Ezra, you just have a higher standard for "read" than our president. If you just look at the pictures, read the back cover and browse through the pages, it really doesn't take that long to "read" a book. In fact, I surprised he doesn't "read" a new book each day. I guess he tries to keep it down to one a week or so.

Oh, the numbers crunched are wrong. I get 75 pages a day. 115 would imply only 235 days a year.

Mark,

It's only August.

Whoever drew up that list on C-Span had pretty good taste. Points in Bush's favor if he is an actual Travis McGee fan.

I could actually see a person reading all those books this year (basically breezy mysteries and pop history), provided that person was NOT an early-retiring President of the United States.

It's a brag, a preposterous one, but as Ezra notes, an oddly heartening one.

Mark - Bush's claim is that he has read 60 books so far this year (234 days into the year).

i hear Bush's time swimming the Yangtse broke even Mao's record.

There was a PDB prepared for each of these 60 books, and Bush read the PDBs.

(Then, of course, he told the intern who wrote the PDBs "There. Your ass is covered now.")

Did they note what editions of the books he read? Maybe they were the comic book adaptations?

Coincidentally, Bush is also a lot like Steve Carell's character on "The Office": incompetent, embarrassing, and always inappropriate, while believing himself to be hilarious and beloved.

"i hear Bush's time swimming the Yangtse broke even Mao's record."

And Bush, despite all conventional wisdom, really can eat just one Lay's potato chip.

Why so skeptical?

I'm sure Bush is a devoted follower of the Magic Tree House series.

Hey, the more time he spends reading, the less time he has to screw up everything else. Keep reading, Duh-bya!

Reading books, particularly nonfiction books, takes a really long time. It's hard, and it's boring, and I say this all as an effete liberal intellectual

Way to shoot down your credibility.

I like social history (Poisoned Lives: English Poisoners and Their Victims), and I can polish one off in three or four evenings. I couldn't manage that naval battles book in that time, but the history of polio would be a piece of cake.

And I'm sure Mr. Bush reads equally quickly, of course. ;-)

I expect he was actually rereading Hamlet.

I think it's rather funny there are a few Flashman books in there. Either the person who came up with that list has a wry sens of humor or Dear Leader has found a literary character he can truly identify with.

Hamlet and MacBeth are interesting choices as well. Maybe the Oedipus trilogy is on the part that's missing.

Now I know why he read The Stranger (It's very short.).

Does he count comic books?

Ezra Klein says that he doesn't buy that Bush has read 60 books this year.

Hmm. I'm a fulltime Product Manager, and I spend my days online and in meetings. I do nearly all of my reading just before bed - and yet I've managed to plow through 30 non-fiction books this year (books on the order of "A Peace to End all Peace"). The President could easily have a couple of hours set aside per day to read - just because he doesn't read the newspapers doesn't mean that he doesn't read.

If I set aside 2 hours a day to read, I could probably get through 100+ non-fiction books a year - and retain what I'd read in them quite well, thank you.

As to Bush's supposed stupidity:

His SAT scores are public knowledge

He speaks very badly. That doesn't imply that he's a dunce, although it's an assumption most people make based on verbal skills.

The people who made the pronouncements about Bush having read a lot are not Bush - all his publicity like this comes from some of the finest political minds in America. So no, it's not going to be like a boast coming from an inexperienced virgin.

And more to the point, they aren't trying to convince intellectuals that he is intellectual. They would be trying to convince people who don't read a lot of books, who they see as their base.

So it would be more like a world-weary 17 year old describing french kissing to a bunch of over-eager 12 year olds. And yeah, it'd be inaccurate like that.

The President is a committed and persistent reader. After all he did stay to finish "My Pet Goat."

macbeth. that's classic...

If there's any logical explanation, it's audiobooks. They've swapped out his music on his iPod shuffle for abridged versions.

One other mitigating circumstance is that he does commute by 'public' transport more than most Americans. Look at the reading patterns of people in cities with a subway/metro system or commuter rail and you'll find a lot more books consumed than for those who drive.

Was this list a gift to Maureen Dowd, or what?

I can't wait for Saturday.

Comparisons are odious (and how!) but Bill Clinton read 60 books before breakfast most days.

And Bush, despite all conventional wisdom, really can eat just one Lay's potato chip.

Except that he's never heard of anyone named Lay before...

The President could easily have a couple of hours set aside per day to read - just because he doesn't read the newspapers doesn't mean that he doesn't read.

Oh, thank God...see, it works out just fine if the President who already keeps banker's hours sets aside two hours every day to read for pleasure, but refuses to touch current events from the newspapers. I feel safer already. Wasn't there a Flashman book that explained the difference between Shi'a and Sunni? Perhaps he'll get to that one soon.

I cheerfully give ground on stupid (especially with standardized test scores as evidence), yet maintain that year after year, we have received a constant stream of proof that Mr. Bush is almost entirely intellectually incurious. Yet he devours books with a passion that could only be matched by smug product managers? Sorry, but something doesn't jibe here.

I'm most amused by the idea that coming up with a summer reading list of "big" books is a good way to demonstrate that Bush is too smart. Pity Mortimer Adler isn't still alive, he could school George on the Great Books.

