Great books you should read: The White House Mess

A laugh out loud book.If you liked The West Wing, you might like this.  I must however point out that when it comes to the books of Christopher Buckley, I’m giving rigged results here as I just buy the guy’s books on spec.  I read this in 1987, reread it a few times,  and only discovered years later that he had actually written quite a few novels (This was in the days before Amazon.)  The joy! The joy! It was like discovering a secret Beatles album.

Buckley’s a US political satirist most famous for being A) the son of  US Conservative Ayatollah William F. Buckley, and B.) writing the novel Thank You For Smoking, which was made into a very enjoyable movie with the criminally underrated Aaron Eckhart.

It’s 1988, and Democratic President Elect Thomas Nelson Tucker is being sworn into office. What happens is a diary of his deputy chief of staff’s musings on the noble but chaotic Tucker Presidency, and it was, for many years, my favourite book. It’s both funny and touching, and will be really appreciated by those of us who take our politics with a bit of hope bit of hope on the side.