Book Alert / Ladies of Liberty

Ladies of Liberty -- Women Who Shaped Our Nation by Cokie Roberts, Morrow '08, $26.95, 481 pages, ISBN #006078234X. Index, source notes, no bibliography, b&w images sprinkled through text.

With Spring come two phenomena -- robin redbreasts and Cokie Roberts. Not the ABC and NPR pundit commenting on Spring primaries, although she does that regularly, but rather, insuring her comfortable retirement by adding to her well-received paeans to mothers and other notable females -- and just in time for Mother's Day.

Write what you know, it is said, and Cokie knows her share about women and families as the daughter of the late House Majority Leader Hale Boggs, growing up in New Orleans and Washington. When his plane disappeared over Alaska in 1972, Cokie's mother, Lindy Boggs, took over his House seat and liked to hang out with the likes of Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham and Lady Bird Johnson.

So Roberts, who is married to longtime commentator Steve Roberts, decided a few years ago to cash in on what she knew. We Are Our Mothers' Daughters was such a success that she followed up with Founding Mothers and Women of Our Time, taking time out to pen with Steve a husband/wife memoir, From This Day Forward.

Omigod!, you say. Mother's Day is this Sunday! Right, and with you in mind, Cokie has written her latest, focusing on our second through sixth presidents and their ladies: Chapter One -- 1797-1801: The Presidency of John and Abigail Adams; Chapter Two: 1801-1805: The First Term of Thomas Jefferson and the Ladies of the Place; Chapter Three: 1805-1809 -- The Second Term of Thomas Jefferson and Women Talking Politics; Chapter Four: 1809-1813 -- The First Term of James Madison and the Presidentess; Chapter Five: 1813-1817 -- The Second Term of James Madison and 'The Bravest American Soldier.'; and Chapter Six: 1817-1825 -- The President of James Monroe and Some Characters to Contemplate.