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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

52 Books in 52 Weeks: Book 27

I finally made it to the halfway point of my 52 books for the year! I am a little behind, but I have no doubt that I will catch up in the weeks to come.


Mount Vernon Love Story by Mary Higgins Clark is an extensively researched biographical novel about the love story of George Washington and his wife Martha Dandridge Curtis. It was originally published in 1969 as Aspire to the Heavens and rereleased in 2002 when a descendent of Washington found the novel.

Mary Higgins Clark is one of my favorite writers (from my youth) and she does a wonderful job of telling this love story. If history could always be told in the form of a novel, I think more people would be interested in the past (or at least I would). Within the love story Mary Higgins Clark touches on how George Washington became the first president of the United States of America.

Quotes of interest from the book:

“Get what you get honestly. Use what you have frugally. That’s the way to live comfortably and die honorably.” – Young Man’s Companion

“It is not enough to read about how to live life, or to dream it. It is quite more important to do something about it.” – George Washington’s mother

“Your mother is quite right that your temper must be controlled. She seems to feel it can be accomplished by making you afraid to give into it. I feel that you must govern it for a different reason – because you are growing up and it is unmanly and unseemly for you to have temper outbursts.” – George Washington’s father

Inwardly he was restless and driven. He wanted to do everything, know everything… What was the cause of his dissatisfaction? Nothing… Everything.

…In {his mother’s} presence his achievements seemed to fall from him. After a comment or two from her he would not be the soldier commander who had helped rescue his colony from terrible danger; he would be the witless fool who had let his plantation run down while he wasted his time running off to war.

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