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All the Presidents' Literature

"It's an uncommon coincidence. The solitary existence of the writer, recasting the world alone in a room, generally unfits him for the intensely sociable, collegial life of practical politics, just as most successful politicians would as soon turn into Trappist monks as face the daily silence and seclusion of the writer's study. [...] "Yet writing has sometimes been as important an accomplishment for an American president as his skill as a general or diplomat, as when Jefferson, Madison and John Adams wrote the United States into being by lamplight, and Lincoln scribbled disconnected sentences on scraps of paper that he tucked for safe-keeping inside his hat." - Jonathan Raban. From "All the Presidents' Literature" at WSJ.com.

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