Presidents book series in reading order

by Jack Higgins

by Stuart Woods

by Stephen Coonts

by Casey McQuiston

Jimmy Carter

51 books• 1 series

Jimmy Carter (1924-2024) served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981, and wrote 51 books. Carter's subjects cover his own childhood and career, American politics and government, peace negotiation, the Arab-Israeli conflict and Christian faith. The catalogue opens with Why Not the Best?: The First Fifty Years (1975), two years before he took office, and takes in Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (1982) and The Blood of Abraham: Insights into the Middle East (1986). Later titles turn to the Bible and devotional writing, the most recent dated 2020. Books median 224 pages, and the 2000s were Carter's most productive decade.

Who HQ is the credit on 429 children's nonfiction biographies in the catalogue, published from 2002 to 2026. The run opens with Who Was Albert Einstein?, Who Was Amelia Earhart? and Who Was Ben Franklin? (all 2002) and reaches Who Is Vera Wang (2026). Subjects include biography, history and juvenile nonfiction for readers aged 8 to 12. Other names credited on some of the books include Megan Stine (7), John Hinderliter (7) and Nico Medina (4).

Brad Meltzer

85 books• 14 series

Brad Meltzer, born April 1, 1970, is an American novelist, non-fiction author, television creator and comic book writer. The novels span political thrillers, legal thrillers and conspiracy fiction. Meltzer has written superhero comics for DC Comics and, at times, Marvel, and a run of short biographies of well-known people for young readers. The catalogue holds 86 titles from The Tenth Justice (1997) to We are the Wright Brothers (2026), and I am Taylor Swift is scheduled for 2027. Series include Ordinary People Change the World, Beecher White/Culper Ring and Escape Artist/Zig & Nola. Other titles include Identity Crisis (2004) and The Book of Fate (2006).

H.W. Brands writes history and biography centred on American presidents, the Cold War and United States foreign relations. The catalogue lists 48 books from Cold Warriors (1988) to American Patriarch (2026), and includes the series Foreign Relations and the Presidency. Early titles are India and the United States, The Specter of Neutralism, Inside the Cold War, Bound to Empire, The Devil We Knew and The Reckless Decade. Brands is still publishing.

Bob Woodward

26 books• 1 series

Bob Woodward is an American investigative journalist, known for reporting the Watergate scandal at The Washington Post with Carl Bernstein. Woodward's catalogue holds 26 books, from All the President's Men (1974) to Secrets: A Reporting Memoir (2026). Between those sit The Brethren (1979) on the Supreme Court, Veil (1987) on the secret wars of the CIA, The Agenda (1994) on the Clinton White House and Maestro (2000) on Greenspan's Fed. Presidents, politics and government, decision making and military policy define the subject tags, and Woodward is still publishing.

Political thrillers make up most of Joseph Flynn's catalogue. The Jim McGill series begins with The President's Henchman (2009) and puts conspiracies and the American presidency at its centre; the John Tall Wolf novels, the Ron Ketchum Mysteries, the Take the Money Trilogy and the Zeke Edison books follow. Forty-two catalogued titles run from The Concrete Inquisition (1993) to The Reluctant Candidate (2025).

Jon Meacham

17 books

American political history is Jon Meacham's subject, written mostly as presidential biography. Voices in Our Blood (2001) opens the catalogue, followed by Franklin and Winston, American Gospel, American Lion on Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power and Destiny and Power. Seventeen titles run through 2026 to American Struggle, several adapted for younger readers, at a median of 450 pages.

Vince Flynn

26 books• 2 series

Vince Flynn, an American political thriller novelist born April 6, 1966, built a series around Mitch Rapp, a fictional assassin. The catalogue opens with Term Limits (1997), followed by Transfer of Power (1999), The Third Option (2000), Separation of Power (2001) and Executive Power (2003). Terrorism, intelligence officers, presidents and Washington, D.C. are among the recorded subjects. Flynn also worked as a story consultant on the fifth season of the television series 24, and died of prostate cancer on June 19, 2013. The listing carries titles dated well after that year, up to Double Tap (2026).

