The Presidents Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity

by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy

While I was happy to learn the substance of these two journalists’ reporting, I was horrified by the poor copy editing and dismayed by their over-the-top Time-esque writing style. I find this outrageous in a book listed at $32.50. Shame on Simon & Shuster. Our publishers need to climb off this slippery slope.

Gibbs and Duffy present mostly heart-warming stories of presidents reaching out to and bonding with their predecessors. In this fraternity all but Nixon and Carter instinctively observe the etiquette. The searing burdens of the office forge deep understandings that transcend politics and personalities. Even news junkies are likely to have fresh insights into the characters of our presidents from Hoover to Obama (excepting Roosevelt who, of course, never lived to join the club).