[SamAdams76]

That's sort of the same way with me. Reading The Call Of The Wild in school made me want to read about the actual Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. Later on, Red Badge of Courage fueled my interest in reading about the Civil War.

Unfortunately, schools have taken the joy out of reading for most and turned them off to reading for life with their endless essays and character analysis's that are graded so subjectively that many students just throw their arms up and search the web for boilerplate phrases to get the assignment over with (in my day, it was the Cliff notes).

Some students are fortunate to develop a love for reading in spite of it. I happened to be one of them.

[PJ-Comix]

In the forward of my copy of All The King's Men the writer made the point that Joe Klein ripped off that book for his own Primary Colors book. The writer quoted a review that called Klein an "artful thief." LOL!

[PJ-Comix]

If you notice, this really wasn't a political novel like "The Last Hurrah" was where the nuts and bolts of politics was looked into. Willie Stark wasn't even the central character. It was Jack Burden thru whose eyes we viewed the events. The real Huey Long was actually a much more fascinating character than Willie Stark. Also the Long had more of a sense of humor than Stark. If you watch documentary films of Long speaking, you will see he was quite funny.