Loved it! Eleanor Roosevelt wrote her "My Day" column during the critical pre-war and World War II years when her husband was President. This book organizes her columns chronologically from 1936 through the death of FDR in 1945. The editors were wise in giving brief but thorough notes prior to many columns so readers would understand the events to which the First Lady was responding in her writings on a given day.

In her columns, Eleanor Roosevelt emphasizes that she is very much a regular person trying to do as much good as she can with the position that came automatically to her when her husband took office. She hints occasionally that would have preferred to live a private life, but is nonetheless dedicated to doing the most with the influence she knows she has. Eleanor Roosevelt speaks candidly about the people she meets, the letters she receives, her impressions of the areas she visits in order to see the American troops stationed abroad, her grandchildren, and the occasional awkward (and funny) moments that happen among people within the artificial environment of the White House.

The editors have done an excellent job of excerpting from her full columns those details that make for a coherent "story" as the days go on. In particular, the editors have taken care *not* to make the book all about FDR's presidency as seen through his wife's eyes, because she was interested in so much more than that. This really is Eleanor's life, the way she herself shared it with the public.

Eleanor Roosevelt enjoyed writing the column so much that it became the one -- and nearly only -- part of her public life that she continued after she left the White House following FDR's death. For all the dull, dry history books out there, this one is the antidote. Go Eleanor.