The Role of Reading in Nine Famous Lives

This book demonstrates that reading, through its influence on the lives of individuals, has the power to shape human history. The nine readers profiled here-- Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Booker T. Washington, Pearl S. Buck, Louis L'Amour, and Nelson Mandela --are presented in chronological order according to birth. Respective chapters contain brief biographies and discuss the ways in which each person used books as a principal aid in the development of his or her exceptional talents.