Reagan : A Life in Letters

Amazon ^ | Kiron K. Skinner / Annelise Anderson / Martin Anderson

[Valin]

Availability: This title will be released on September 23, 2003. Publisher: Free Press; (September 23, 2003)

Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly Hoover Institution fellows Skinner and the Andersons (all editors of the bestselling Reagan, in His Own Hand) use a carefully arranged and astutely annotated sampling from Reagan's lifetime of correspondence to narrate the arc of "the great communicator" 's life.
Always charming, always unassuming, always genuine, Reagan's letters tell the story of his family, his health, his Hollywood and political careers, and his evolution as a political thinker with an authority (and a charm) no other documents can. Reagan regularly corresponded with friends, movie business colleagues, fellow politicians and conservative allies, as well as with simple fans.
To William Buckley in 1984: "the Middle East is a complicated place-well not really a place, it's more a state of mind." To Mickey Rooney, from the Oval Office, in 1985: "I'll bet you don't remember the first time we met. The year was 1937... I was new in Hollywood living in the Montecito apartments. Someone had run over a dog in the street outside. You came in to look for a phone book so you could find the nearest veterinarian and take the dog.... I figured this had to be a nice guy."
The book includes more than 1,000 letters (some to unknowns, others to the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, George Bush Sr., Dr. Spock, Joseph Coors, Henry Kissinger and Margaret Thatcher), fewer than 25 of them previously published.

Taken together, they provide remarkable and otherwise unobtainable insight into a singularly important and fascinating American life: "Dutch" up close and personal. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description
Ronald Reagan may have been the most prolific correspondent of any American president since Thomas Jefferson. The total number of letters written over his lifetime probably exceeds 10,000. Their breadth is equally astonishing -- with friends and family, with politicians, children, and other private citizens, Reagan was as dazzling a communicator in letters as he was in person.
Collectively, his letters reveal his character and thinking like no other source. He made candid, considerate, and tough..

[IncPen]

Drudge has the story, linked to a Time Mag piece, that in the first paragraphs trots out all the tired cliches about the 'amiable dunce', etc.

Boy, the left hates him!

[Valin]

Boy, the left hates him!

Reason #297,500 why I love him...And miss him.

[snopercod]

bump

[Johnbalaya]

George Step is doing a long promo on the book, having Nancy Reagan on, former advisors, and showing excerpts of many letters.

[alisasny]

About half hour ago it was ranked 312 and now its 149. I just ordered my copy too. I bet this will go to number 1.

[anymouse]

"Reagan Extended Peace Overture to Brezhnev"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/986590/posts

[gipper81]

It is not just cliches, it is NAME CALLING from a bunch of juviniles.

There are only two ways to look at this name calling.

Either hate the name caller (which is good, because you are hating the dems - a source of evil); or, see that it is a compliment paid to Reagan because of his effective policies.

Remember this: these people don't call RINOs names.

Also, remember: we are lucky to have had Reagan. What in the world would have happened if we had 4 more years of Jimmah?

Read: "Reagan's War" (Schweizer) - it give you the complete story.

[borkrules]

Yep.

I read the piece in Time that Drudge links to thinking that perhaps finally we would see a realistic assessment in the pages of one of liberalism's prime media organs.

What a sap I am.

Once again, same old cliches, same old complete misreading of the man. The reference to Morris' biography is a complete distortion of that author's thesis (don't take it from me, Morris has debunked the idea that he thought Reagan an "airhead" in public, on TV). I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a letter to the editors of Time from Edmund Morris on this, its so egregious. Good God, Ann Coulter has already savaged those idiots on the Today Show for the same misreading. Liberals are slow learners.

Those interested in the truth will simply have to read the book. You're just not going to get a representative sampling from these "reviews".

[cyborg]

EXCELLENT book. I have so much love and respect for Ronald Reagan!!!! I really had to resist buying it so I could tell my friend to get it for my b-day. How sweet. How touching. You get insight into his politics. The best letters are his letters to children. It reads like CS Lewis' book 'Letters to Children'.