David McCullough

The great author and historian David McCullough passed away last week. He was one of my favorite nonfiction authors along with Robert A. Caro, and I enjoyed such books as "Truman", "The Greater Journey" (Famous Americans in Paris), "Mornings on Horseback" (Theodore Roosevelt), and "The Pioneers". His voice provided the narration for the Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War, and it made that film even better.

Author Candice Millard writes that "From David McCullough we learned that it is never enough to simply describe the past. To read one of his books is not just to understand the people who populate its pages, but to feel like you know them. As a reader, the only way to achieve that kind of intimacy is to find a writer like McCullough, whose own fascination with his subjects is palpable in every word he wrote."