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Presidents' Favorite Books

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Presidents' Favorite Books — Daily trivia Tuesday, August 4, 2026: questions and answers

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  1. Q 01Which American President was known for carrying copies of Shakespeare's collected works, with a particular fondness for plays like 'Macbeth'?

    • AJohn Adams
    • BUlysses S. Grant
    • CTheodore Roosevelt
    • DAbraham Lincoln
    Show answer

    Abraham Lincoln

    The brine

    Lincoln wrote that judgement to the actor James Hackett in 1863. Hackett printed the letter, and newspapers mocked the president for presuming to offer literary criticism in wartime.

  2. Q 02Who wrote the spy thriller whose sales soared after a 1961 Life article listed it among JFK's ten favourite books?

    • AJohn le Carre
    • BIan Fleming
    • CGraham Greene
    • DLen Deighton
    Show answer

    Ian Fleming

    The brine

    The book was From Russia, with Love. Kennedy's endorsement made Fleming the biggest-selling crime writer in America, and the Pan paperback went from 145,000 copies in 1962 to 642,000 the following year.

  3. Q 03Which president gave Harper Lee the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007?

    • ABill Clinton
    • BGeorge W. Bush
    • CBarack Obama
    • DJimmy Carter
    Show answer

    George W. Bush

    The brine

    Lee published almost nothing after the 1960 novel and avoided interviews for decades, so the White House ceremony was one of her few public appearances.

  4. Q 04Which novel, given to him at 11 by his mother, did Reagan say led him to be baptised?

    • ABen-Hur
    • BThe Pilgrim's Progress
    • CThat Printer of Udell's
    • DLittle Lord Fauntleroy
    Show answer

    That Printer of Udell's

    The brine

    Harold Bell Wright's 1903 novel about a printer's apprentice who cleans up a corrupt town was a bestseller in its day and is largely forgotten now, except as the book that shaped a future president at 11.

  5. Q 05Which 85 essays by 'Publius' were published to win New York's vote for ratifying the US Constitution?

    • AThe Federalist Papers
    • BThe Rights of Man
    • CDemocracy in America
    • DCommon Sense
    Show answer

    The Federalist Papers

    The brine

    Hamilton, Madison and Jay wrote them for New York newspapers between October 1787 and August 1788. The name 'Federalist Papers' only stuck in the nineteenth century.

  6. Q 06Which Roman emperor's private Stoic reflections have been admired by many leaders, including Bill Clinton?

    • ANero
    • BAugustus
    • CMarcus Aurelius
    • DHadrian
    Show answer

    Marcus Aurelius

    The brine

    Meditations was never meant to be read by anyone; it is a private notebook of Stoic self-instruction. Clinton is not its only political admirer, and Chinese premier Wen Jiabao said he had read it a hundred times.

  7. Q 07Which English philosopher's natural rights and social contract theory underpinned Thomas Jefferson's politics?

    • AThomas Hobbes
    • BJohn Locke
    • CDavid Hume
    • DFrancis Bacon
    Show answer

    John Locke

    The brine

    Phrases from the Two Treatises echo through the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson called their author one of the three greatest men who ever lived, alongside Bacon and Newton.

  8. Q 08What were the 60 books Theodore Roosevelt took on his 1909 African safari bound in?

    • APigskin
    • BSailcloth
    • CZebra hide
    • DTin
    Show answer

    Pigskin

    The brine

    It was nicknamed the Pigskin Library, and the durable rebinding was meant to survive a year of dust, rain and rough handling in the field.

  9. Q 09The WWII programme that gave US troops 122 million free paperbacks had a slogan calling books what?

    • AThe soldier's second rifle
    • BWeapons in the war of ideas
    • CA furlough between covers
    • DThe quiet front line
    Show answer

    Weapons in the war of ideas

    The brine

    The Armed Services Editions were printed wide and short to fit a uniform pocket, on presses that normally ran magazines. It remains one of the largest free book distributions in history.

  10. Q 10Which future president and his wife produced the first English translation of Agricola's mining text De re metallica?

    • AWoodrow Wilson
    • BHerbert Hoover
    • CCalvin Coolidge
    • DJimmy Carter
    Show answer

    Herbert Hoover

    The brine

    He was a mining engineer and she a geologist and Latinist, and their footnotes tracing Agricola's invented Latin mining terms are still the standard reference. They published it privately in London in 1912.

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