David McCullough wrote American history and biography. The Johnstown Flood (1968) opens the catalogue; The Great Bridge (1972) takes on the Brooklyn Bridge; The Path Between the Seas (1977) and Mornings on Horseback (1981) follow. Truman (1992) and John Adams (2001) are the presidential biographies. Fifteen titles are catalogued, running to History Matters in 2025.

Margaret Truman

41 books• 1 series

Capital Crimes, a mystery series set in Washington, D.C., is the fiction Margaret Truman is listed for. Mac Smith, a law teacher, and Annabel Reed-Smith, an art dealer, recur through novels including Murder in the White House (1980), Murder on Capitol Hill (1981) and Murder in the Supreme Court (1982). The listing also holds biography, among it Harry S. Truman (1973), and runs to 41 entries ending at Murder at the CDC (2022).

Newt Gingrich

49 books• 6 series

Newt Gingrich, born June 17, 1943, is an American Republican politician who served as the 50th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. Gingrich represented Georgia's 6th congressional district from 1979 until resigning in 1999, sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, and taught history and geography at the University of West Georgia in the 1970s. The catalogue lists 49 books from Window of Opportunity (1987) to Trump's Triumph (2025), mixing politics with historical fiction series on the Civil War, the Revolutionary War and Pearl Harbor. Gettysburg (2003) and Grant Comes East (2004) are among them.

Dan Gutman

198 books• 23 series

Dan Gutman is an American writer of mainly children's fiction, born in 1955. The best-known lines are the My Weird School books, The Genius Files and the Baseball Card Adventures, which began with Honus & Me. The catalogue holds 198 books from It Ain't Cheating If You Don't Get Caught (1990) to Mrs. Towne Is a Clown! (2026), including early baseball titles such as Baseball Babylon (1992). Subjects include schools, teachers, baseball, time travel and humorous stories.

Mary Pope Osborne

166 books• 9 series

Mary Pope Osborne, born May 20, 1949, is an American children's author and audiobook narrator best known for the Magic Tree House series, which had sold more than 134 million copies worldwide by 2017. Awards have gone to both the series and Osborne, including recognition for work promoting children's literacy. Osborne attended the University of North Carolina and published a first book in 1982. The catalogue counts 166 Osborne books, from Run, Run, As Fast As You Can (1982) to Sea Otter Sunrise (2025). Time travel, tree houses, history, folklore and Greek mythology appear among the subjects.

James Patterson

510 books• 73 series

James Patterson, born on March 22, 1947, is an American writer whose catalogue here holds 514 books published from 1976 to 2027. The run opens with The Thomas Berryman Number (1976), and Along Came a Spider (1992) and Kiss the Girls (1995) follow later. Alex Cross, Michael Bennett, Maximum Ride, Daniel X, Witch & Wizard, NYPD Red, Private, Middle School and the Women's Murder Club are among the Patterson series, alongside standalone thrillers, non-fiction and romance. Marshall Karp shares the credit on 5 of the books. Patterson's sales exceed 425 million copies, and Patterson was the first person to sell one million e-books. Forbes ranked Patterson the highest-paid author in 2016, for a third year running, and the National Book Foundation gave Patterson the Literarian Award in November 2015. 27 Stars is scheduled for 2027.

Tom Clancy

72 books• 9 series

Tom Clancy, born Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. on April 12, 1947 and dead on October 1, 2013, was an American writer of techno-thrillers, a form that carries technical detail about espionage and military science. An insurance agent before publishing, Clancy debuted with The Hunt for Red October in 1984. The Ryanverse books follow Jack Ryan, an analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency. Subjects across the listing include terrorism, suspense and espionage. The catalogue carries 72 titles under the Clancy name dated 1984 to 2023, with Bill McCay, Grant Blackwood and Peter Telep credited on one or two each.

Stuart Woods

104 books• 9 series

Crime and detective thrillers make up Stuart Woods's catalogue of 104 titles, running from Blue Water, Green Skipper (1977) to Finders Keepers (2025). The Barrington Universe, built around the recurring character Stone Barrington, is the largest strand; Teddy Fay, Ed Eagle and Rick Barron head further series, with standalone novels and non-fiction beside them. Private investigators, police and New York settings recur through the subject tags.

