New biography of Ulysses Grant

I actually ponied up $24--a record for me-- for this new book by Ron Chernow and temporarily sidelined John Quincy Adams.  Grant is even heavier than JQ was, but he's always been a favorite of mine.  The book leaves a lot to be desired, physically.  The typeface is small and fiddly, and has a grey texture, not quite black but off-black.  The margins are too small, and so is the type.

  Whatever happened to books being published in two volumes?

 Let me give a shout out for the Library of America editions.   They are printed on thin but very good paper, with legible type, and are a pleasure to read.  I read Grant's autobiography in a Llbrary of America edition and did not get a hernia from lifting it.

  About that $24:  every once in a while I buy something at the local Barnes and Noble, in the desperate hope that they will not go out of business.  Perhaps if they tried publishing books in two or three volumes?  On nice preservation paper, with legible type?

A sad loss

I just finished reading Grant's Final Victory, about President Grant's last year of life.  It was truly a heroic year.  Having been swindled out of just about everything he owned by men he had trusted, Grant determined to  write and publish his memoirs so that Julia, his wife, would have enough money to live on.  Grant had esophageal cancer and knew he had not much time.

Grant's illness was extremely painful.  In the end he could no longer speak.  But day after painful day, he worked on his memoirs.  When he had finished them, using his last ounce of strength, he died.