Presidents book series in reading order

by Ron Roy

by Jack Higgins

by Stuart Woods

by Stephen Coonts

by Ian Douglas

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).

Stephen E. Ambrose

36 books• 4 series

Stephen Edward Ambrose, January 10, 1936 to October 13, 2002, was an American historian whose books concentrate on the Second World War, the American West, and the presidencies of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. Ambrose taught history from 1960 to 1995, joined the University of New Orleans in 1971 and became Boyd Professor of History there in 1989. Ambrose founded the Eisenhower Center at that university and was a co-founder of the National D-Day Museum, since renamed the National World War II Museum. The catalogue holds 36 books from Halleck (1962) to This Vast Land (2003), with Nixon and Eisenhower recorded as multi-volume series.

Martha Freeman writes children's fiction: family stories, school stories and mysteries. Presidents and the White House appear among the subjects, alongside the First Kids series, and the Chickadee Court Mysteries, the Trouble With... titles and the Secret Cookie Club fill out the list. The catalogue holds 35 books from Stink Bomb Mom (1996) to Kitty vs. Kindergarten (2025), at a median of 201 pages, and Freeman remains active.

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.

Conrad Black writes biography and history, with 15 books catalogued from Render Unto Caesar: The Life and Legacy of Maurice Duplessis (1977) to The Political and Strategic History of the World, Vol II (2025). United States presidents feature in Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom (2003) and Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full (2007). The Black series are History of Canada from the Vikings to the Present and Political and Strategic History of the World. Newspaper publishing, finance and Donald Trump also appear among the subjects. The median Black book runs to 522 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.

Fred Van Lente writes comics, with subjects spanning superheroes, science fiction, fantasy, Conan, humour and philosophy. Series credited to Van Lente include Action Philosophers, Action Presidents, Archer & Armstrong (2012), Wolverine: First Class, Ivar, Timewalker, Brain Boy, Z Nation and Assassin's Creed: Templars. Action Philosophers! Giant-Sized Thing, Vol. 1 and Untold Tales of the New Universe date from 2006, and Bloodshot (2025) is the newest listing. Stuart Moore shares the credit on 2 titles.

Ron Roy, born 1940, is an American children's writer working mostly in mystery. Three series carry the name: A to Z Mysteries from 1997, Capital Mysteries from 2001 and Calendar Mysteries from 2009, with A to Z Animal Mysteries and an A to Z Super Edition line alongside. Roy taught fourth grade in Connecticut for ten years, sold a first book in 1978 and wrote full time after that. The catalogue holds 90 titles dated 1978 to 2024, short at a median 84 pages, and reaches Dolphin Detectives (2024).

Thomas Mallon is an American novelist, essayist and critic born on 2 November 1951. Mallon has written ten works of fiction, among them Aurora 7, Henry and Clara, Dewey Defeats Truman, Watergate and Fellow Travelers, the last of which became a television miniseries. Mallon's nonfiction covers plagiarism in Stolen Words, diaries in A Book of One's Own and the Kennedy assassination in Mrs. Paine's Garage. The catalogue lists 19 books from Edmund Blunden (1983) to The Very Heart of It: New York Diaries, 1983-1994 (2025).

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.