In a campaign year in which White House hopefuls are challenged to name the last book they've read, the Library of Congress this week is opening an exhibition on the bibliophilic habits of its founding father, an ex-president who once said, "I cannot live without books." Thomas Jefferson's statement didn't mean he admired every volume that came his way. He regarded most novels as trash and dismissed Plato's Republic as "such nonsense." But he found himself "much the happier" after giving up newspapers for books by Newton, Euclid, Thucydides, and Tacitus, the Roman historian he deemed "the strongest writer in the world."
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