2004 (revised 2009)
Quirk Books
9781594743443
296 pages • $17.95

Listen to Cormac discussing Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents on NPR's Weekend Edition

Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents

What Your Teachers Never Told You About the Men of the White House, Revised Edition

Thanks to this unconventional, irreverent, and often surprising book, readers will understand the immortal words of Clarence Darrow: "When I was a boy, I was told that anyone could be president. I'm beginning to believe it."

Your high-school history teachers never gave you a book like this one! Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents features outrageous and uncensored profiles of the men in the White House, complete with hundreds of little-known, politically incorrect, and downright wacko facts. You'll discover that:

• George Washington spent a whopping 7 percent of his salary on booze
• John Quincy Adams loved to skinny-dip in the Potomac River
• Warren G. Harding gambled with White House china when he ran low on cash
• Jimmy Carter reported a UFO sighting in Georgia
• And Richard Nixon sheesh, don't get us started on Nixon!

Now with a new chapter on the winner of the 2008 presidential election, Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents tackles all the tough questions that other history books are afraid to answer: Are there really secret tunnels underneath the White House? Which presidential daughter bared everything for Playboy? And what was Nancy Reagan thinking when she appeared on Diff'rent Strokes?

American history was never this much fun in school!