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JAMIE'S BOOKSHELF: New Kentucky Books Highlight Holiday Reading List

Updated: Dec 25, 2023



(Editor's note: This is the second of a two-part bookshelf column.)


Compiled by Jamie H. Vaught


--The Coal Miner Who Became Governor by Paul E. Patton with Jeffrey S. Suchanek (University Press of Kentucky, $35) covers his personal, professional, and political life in Kentucky, starting with his career in the coal industry. Patton, who had a humble upbringing in eastern Kentucky, first took elected office in 1981 as Pike County judge/executive before serving a term as lieutenant governor (1991–1995). He then became governor for an unprecedented two consecutive terms. His overhaul of higher education in Kentucky led to his role as the University of Pikeville's president and chancellor, even after his political career. In this captivating account, Patton reveals the decision-making process for campaign strategies, selection of running mates, postsecondary education and workers' compensation reforms, early childhood development initiatives, and attempts at tax reform. He also addresses his fall from grace — his extramarital affair with Tina Conner and its effects on his personal and professional life. For the most part, it is an interesting book and I highly recommend it.


Former Kentucky governor Paul Patton with his new book at the Kentucky Book Festival which was held in October in Lexington. (Photo by Jamie H. Vaught)

--Gatewood: Kentucky's Uncommon Man by Matthew Strandmark (University Press of Kentucky, $30) is a coloful biography about a controversial Kentuckian who wore many hats as an attorney, activist, author, father, friend and political candidate. The book weaves together personal stories, public records, and oral history interviews to provide a comprehensive overview of the life and career of Gatewood Galbraith, who was an eccentric and fascinating figure. From his ailment-plagued childhood in Carlisle, Kentucky, to his young adulthood spent at the fringes of Lexington society, the opening chapters of Galbraith's life were vital in developing the values that later came to define his political career — his passion for rural communities and low tolerance for bullies. As a college dropout in the 1960s, Galbraith explored both conventional and unconventional avenues of self-discovery before returning to the University of Kentucky, where he graduated from law school and found his calling as an evangelist for cannabis legalization. A five-time candidate for governor, he passed away in 2012.


--Jesse Stuart: Immortal Kentuckian by James M. Gifford (Jesse Stuart Foundation, $20) examines Stuart’s life in a broad historical context, sharing his enduring legacy through his broad range of accomplishments as an author, educator, conservationist, spokesman for Kentucky and Appalachia, compulsive correspondent, world traveler, father, husband, and community-minded neighbor. It shows how Stuart has immortalized himself through personal relationships as well as through people who read his books. A graduate of Lincoln Memorial University and Vanderbilt University, he was very well-known for his short stories, poetry, and novels as well as nonfiction autobiographical works set in Appalachia. Stuart died in 1984.


--The Backpage: Byron Crawford's Kentucky Living Columns by Byron Crawford (Kentucky Electric Cooperatives, $26.95) is an entertaining collection of his short essays about interesting people and places in rural Kentucky. Since 2011, Crawford has written the back page of Kentucky Living magazine, the state's most widely circulated publication, and each month, readers enjoy his unique gift for "finding the little story within the big story," as he puts it. Crawford is a longtime TV and newspaper journalist. Wrote Tim Farmer, a TV host, "Byron Crawford is to Kentucky storytelling what Cawood Ledford was to Kentucky basketball. ... When I read his writing, I hear his voice telling the story."

Author Matthew Strandmark with his new book, Gatewood: Kentucky's Uncommon Man, at the Kentucky Book Festival. (Photo by Jamie H. Vaught)

--The Times: How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn, and the Transformation of Journalism by Adam Nagourney (Crown, $35) is a sweeping behind-the-scenes look at The New York Times, an iconic institution in American journalism. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents and letters contained in the newspaper’s archives and the private papers of editors and reporters, the 565-page hardcover looks at the essential years that shaped the newspaper. The author, who covers national poltics for The New York Times, paints a vivid picture of a divided newsroom, fraught with tension as it struggled to move into the digital age, while confronting its scandals, shortcomings, and swelling criticism from conservatives and many of its own readers alike.


