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Forty Ways to Look at JFK

by Gretchen Rubin (Goodreads Author)

3.55 of 5 stars 3.55 · rating details · 42 ratings · 5 reviews

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie–deliberate, contrived, and dishonest–but the myth–persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.”
–John F. Kennedy

Statesman and hero, opportunist and fraud. John F. Kennedy’s contradictions have inspired such fascination that the public’s interest in him has never dimmed. Now, with the same striking technique she used in the...more

Hardcover, 400 pages

Published October 25th 2005 by Ballantine Books

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Jul 26, 2008 Bill rated it 4 of 5 stars

Gretchen's Rubin's tour de force on the life and presidency of John F. Kennedy, for which her excellent 40 Ways to Look at Winston Churchill now seems a warm up, presents a many-faceted view of both Kennedy's meteoric political career and his hidden personal life. As Rubin points out, borrowing Isaiah Berlin's famous comparison, if Churchill was a hedgehog guided by one great idea, Kennedy was a fox, whose perspective constantly shifts. While Kennedy may not have lived up to the stature of his h...more Gretchen's Rubin's tour de force on the life and presidency of John F. Kennedy, for which her excellent 40 Ways to Look at Winston Churchill now seems a warm up, presents a many-faceted view of both Kennedy's meteoric political career and his hidden personal life. As Rubin points out, borrowing Isaiah Berlin's famous comparison, if Churchill was a hedgehog guided by one great idea, Kennedy was a fox, whose perspective constantly shifts. While Kennedy may not have lived up to the stature of his hero Churchill (and after all, who could?), Rubin's multifaceted (often directly, deliberately contradictory) forty chapters paint a picture of a man who transcended his personal limitations -- debilitating illness, chronic pain, compulsive womanizing -- to inspire Americans in a way that they have seldom been inspired before and never since. For a flavor of this inspirational quality, one need only revisit some of Kennedy's old speeches -- on youtube or elsewhere -- to get a sense of his enormous power to lift people above themselves. Whatever the unfulfilled promise of the thousand days, Kennedy confronted Soviet aggression, calmed nuclear tensions, kept the peace, created the Peace Corps, and launched the most comprehensive civil rights legislation in a hundred years. In retrospect, even perhaps his greatest lapse, his constant affairs with the best known and most beautiful women in America, has an Olympian quality to it, unmatched by the furtive indiscretions of an Eisenhower or the tawdry sex play of a Clinton with his trailer babes and interns. Kennedy's enduring legacy is a promise that America can be smart but tough, strong but peaceful, cultivated but virile, inspirational but practical, high-minded but unpretentious, principled but tolerant, sophisticated but popular, American but international, prosperous but generous, and competitive but fair. Rubin's aptly chosen epigraph is a quote from Samuel Butler: "He is greatest who is most often in men's good thoughts." To John F. Kennedy, who died two years before I was born, I am grateful for the many good thoughts that he left behind.(less)

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Mar 22, 2008 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography, non-fiction

My interest in reading this book was to try and get a true picture of a man who has become a legend. The veneration JFK receives seemed to be incongruous with the few things I knew about him/his presidency: the Bay of Pigs which in most accounts was a disaster, the space race which I admire but is it really cause for legend hood, and civil rights which my recollection put more squarely on Johnson's shoulders, and of course his mysterious assasination. So what did Kennedy do that made him such a...more My interest in reading this book was to try and get a true picture of a man who has become a legend. The veneration JFK receives seemed to be incongruous with the few things I knew about him/his presidency: the Bay of Pigs which in most accounts was a disaster, the space race which I admire but is it really cause for legend hood, and civil rights which my recollection put more squarely on Johnson's shoulders, and of course his mysterious assasination. So what did Kennedy do that made him such a hero to my parents and amny others?

The book as its title implies is set up to approach Kennedies life from 40 different angles each explored in its own chapter. The picture that emerges is of an extraordinarily charismatic man who at heart was not a very good man. Philanderer is too kind a word for him, a master of projecting a fake persona to the world, wealthy in the worst kind of ways - using his wealth to buy his reputation and occasionally elections. He was not a man of strong convictions and high ideals but one of enormous ambition who desperately wanted to go down in history as a great man.

So why is he such a legend? His assasination is an easy answer but it is really rooted in his ability, despite the contrast with his true personage, to inspire. His eloquence and wit, the fact that he challenged the American people instead of coddling them while also making them feel proud and patriotic. Who doesn't know at least one of Kennedies quotes? One of the most interesting things to me is that while most of the important legislation for civil rights happened later, Kennedies rhetoric was an important brand in the fire. His ability to inspire was also credited with jumpstarting the feminist movement as well. It places an interesting focus on the importance of the ability to inspire in our politic leaders.

The book was an easy read and since much of the info was new to me I enjoyed it. It does at times seem to get repetitive. I have not previously read a biography of JFK so have no means of comparisom nut I'd say for a quick and dirt look at who he was this is a good book.(less)

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Jun 23, 2011 Emi Dunn rated it 3 of 5 stars

A very unique approach to a biography, this book goes through the life of JFK subject-by-subject. All sides of Kennedy's life are examined separately, giving you a good idea of the man and his presidency.

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Jun 30, 2010 Jarom rated it 3 of 5 stars

Gets repetitive as it goes on, but fascinating discussions at times, especially when trying to investigate his actively cultivated media presence.

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Jul 17, 2009 B. Hallward rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: all, biography

A quick read: harmless but rather superficial.

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About Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin is the author of the blockbuster New York Times bestsellers, Happier at Home and The Happiness Project--accounts of her experiences test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific studies, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. On her popular blog, The Happiness Project, www.happiness-project.com, she reports on her daily adventures in the pursuit of happi...more

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Books by Gretchen Rubin

The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life

Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill: A Brief Account of a Long Life

The Happiness Project One-Sentence Journal: A Five-Year Record

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