Update: The First Tycoon continues to appear on best-books-of-2009 lists—and I'm grateful for every one. Here's a revised list, with the addition of the San Francisco Chronicle and Vanity Fair. I might also note that Parade listed it as a last-minute gift idea.
Recommended by both The New Yorker and Parade: That's a nice place to be. I try to combine scholarship with storytelling, and this list of lists suggests I'm not blowing it entirely.
As a biographer, I have concentrated on the nineteenth century. Everyone in my books is long since dead. If they published anything, it's public domain now. But my books aren't.
Laying claim to the past is a tricky thing. The subject himself belongs to no one. Anyone could release a book or movie or television series about Cornelius Vanderbilt or Jesse James without asking my permission. But there's a distinct line between what is public domain, and what belongs to the biographer. There's a great deal of authorship involved in any biography, no matter how old or well known the subject. The greater the originality and depth of work, the greater the author's claim to intellectual property rights.
That work can loosely be broken down into three overlapping categories: research, analysis, and narrative. (more…)
The First Tycoon continues to make best-of-the-year lists. Not all of them, of course. That's OK with me—it's a good sign for books when not all editors can agree on the best books of the year. But my book has done quite well enough. Note the addition of The New Yorker, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Barnes & Noble, and Bloomberg, too.
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune ran a nice interview with me on December 5. You can find it here.
I had a great conversation with Laurie Hertzel, the books editor for the STrib (as it's nicknamed), and it's a shame they couldn't print the whole thing. I would have enjoyed reading through it again.
Dwight Garner, an excellent book critic for the New York Times, blogs about my critique of Edward J. Renehan Jr.'s book, Commodore: The Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt. You can read Garner's fine post here.
Renehan's book, I believe, is indeed a case of "biographical malpractice," as Garner puts it. It makes demonstrably false claims based on secret sources, which I do not believe actually exist. And yet, the book is still in print, and still on library shelves. That's a real shame. It's damaging the public's knowledge of Cornelius Vanderbilt, a pivotal business figure.
You can read my full comments on this subject on my other blog, here.
(Revised 12/06/09)
It's that time of year when the annual best-books lists being to appear. The First Tycoon appears on some, but hardly all. No shocker there. The least surprising thing about such lists is that no two are alike. In fact, that's a very good thing. It means there are a lot of excellent books being published every year, too many for any two critics to agree upon which handful are the best.
So you won't find me complaining about the lists that have left me out. In fact, I'm as pleased as Dan Rather with a handbook of folksy metaphors to have been picked for the lists I did make. Here they are, so far:
