Ranking Author Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Best Books (A Bibliography Countdown)
“What are Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Best Books?” We looked at all of Kearns Goodwin’s authored bibliography and ranked them against one another to answer that very question!
We took all of the books written by Doris Kearns Goodwin and looked at her Goodreads, Amazon, and LibraryThing scores, ranking them against one another to see which books came out on top. The books are ranked in our list below based on which titles have the highest overall score between all 3 review sites in comparison with all of the other books by the same author. The process isn’t super scientific and in reality, most books aren’t “better” than other books as much as they are just different. That being said, we do enjoy seeing where our favorites landed, and if you aren’t familiar with the author at all, the rankings can help you see what books might be best to start with.
The full ranking chart is also included below the countdown on the bottom of the page. We will update the article if/when a new book by Doris Kearns Goodwin is released. Although it probably won’t be immediate so the scores on each site have time to settle and aren’t overly influenced by the early, usually much more opinionated, users.
Happy Scrolling!
The Top Book’s Of Doris Kearns Goodwin
6 ) Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream
Review Website Ranks:
- Goodreads: 6
- Amazon: 6
- LibraryThing: 6
Hailed by the New York Times as “the most penetrating, fascinating political biography I have ever read,” Doris Kearns Goodwin’s extraordinary and insightful book draws from meticulous research in addition to the author’s time spent working at the White House from 1967 to 1969. After Lyndon Johnson’s term ended, Goodwin remained his confidante and assisted in the preparation of his memoir. In Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream she traces the 36th president’s life from childhood to his early days in politics, and from his leadership of the Senate to his presidency, analyzing his dramatic years in the White House, including both his historic domestic triumphs and his failures in Vietnam. Drawn from personal anecdotes and candid conversation with Johnson, Goodwin paints a rich and complicated portrait of one of our nation’s most compelling politicians.
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5 ) Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir
Review Website Ranks:
- Goodreads: 5
- Amazon: 5
- LibraryThing: 5
“nullSet in the suburbs of New York in the 1950s, Wait Till Next Year re-creates the postwar era, when the corner store was a place to share stories and neighborhoods were equally divided between Dodger, Giant, and Yankee fans.
We meet the people who most influenced Goodwin’s early life: her mother, who taught her the joy of books but whose debilitating illness left her housebound: and her father, who taught her the joy of baseball and to root for the Dodgers of Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, and Gil Hodges. Most important, Goodwin describes with eloquence how the Dodgers’ leaving Brooklyn in 1957, and the death of her mother soon after, marked both the end of an era and, for her, the end of childhood.”
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4 ) The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism
Review Website Ranks:
- Goodreads: 4
- Amazon: 3
- LibraryThing: 3
“nullThe story is told through the intense friendship of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft—a close relationship that strengthens both men before it ruptures in 1912, when they engage in a brutal fight for the presidential nomination that divides their wives, their children, and their closest friends, while crippling the progressive wing of the Republican Party, causing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to be elected, and changing the country’s history.
The Bully Pulpit is also the story of the muckraking press, which arouses the spirit of reform that helps Roosevelt push the government to shed its laissez-faire attitude toward robber barons, corrupt politicians, and corporate exploiters of our natural resources. The muckrakers are portrayed through the greatest group of journalists ever assembled at one magazine—Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker, Lincoln Steffens, and William Allen White—teamed under the mercurial genius of publisher S.S. McClure.”
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3 ) The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga
Review Website Ranks:
- Goodreads: 2
- Amazon: 3
- LibraryThing: 4
“””The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys”” is the sweeping history of two immigrant families, their rise to become potent political dynasties, and the marriage that brought the two together to found the most powerful family in America. Drawing on unprecedented access to the family and its private papers, Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling historian Doris Kearns Goodwin takes readers from John Francis “”Honey Fitz”” Fitzgerald’s baptism in 1863 through his reign as mayor of Boston, to the inauguration of his grandson as president ninety-eight years later. Each character emerges unforgettably: the young, shrewdly political Rose Fitzgerald; her powerful, manipulative husband, Joseph P. Kennedy; and the “”Golden Trio”” of Kennedy children — Joe Jr., Kathleen, and Jack — whose promise was eclipsed by the family’s legacy of tragedy. Through the prism of two self-made families, Goodwin reveals the ambitions and the hopes that form the fabric of the American nation.
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2 ) No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II
Review Website Ranks:
- Goodreads: 3
- Amazon: 2
- LibraryThing: 2
“Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
No Ordinary Time is a monumental work, a brilliantly conceived chronicle of one of the most vibrant and revolutionary periods in the history of the United States. With an extraordinary collection of details, Goodwin masterfully weaves together a striking number of story lines—Eleanor and Franklin’s marriage and remarkable partnership, Eleanor’s life as First Lady, and FDR’s White House and its impact on America as well as on a world at war. Goodwin effectively melds these details and stories into an unforgettable and intimate portrait of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt and of the time during which a new, modern America was born.”
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1 ) Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Review Website Ranks:
- Goodreads: 1
- Amazon: 1
- LibraryThing: 1
“Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Abraham Lincoln’s political genius in this highly original work, as the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become president.
On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention in Chicago. When Lincoln emerged as the victor, his rivals were dismayed and angry.”
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