Future scholars might study the tombs on Bush's reading list with an eye to discover clues to his policies and pronouncements. A perhaps useful collective noun to describe these works: "Bushlit"

The Patterson, Silva, and MacDonald books shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to finish.

I'm not thrilled to see a book from Silva's series publicly touted on the list, btw.

Comparisons are odious (and how!) but Bill Clinton read 60 books before breakfast most days.

In his book Richard Clarke seemed dazzled by Clinton's book-a-night or nearly habit, but the Big Dog, after working until 2 a.m. seemed to like action-thrillers.

Me, I start a lot more non-fiction than I finish. In my old age, I'll even put away an unfinished novel if it isn't any good.

Personally, I just can't get over the idea of Bush part 2 reading Camus at all, let alone The Stranger. As someone who actually got a degree in French, I can't possibly think of a more ironic reading choice he could have made. I'd think, if I ever met the man, I'd be unable to resist spending the entire time talking about the book.

If W actually reads Flashman stories and doesn't feel an unpleasant shock, he is utterly lacking in self-awareness. But I guess we knew that.

Adding to the list of reasons against this wildly implausible scenario is the widely held perception of Bush as 'intellectually incurious.'

I think it's rather funny there are a few Flashman books in there. Either the person who came up with that list has a wry sens of humor or Dear Leader has found a literary character he can truly identify with.

I don't see how anyone can read the Flashman books (especially Flashman at the Charge - the Light Brigade, you know) and buy into a "everything is great despite the naysayers" attitude.

But that's America - crapping itself and swearing violently while an idiot leads it into teh Valley of Doom.

Read with interest the takes on Bush's reading marathon, but I think the most telling evidence of his either lying about having read the works or his failure to comprehend what he read came this past week when he was interviewed in New Orleans by Brian Williams of NBC. (Williams got a lot of flack for perceived belligerence and badgering if the NBC emails, shown by Williams on the nightly news, is any indication, as if we are supposed to refrain from treating a politician with any more respect than we'd show to a tax collector.) At one point in the interview, when Williams saw that he wasn't going to get an admission from Bush that the Administration itself had been at fault for the Katrina Fiasco, Williams switched gears and asked, "I understand you've been doing a lot of reading this summer?" To which, Bush replied yes, he had, then provided an aw-shucks confirmation he had indeed tackled Camus's *L'Etranger.* Then, as if to dodge further questioning designed to see if he'd understood what he'd read, Bush quickly added that he'd also read "three Shakespeares." Three of Shakespeare's what?! Obviously, the man thinks that the only works the Bard ever wrote were the plays. Seems to me there were a few sonnets in there somewhere; pretty good ones, I'm told. Then, perhaps to allay the fears of the beer and onions hoi polloi that he might -- he just MIGHT -- belong to what the late Spiro Agnew termed "pointy-headed intellectuals," Bush allowed as to how he'd *also* read biographies of sports figures. And then he betrayed his seeming inability to learn anything much from his reading as well as his cock-arrogant belief that he can use words he thinks he understands but cannot spell or pronounce. He said, "I guess you could say I'm kinda ecalectic[sic]." Last time I checked Webster's, the word, "eclectic," had three, not four syllables. Perhaps Karl Rove coached him at some time before the appearance and poor George simply forgot how to say the word. (After all, Bush was in the middle of a barn-storming spin-fest that took him way out west to preach to the choir (the VFW), the one-year anniversary of Katrina and the Battle of New Orleans coming in as a kind of photo op.) Somehow, it's rather difficult imagining a Vicente Fox saying "ecalectico" when the proper Spanish word is "eclectico." Not only does George lie, he does it with poor grammer, syntax, and pronunciation. Let's face it folks, what we have in the White House is a gold-plated hick from Midland, a man who apparently realized the Peter Principle and advanced his career to the point of incompetence long before 2000. The only reason he got a second term is that he and his Gestapo managed to scare the living crap out of a gulable American electrat. Ah, well, the Democrat Party is waiting in the wings....

I wish we had more examples of Bush's poor reading and speaking habits...well, we do people! We do! So quit using his inability to properly use the English language. I've been known, even at my advanced age, to mispronounce a word that I've read repeatedly just because I've never connected the spelled word to the spoken word. Do I read? More than anyone here I'd venture to guess. And I always have; GWTW @12 yrs old. But epitome? Why isn't that word ep-i-tome? I knew what it meant in a sentence in a book. I definitely used the word appropriately in conversations. Didn't connect the two however! Give poor George a break. He needs at least one.

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Ezra, you just have a higher standard for "read" than our president. If you just look at the pictures, read the back cover and browse through the pages, it really doesn't take that long to "read" a book. In fact, I surprised he doesn't "read" a new book each day. I guess he tries to keep it down to one a week or so. I disagree go to http://www.apartments.waw.pl/

Ezra, you just have a higher standard for "read" than our president. If you just look at the pictures, read the back cover and browse through the pages, it really doesn't take that long to "read" a book. In fact, I surprised he doesn't "read" a new book each day. I guess he tries to keep it down to one a week or so. I disagree go to http://www.apartments.waw.pl/

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