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NOTE: THE ADDITION OF GEMINI ON MY COMPUTER SHOWED UP TODAY WHEN IT OFFERED TO EDIT THIS POST. I MAY TAKE IT UP IN THE FUTURE. FOR NOW, I’M CONTENT TO SHARE THE MISTAKES IT FOUND WHICH WOULD MIRROR MOST OF THE MISTAKES IN THE PREVIOUS 20 YEARS OF LINCOLNDEMOCRAT POSTS. I SHARE ITS SUGGESTIIONS AT THE CONCLUSION OF MY LESS FUSSY POST:
I’m lucky to read a book a month based on this updated My Reading List Speaking of updating I just did that. If you page through it you will read that I’m not always as consistent in adding books I’ve read. I tend not to add books for childreen. I’ve read Harry Potters tetrology twice outloud but its not on the list for either reading.
I had a long conversaton with ChatGPT asking it to evaluate my reading list which I dismissed as haphazard. ChatGPT begged to differ pointing out that my keeping track of it suggested something rather different. I told it I aimed always to fill the biggest holes in it geographically and chronologically. I wrote in a recent column that I had picked up my history reading since Donald Trump’s elevation to destroyer of Our Founding Father’s Democracy in 2015.
While Trump did his best to put his picture a la Big Brother everywhere for our 250th birthday this year I’ve been digging into histories that will enrich my understanding of where we’ve come from. The Atkinsons volumns on the Revolutionary War were wonderful. I may read the first again because I’m never fully satisified listening to books on audible. I can’t underline important passages for later reference. I’ve suggested to Claudia that we travel along the East Coast where we’ve spent very little time in our fifty years together so that we, I, could check out the many locations my books have mentioned.
1929 is part of a series of books on our historical economy I’ve undertaken occassionally. Its about the Crash and anticipating a rocky Trump finish I thought it was worth a look. The recent read Hamilton by Ron Chernow is yet one more autobiography by that author of important financiers. I have his House of Morgan but it is unread as of this date. I’ve also read Ways and Means by Lowenstein about Abe Lincoln’s challenge of raising money to finance the Civil War which gave us our first national income tax.
The Truman book has sat on my shelf for a decade one of my books that circles my shelves like a plane waiting for landing clearance. I’ve been chatting with Gemini about having it help me organized a book about my life watching the Republican Party through the last half of the Twentieth Century to the Present with Kansas, Misouri and Minnesota as my viewing stand. It strikes me as noteworthy that My Dad grew up in Independence, Missouri where Truman lived and I lived only an hour’s drive from Dwight David Eisenhowers home in Abilene, Kansas. I was born in the last two years of Truman’s administration and the entire eight of Eisenhower’s.
ChatGPT informed me that Miller whos book was published in 1974 was regarded has having taken liberties with his quotations from over a hundred interviews with Truman for a TV documentary that never got made. Goodreads website tells a little more about his background including his having been one of the first Out homosexuals who wrote about it much to the gratification of thousands of still closeted gays. I was surprised not to have known or to have forgotten that point. His Truman bio is not the most reliable but it came in at 480 pages which is about half the size of David McCullouth’s book. I’m at page 420 this morning. I asked ChatGPT to compare historian/biographers Rick Atkinson, McCullough and Isaac Asimove about their writing styles and research methods and got some good insights. McCullough mostly relied on documents like letters, news stories etc and studied them year by year learning the life of his subjects without getting ahead of himself or assuming based on what he already knew what was going to happen. His book on Truman took a decade to write. Every page is fascinating and I feel as though I have been experiencing second hand Truman’s life.

After this I have a book on Eisenhower by Willian Hitchcock that, while not a Pulitizer, is well regarded as a general history of Ike. I’m not sure where I’ll head after I’ve covered the midwest and mid-century but there are many excellent books still circling on my shelves.
I am reluctant to make serious changes to the above but Gemini on my computer offered to help. I asked it to find my gramatical and historical mistakes and this is what it showed me. I share them with you here:
Historical & Factual Corrections
Harry Potter “Tetrology”: You mentioned the Harry Potter “tetrology.” Since there are seven books in the main series, the correct term is heptalogy, or you might simply use “the full series.”
Author Names: You have a small typo in David McCullouth; it should be David McCullough.
Chronology: You noted 1915 as the start of your increased history reading; however, earlier in the sentence, you mention 2015 regarding Donald Trump. I’ve assumed you meant 2015 for both to keep the timeline consistent.
Suggested Prose Refinement
Here is a “clean” version of the most dense paragraph, smoothing out the transitions:
“The Truman book has sat on my shelf for a decade—one of those volumes that circles like a plane waiting for landing clearance. I’ve been chatting with Gemini about organizing a book regarding my life watching the Republican Party from the mid-twentieth century to the present, with Kansas, Missouri, and Minnesota as my viewing stands.
It strikes me as noteworthy that my dad grew up in Independence, Missouri, where Truman lived, while I lived only an hour’s drive from Dwight David Eisenhower’s home in Abilene, Kansas. I was born during the final two years of the Truman administration and lived through the entirety of Eisenhower’s eight.
I recently learned that Merle Miller, whose biography was published in 1974, was criticized for taking liberties with his quotations from over a hundred interviews with Truman. While his biography is less reliable and shorter—coming in at 480 pages compared to McCullough’s 992—it offers a different perspective. McCullough, by contrast, spent a decade on his research, relying strictly on primary documents to experience Truman’s life year-by-year without the bias of hindsight.”
Quick Grammar Fixes
“volumns”: Change to volumes.
“occassionally”: Change to occasionally.
“childreen”: Change to children.
“Misouri”: Change to Missouri.
Would you like me to rewrite the introductory paragraph to better hook your readers, or should we focus on tightening the section about the 1929 Crash?
