The Dog-Eared Volume on the Shelf?

For a special section that will tout the National Book Festival next month, the Washington Post has invited authors who are speaking at the festival (including moi!) to write a piece about “what book is most dog-eared in your library — and why.” Though I was eager to use this opportunity to write for a wide audience, the assignment was…

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The Shadow of Gore Vidal

Anyone who writes about Aaron Burr — like me, for example, in American Emperor — has to wrestle with the shadow of Gore Vidal.  Vidal rendered Burr as a marvelous three-dimensional character in his rollicking historical novel with the admirably simple title, Burr.  I read Vidal’s Burr when it came out in 1973 and ate it up.  It was…

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