Vanderbilt

Vanderbilt by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe is the first book that I've finished since I did my massive catch-up. It was a long, slow read for me that sometimes read like a textbook and sometimes read like narrative non-fiction. In the early pages, it reminded me a little of The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America by Russell Shorto. Even at the end of the book, I felt like I'd read something about the history of NYC society just as much as I learned about this specific branch of the Vanderbilt family. I think if I wasn't a New Yorker, I might have put the book down unfinished, even though this is my February title for Books & Beer Club.

Prior to visiting the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina in 2022, I read one fiction and one non-fiction about that particular branch of the Vanderbilt family. Both branches start with "the Commodore." Maybe those books that I read were more interesting, maybe that branch was more interesting, but I remember being much more engaged reading. See The Wedding Veil  and The Last Castle.

Writing this family history with Katherine Howe must have been so enlightening to Anderson Cooper. Not many people have these sort of access to specifics of their family history.