My wonderful cousin, Anne, gave us this unabridged audio book–38 discs, 48 hours of listening pleasure–on one of our visits to Boston. Diane and I decided when the coronavirus pandemic hit Western New York, we’d take advantage of the Stay-at-Home order and listen to Ron Chernow’s Grant. So, for the past three months or so, Diane and I have been listening to Mark Bramhall narrate Grant during lunch. Each disc is about 70 minutes in length, so we’d typically listen to a half a disc each day.
I knew a bit about Ulysses S. Grant from some of the history books I’ve read over the years. When I was in ROTC at Marquette University, I studied Grant’s battles in the Civil War in our MILITARY HISTORY class. But listening to this audio book completely filled out the image I had of Grant as a brilliant tactician and strategist, but a man beset by problems.
Grant had no business sense. Time and time again, Grant was hoodwinked by people he trusted. Although Grant had integrity, many of the people he surrounded himself with did not. Grant’s family used the famous man to their own selfish ends, especially Grant’s father.
The recent toppling of a statue of Grant angered me because Grant supported freeing slaves, admired black soldiers, and fought for black voter rights in the South after the Civil War. The reason given for bringing down the statue of Grant was because “he owned slaves.” Grant did not. His wife’s family owned slaves before Grant married her. Grant and his wife never owned slaves.
From the minor military career to the generalship of the Northern forces, Grant’s rise is impressive and surprising. Grant never aspired to higher positions, he was usually pushed into them because of his talents. Grant never wanted to be President, but he did so because he felt it was his duty.
There’s no denying that Grant led a sad life, punctuated by successes and infrequent happiness. Grant was an alcoholic constantly fighting to stay sober. He smoked a dozen cigars a day which resulted in cancer of the mouth and throat. Grant labored in pain and agony as he was dying to finish his memoirs in order to not leave his wife penniless. Ron Chernow’s biography is a classic. GRADE: A
I saw the recent tv show on grant, which I really enjoyed. Much as I love audio books, that is too much for me.
Our library opened new holds and contactless pickup in early june. I’ve restocked on audio books, and have gotten some movies and tv shows as well.
Only a few libraries are open for this, mostly with big parking lots. They haven’t figured out how to have safe returns, so they keep extending due dates. I ask a friend in Australia how they handle returns, and she said the virus can exist for 3 days, so they hold the returns for 3 days and then put them back into circulation. I don’t see that many people when I go to pick up, so wonder why our library hasn’t thought of that.
Maggie, the Libraries who have opened here have the same “quarantine” rule: all returned books are held for 3 days before they go back on the shelves. GRANT was a monumental work. The book is nearly a 1000 pages. But, by breaking the listening time up into 35 minute portions, Diane and I managed to deal with the 48 hours of listening. Plus, Ron Chernow is a terrific writer! And Grant was a compelling historical figure.
Phil was a great fan of his memoirs. I have it on my shelf. Perhaps one day I will read it. Sounds like a pretty sad life.
My library is using that system, Maggie. But it is a small library with two big rooms in the basement they can use to let them sit.
Patti the good thing about this is that they renew items, so while I have more than I can get to in a month, I have extended periods to listen to them. I have 6 movies. tv shows, 1 book (got in error thought it was an audio) and about 28 audios. 3 movies, the book and about 10 audios are ready to go back. There’s a 40 limit, but think movies may be separate from that. The oldest things I have out are audios that were originally due march 23rd
I’m now waiting for the first season of grace and frankie, as I”m not sure where I left off (watching while getting a mani/pedi. I have the second season now. I just watched Red Dog, which nextflix has said very long wait for 2 months, and shrek the musical. Also waiting for shitt’s creek, which I have no idea why I didn’t watch when it was being broadcast
Patti, the initial release of Grant’s memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, making it the best selling book in America at that time. Grant wrote most of it while dying of cancer in order to provide his wife with money when he was gone.
Sounds good. I’ve always wanted to read his memoirs too.
I thought I read that the morons who attacked the Grant statue thought he was a Confederate, which shows they did not pay much attention in school. It took Lincoln long enough to get rid of the losers and self-servers and land on Grant, but when he did it made all the difference. McClellan would still be waiting for “the right moment” to attack.
Jeff, Mark Twain praised Grant’s memoirs as a “masterpiece.” The writing style of Grant’s memoirs is clear and precise, just like the man.
We watched and very much enjoyed GRANT which ran on History Channel, an 8 hour production that was really excellent. Reviews said it closely followed the book and was approved by Chernow. Justin Salinger, who played Grant, was outstanding.
Rick, we have the episodes of GRANT from the History Channel on our DVR. We hope to watch them later this week. The reviews have been very positive. Glad you enjoyed it!
I’ve always found Grant to be an interesting figure but am not much of a reader of biographies, certainly not 1,000 page biographies. Which makes it strange that my White Whale of biographies is Robert A. Caro’s four volume (with one more to come) work on Lyndon Johnson.
I’d like to chime in on the library discussion but I’m afraid there’s nothing I could say about my still closed library system that’s printable on this blog.
Michael, the Big Library News here is that on July 1st, the Buffalo/Erie County Public Library system will start to allow patrons to RESERVE books. During the coronavirus pandemic, when the Libraries were shut down, their web site did NOT allow anyone to RESERVE books. No holds, no interlibrary loans, nada. Now, this is all about to change.