century and at times seemed the same for the author, particularly in terms of slavery, the topic of which he revisited a number of times painting Washington as a benevolent master who alternately struggled with the necessity at Mt. Vernon while bowing to the pressures of those strongly in support of the system. He hoped it would fade away and manumitted his slaves upon his death.

Washington did not have the benefit of an extensive education and was ever cognizant of those men around him who did. He confronted constant conflict with forming the fragile infant government, his manipulative vindictive unsupportive mother, ever-present teeth issues, foreign policy issues, and his lack of financial expertise in handling his own estate.

For all his flaws, he still proved an exceptional leader, his 6’ frame and inspiring and remarkable history commanding a hush of respect from the people. There were times when the chronology stepped back depending on the current discussion, repeated insightful observances of the expertise with which he handled situations and people, and sought to drive home a point previously made.

Perhaps the book could have been shorter and we’d have been just as impressed with the man who finally, adamantly refused another term and died two years following his retirement of a throat infection in 1799 that was treated at the time with multiple bleedings and an enema.

I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Book Details:

Genre: American Revolution Biographies, Historical Biographies, Biographies of Presidents & Heads of State
Publisher: Penguin Audio
ASIN: B0045XYQ12
Listening Length: 41 hrs 54 mins
Narrator: Scott Brick
Publication Date: October 5, 2010
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: Washington: A Life [Amazon]

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

The Author: Ron Chernow won the National Book Award in 1990 for his first book, The House of Morgan, and his second book, The Warburgs, won the Eccles Prize as the Best Business Book of 1993. His biography of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Titan, was a national bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.

[Goodreads] Ron Chernow was born in 1949 in Brooklyn, New York. After graduating with honors from Yale College and Cambridge University with degrees in English Literature, he began a prolific career as a freelance journalist. Between 1973 and 1982, Chernow published over sixty articles in national publications, including numerous cover stories. In the mid-80s Chernow went to work at the Twentieth Century Fund, a prestigious New York think tank, where he served as director of financial policy studies and received what he described as “a crash course in economics and financial history.”
[truncated]
In addition to writing biographies, Chernow is a book reviewer, essayist, and radio commentator. His book reviews and op-ed articles appear frequently in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. He comments regularly on business and finance for National Public Radio and for many shows on CNBC, CNN, and the Fox News Channel. In addition, he served as the principal expert on the A&E biography of J.P. Morgan and will be featured as the key Rockefeller expert on an upcoming CNBC documentary.

The Narrator: Scott Brick is an American actor, writer and award-winning narrator of over 800 audiobooks. Audiobook narrator Scott Brick (2012). Born, (1966-01-30) January 30, 1966 (age 57). Santa Barbara, California, US. Occupation(s), Actor, Writer, Narrator. [Wikipedia]