Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure

Name: Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure
Brand: Dreamscape Media
Availability: InStock
Author: Matthew Algeo
ISBN: 9781666649833

Author: Matthew Algeo

Narrator: Lesa Lockford

Unabridged: 8 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Dreamscape Media

Published: 11/07/2023

Categories: Nonfiction, History, Us History, Modern History, Biography & Autobiography, Political Biography

Synopsis

On June 19, 1953, Harry Truman got up early, packed the trunk of his Chrysler New Yorker, and did something no other former president has done before or since: he hit the road. No Secret Service protection. No traveling press. Just Harry and his childhood sweetheart Bess off to visit old friends, take in a Broadway play, celebrate their wedding anniversary in the Big Apple, and blow a bit of the money he’d just received to write his memoirs. Hopefully incognito. In this lively history, author Matthew Algeo meticulously details how Truman’s plan to blend in went wonderfully awry. Fellow diners, bellhops, cabbies, squealing teenagers at a Future Homemakers of America convention, and one very by-the-book Pennsylvania state trooper all unknowingly conspired to blow his cover. Algeo revisits the Trumans’ route, staying at the same hotels and eating at the same diners, and takes listeners on brief detours into topics such as the postwar American auto industry, McCarthyism, the nation’s highway system, and the decline of Main Street America. By the end of the 2,500-mile journey, you will have a new and heartfelt appreciation for America’s last citizen-president.

About Matthew Algeo

Matthew Algeo is an award-winning journalist who has reported from three continents for public radio’s All Things Considered, Marketplace, and Morning Edition. He is the author of The President Is a Sick Man and Last Team Standing.

About Lesa Lockford

Lesa Lockford is an experienced voiceover artist and actor who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. A professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at Bowling Green State University, she teaches courses in voice for the actor, dialects, acting, and performance studies. She is also a writer and performer. Before becoming a teacher, she worked as a professional actor in Great Britain, where she appeared in a variety of roles in television, in film, and on the stage.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jeffrey on July 16, 2018

A couple of years ago my in-laws called offering to meet us in Independence, Missouri to tour the Truman library. First, I was surprised because they are dyed in the wool Republicans who think that all Democrats have already punched a one way ticket to the fiery furnaces of HELL. Second I was excite......more

Goodreads review by Brian on June 23, 2020

Truman would probably be a four-star subject all by himself, but the author's tendency for discursive enthusiasm on the subjects he touches on Truman's journey, from Highway safety to the Waldorf, would earn an extra half star from me and might lose it with a more disciplined, linear reader.......more

Goodreads review by Judy on August 03, 2009

Okay, I admit it, I'm just wild about Harry. Harry Truman is one of my favorite presidential personalites and this book made me like him even more. Harry Truman was the last president to leave office without a pension and without Secret Service protection. All he had was a small Army pension for his......more

Goodreads review by Mahlon on June 27, 2009

Harry Truman was an Ex-President before being one made you rich and famous. He left office in 1953 with no pension, Secret Service protection, or the prospect of being able to command exorbitant speaking fees on the rubber chicken circuit. He did get the expected book deal, but according to him, onl......more

Goodreads review by Al on February 14, 2017

If you look at my bookshelf, there’s an inordinate amount of books about Harry Truman (Plain Speaking, Pietruszka’s 1948, American Gunfight, Killing the Rising Sun). Okay, so some people read about vampires, some read about gunslingers. I read about Harry. Like Algeo’s other books, he finds another g......more

Quotes

"Algeo’s meticulous research combines with narrator Lesa Lockford’s engaging and pleasant performance to make the people and places come alive in a unique glimpse of small-town life in 1953. Highly recommended for those interested in Americana and social and political history." - Library Journal (Starred Review)