Espionage, terrorism and the Second World War supply Jack Higgins with his material. Higgins published the earliest of 76 catalogued books as Harry Patterson, among them Sad Wind from the Sea (1959), Cry of the Hunter (1960) and Hell Is Too Crowded (1962). Sean Dillon, Paul Chavasse, Liam Devlin and Martin Fallon head series of their own, alongside standalone thrillers. The Midnight Bell, published in 2016, closes the catalogue.

Legal and political thrillers make up Richard North Patterson's catalogue - lawyers, murder trials, presidential candidates and terrorism. The Lasko Tangent (1979) opens the list, and Degree of Guilt (1992) and Eyes of a Child (1995) belong to the Christopher Paget run. Kerry Kilcannon and Tony Lord head the other series. Twenty-four titles are catalogued, the last of them Trial in 2023.

Doris Kearns Goodwin

9 books• 1 series

Doris Kearns Goodwin writes history and biography about American presidents and the politics around them. 9 catalogued titles run from Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (1976) through The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys (1987), No Ordinary Time (1994), the memoir Wait Till Next Year (1997), Team of Rivals (2005) and The Bully Pulpit (2013). The newest title, The Leadership Journey, tells the story of four children who became president.

Bill O’Reilly

39 books• 4 series

Bill O'Reilly is an American journalist, conservative commentator and television host, born in 1949. O'Reilly anchored Inside Edition from 1989 to 1995, joined Fox News in 1996, and hosted the commentary programme The O'Reilly Factor there until 2017. The book catalogue holds 39 titles published between 1998 and 2026, beginning with the novel Those Who Trespass (1998) and reaching Confronting America: What Has to Change (2026). Politics and government, American history, biography, assassination and the presidents supply the subject matter. The catalogue groups titles into the Killing, Legends and Lies, and Confronting series.

Gore Vidal

67 books• 6 series

Gore Vidal, born Eugene Louis Vidal on October 3, 1925, was an American writer and public intellectual noted for a cynical, epigrammatic wit, and died on July 31, 2012. Vidal's novels and essays attacked the social and sexual norms Vidal saw shaping American life. Born into an upper-class political family as grandson of U.S. Senator Thomas Gore, Vidal ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for the House of Representatives in New York in 1960 and for the Senate in California in 1982. The catalogue lists 67 books from Williwaw (1946) to I Told You So (2012), including In a Yellow Wood (1947), The City and the Pillar (1948) and Death Before Bedtime (1953). Narratives of Empire and Myra and Myron are among the series.

Philip K. Dick

86 books• 4 series

Philip K. Dick (December 16, 1928 to March 2, 1982) was an American science fiction novelist and short story writer. Dick wrote 45 novels and roughly 121 short stories, most of them first published in science fiction magazines. The fiction asks what is real and probes perception, identity and human nature. Characters in Dick's work contend with alternate realities, illusory worlds, monopoly corporations, drug abuse, authoritarian states and altered consciousness. Dick ranks among the most important figures in 20th-century science fiction. Catalogued titles include Beyond Lies the Wub (1951), Paycheck (1953) and Adjustment Team (1954), and the VALIS Trilogy appears as a series. Androids and life on other planets feature in the subject tags.

Al Franken

8 books• 1 series

Al Franken, born Alan Stuart Franken on 21 May 1951, is an American comedian, screenwriter, actor and Democratic politician who represented Minnesota in the United States Senate from 2009 until resigning in 2018. Franken wrote for Saturday Night Live from 1975 to 1980 and again from 1985 to 1995, briefly joining the cast, then hosted a radio show and wrote satirical books about the American right. Catalogued titles include Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot (1996), Why Not Me? (1999), Lies & the Lying Liars Who Tell Them (2003), The Truth with Jokes (2005) and Al Franken, Giant of the Senate (2017). Subjects include political satire and presidential campaigns.

Candice Millard

4 books

Narrative history is Candice Millard's form, and each of her 4 books takes a single expedition or episode as its subject. The River of Doubt (2005) covers the Roosevelt-Rondon expedition into the Amazon rainforest of 1913-14. Destiny of the Republic (2011) treats the assassination of President James A. Garfield. Hero of the Empire (2016) follows Winston Churchill through the Boer War, and River of the Gods (2022) takes up the hunt for the source of the Nile. Millard, born in 1967, is an American writer and journalist who previously wrote and edited for National Geographic.