Amity Shales has produced a biography that must be even more boring than her subject was reputed to be, sad to say. Coolidge's personality notwithstanding, there was plenty occurring during his lifetime, and especially his presidency, to keep a reader interested, but Ms. Shays dismisses any chance of that happening early and often. In short, I've read many of the presidential biographies published in recent years and this is, by far, the most poorly written. I mean, for example, what writer with experience beyond the sixth grade would use the awkward verb phrase "had had" and not just once. Ms. Shales may be a dogged researcher but the result here is no detail is too trivial to be omitted while the social headlines that paralleled Coolidge's presidency, The Roaring Twenties, is never mentioned. A pathetic waste of money.