What I’m Crunching — May 3, 2026
This is the 10th biography I’ve begun in my journey to read one on each of the 45 U.S. Presidents. I’m thoroughly enjoying this stroll through the life of Woodrow Wilson.
A recent story told here was in the late 1890s, he and his wife Ellen wanted to build a home for their family; this had long been a dream of theirs. Woodrow was bring in a salary of $1,500 from his professorship at Princeton University, and was working on the side writing, speaking, and lecturing elsewhere. During the year of construction, he worked almost constantly, earning an additional $4,000. But, he almost worked himself into the grave. His wife Ellen wrote in a letter that he, “almost killed himself doing it!”
One notable trait displayed in each U.S. President I’ve read about so far is their inexhaustible work ethic.
What I’m Crunching — April 26, 2026
I’m slowly working my way through this one.
Like most U.S. Presidents who went to college, Wilson was incredibly active during his university years. He stood out even among his top-notch graduating class, which produced a Supreme Court Justice, two high-profile banking magnates, a Princeton University dean, and a renowned physicist, among many other notable figures.
What I’m Crunching — April 19, 2026
I grabbed this one at a Half Price Books store last year. I was biding my time before jumping back into my long-term goal of reading a biography on every U.S. President.
This one reads easily and has appropriate amounts of detail.
What I’m Crunching — April 12, 2026
This one kept me on the edge of my seat. It’s enjoyable. A bit too wordy in places, but the narrative is excellent.
From the Goodreads summary:
From the New York Times bestselling author of Washington’s Spies, “a page-turning thriller” (James M. Scott) about one of the greatest heists in history: the U.S. Navy’s clandestine capture of a Nazi U-boat at the climax of World War II.
Shortly before noon on June 4, 1944, the sonar operator on a destroyer prowling off the coast of West Africa heard a sharp, metallic ping. The sound could mean only one thing: The German submarine that their hunter-killer group had been tracking, U-505, was lurking somewhere below. The ensuing struggle between exhausted hunter and venomous prey would make history when American sailors boarded an enemy warship at sea for the first time since the War of 1812.
That day’s victory was the culmination of an unrelenting campaign against the Nazi submarine threat by the U.S. Navy’s “Tenth Fleet”—a mysterious unit that could predict the locations and movement of Hitler’s U-boats. Run by Commander Kenneth Knowles, Tenth Fleet had guided Captain Dan Gallery to U-505; to repay the favor, Gallery was going to steal an Enigma machine for him.
Now all they had to do was to make an entire U-boat, its crew, and its secrets vanish into thin air . . .
In this swashbuckling adventure story, bestselling historian Alexander Rose draws on long-classified encrypted documents and intercepted German transmissions to reveal in full, for the first time, how an owlish egghead and a glory-seeking buccaneer teamed up to score the richest prize on the high seas.
What I’m Crunching — April 5, 2026
I’m back in this one this week as our leadership team at church works through it. Lots of challenging lessons here on servant leadership and taking responsibility. Plus, the combat stories are a nice draw for a guy.