The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1855-1872: Volume 2 Book

My standard operating procedure when perusing a book that I might possibly purchase or borrow from the library is to read the first few lines on the first page. If I'm hooked by those sentences, then the book goes home with me.

Of course, exceptions must be made, as in the case of this book, which is an anthology of letters written to U.S. Presidents over the years, from George Washington to Bill Clinton. As I flipped through the book to find something that captured me, I saw a letter from Annie Davis, a slave, to President Lincoln: "It is my Desire to be free...please let me know if we are free and what I can do...please send me word this week or as soon as possible."

And I was hooked.

This book is a very quick read (I finished it in less than 24 hours) that is thoroughly entertaining. At moments, it is laugh-out-loud funny, as when 12-year-old Fidel Castro wrote to FDR asking him for a $10 bill because he'd never seen a $10 U.S. bill before. At other times, it was both moving and shocking, as when I read a series of letters, written by different people to different presidents over the course of 30 years, beseeching the leaders of our nation to speak out against the practice of lynching. Because I'm a big sap, I also cried over a letter written by a young man to Dwight D. Eisenhower, asking him to give his 22-year-old friend - completely paralyzed by polio - a wave when he passed by his house while golfing (Ike did so).

I can only imagine the thousands of letters the author had to sift through to find the ones he put in this anthology and I think he did a great job. It made me proud to know that we have so many eloquent writers in our nation with such deep things on their minds.