--Romney: A Reckoning by McKay Coppins (Scribner, $32.50) is a remarkable biography of one of America's fascinating political figures -- including news-making revelations from Mitt Romney himself about dissension within today’s Republican Party -- written with his full cooperation by an award-winning writer at The Atlantic. Romney, an outspoken dissident in Donald Trump’s GOP, has made headlines in recent years for standing alone against the forces he believes are poisoning the party he once led. Romney was the first senator in history to vote to remove from office a president of his own party. Despite these moments of public courage, Romney has shared very little about what he’s witnessed behind the scenes over his three decades in politics — in GOP cloakrooms and caucus lunches, in his private meetings with Donald Trump and his family, in his dealings with John McCain, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell, Joe Manchin, and Kyrsten Sinema. The 403-page hardcover contains dozens of interviews with Romney, his family, and his inner circle as well as hundreds of pages of his personal journals and private emails.


--Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative by Jennifer Burns (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $35)

is an extraordinary biography about one of the most influential economist of the 20th century. Friedman's work was instrumental in the turn toward free markets that defined the 1980s, and his full-throated defenses of capitalism and freedom resonated with audiences around the world. The author traces Friedman’s longstanding collaborations with women, including the economist Anna Schwartz, as well as his complex relationships with powerful figures such as Fed Chair Arthur Burns and Treasury Secretary George Shultz, and his direct interventions in policymaking at the highest levels.


--Breaking Biden: Exposing the Hidden Forces and Secret Money Machine Behind Joe Biden, His Family, and His Administration by Alex Marlow (Threshold Editions, $29.99) is an eye-opening investigation into the 46th president. The conservative author reports the findings of an in-depth investigation into the vast web of consultants, bureaucrats, corporate titans, foreign interests, and various extended family members who have achieved unfathomable wealth and power while keeping Biden in charge. Over his 50-year career in Washington, Biden has become known for his wild dishonesty, embarrassing policy failings, and an absolute lack of accountability, culminating in his predictably unpopular presidency.


--Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party by Jonathan Karl (Dutton, $32) explores how Trump remade the Republican Party in his own image -- and the wreckage he’s left in his wake. Packed with new reporting, the 325-page hardcover tracks Trump’s improbable journey from disgraced and defeated former president to the dominant force, yet again, in the Republican Party.  From his exile in Mar-a-Lago, Trump has become more extreme, vengeful, and divorced from reality than he was on January 6, 2021. His meddling damaged the GOP’s electoral prospects for third consecutive election in 2022. His legal troubles are mounting. The author, who is the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News and co-anchor of This Week, has known Trump since his days as a New York Post reporter in the 1990s, and he covered every day of Trump’s administration as ABC News’s chief White House correspondent. In 1964, Ronald Reagan told Americans it was “a time for choosing.” Sixty years later, Republicans have their own choice to make: Are they tired of winning?


--Benedict XVI: A Life Volume One: Youth in Nazi Germany to the Second Vatican Council 1927–1965 by Peter Seewald (Bloomsbury Continuum, $22) offers insight into the young life and rise through the Church's ranks of a man who would become a hero and a lightning rod for Catholics around the world. Based on countless hours of interviews in Rome with Pope Benedict himself, this much-anticipated two-volume biography is the definitive record of the life of Joseph Ratzinger and the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI.


--Benedict XVI: A Life Volume Two: Professor and Prefect to Pope and Pope Emeritus 1966–The Present by Peter Seewald (Bloomsbury Continuum, $21.49) continues the Pope's life story from the Second Vatican Council (1965–68) right up to his resignation in 2013. Pope Benedict made history when he became the first Pope in over 700 years to resign from office, stunning the Catholic Church around the world. The book shows how Benedict was influenced by the Council and the ensuing political unrest all over Europe to move from a liberal perspective on the Church and the modern world to one that was profoundly conservative.


--Fabulous Failure: The Clinton Presidency and the Transformation of American Capitalism by Nelson Lichtenstein and Judith Stein (Princeton University Press, $39.95) reveals how the Bill Clinton administration betrayed its progressive principles and capitulated to the right. The administration’s progressive reformers -- people like Robert Reich, Ira Magaziner, Laura Tyson, and Joseph Stiglitz -- were stymied by a new world of global capitalism that heightened Wall Street influence, undermined domestic manufacturing, and weakened the labor movement. Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and Al Gore proved champions of this financialized world. And President Clinton divided his own party when he relied on Republican votes to overhaul welfare, liberalize trade, and deregulate the banking and telecommunications industries.


Jamie H. Vaught, a longtime sports columnist in Kentucky, is the author of six books about UK basketball, including recently-published “Forever Crazy About the Cats: An Improbable Journey of a Kentucky Sportswriter Overcoming Adversity." He is the editor and founder of KySportsStyle.com Magazine, and a professor at Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College in Middlesboro. You can follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @KySportsStyle or reach him via email at KySportsStyle@gmail.com.

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