If American history is your thing, you’ll want to check out these two intelligent and insightful reads.  Acclaimed presidential scholar Doris Kearns Goodwin and award-winning historian Jill Lepore each appeared at The Music Hall as part of its Writers on a New England Stage series.  The discussions were great, and so are the books.  Two tomes especially important in these tricky times.  

Leadership in Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Hardcover & Autographed

In Leadership, Goodwin draws upon the four presidents she has studied most closely—Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson (in civil rights)—to show how they recognized leadership qualities within themselves and were recognized as leaders by others. By looking back to their first entries into public life, we encounter them at a time when their paths were filled with confusion, fear, and hope.

These Truths by Jill Lepore

Hardcover & Autographed

In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation, an urgently needed reckoning with the beauty and tragedy of American history.

Donated by: The Music Hall, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth, NH