Night-Table Reading

Ronald L. Ziegler

White House press secretary, 1969-74, under President Nixon

Undaunted Courage, by Stephen E. Ambrose (Simon & Schuster).

"Ambrose brings insight and texture to the Lewis and Clark expedition."

Marlin Fitzwater

White House press secretary, 1987-93, under Presidents Reagan and Bush

In the Memory of the Forest, by Charles T. Powers (Penguin).

"It is the story of a small town in Poland after the fall of Communism coming to grips with the problems of its past."

Pierre Salinger

White House press secretary, 1961-64, under Presidents Kennedy andJohnson

P.S. a Memoir, by Pierre

Salinger (St. Martins). "Since Kennedy, the media have changed their mentality on private life, so in it I admit having mistresses from 1958 to 1983."

George E. Reedy

White House press secretary, 1964-65, under President Johnson

The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fagles (Penguin).

"It's absolutely superb. Most translations are too literal. Fagles put the Greek into readable English."

Mike McCurry

White House press secretary, 1995-98, under President Clinton

Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier (Atlantic Monthly Press).

"It's a wonderfully elegant odyssey through a part of American history. It's set in the Piedmont hills in the South that I've known since I was a little boy."