The Life of Nelson A. Rockefeller

This book was a finalist for the National Book Award and it is easy to see why. Although it is an enormous book--over 700 pages and still only the first volume of this biography--it is an engrossing and amazingly quick read. Rockefeller moved in so many great circles that the book feels more like one about 20th century America than just one man. The author's fascination with Rockefeller is infectious. The fact that Cary Reich died a sudden and untimely death last year, before he could complete volume two, means that readers will be deprived, even if the writer who completes volume two does an equally superb job.