We the Readers Book Group: American Sphinx by Joseph J. Ellis

For a man who insisted that life on the public stage was not what he had in mind, Thomas Jefferson certainly spent a great deal of time in the spotlight--and not only during his active political career. After 1809, his longed-for retirement was compromised by a steady stream of guests and tourists who made of his estate at Monticello a virtual hotel, as well as by more than one thousand letters per year, most from strangers, which he insisted on answering personally. In his twilight years Jefferson was already taking on the luster of a national icon, which was polished off by his auspicious death (on July 4, 1826); and in the subsequent seventeen decades of his celebrity--now verging, thanks to virulent revisionists and television documentaries, on notoriety--has been inflated beyond recognition of the original person.

Upcoming Discussions for 2026

January: Benjamin Franklin’s Last Bet by Michael Meyer

February: The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

March: The Woman’s Hour by Elaine Weiss

April: Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick 

May: American Sphinx by Joseph Ellis

June: The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw

July: Blue Highways- A Journey into America by William Least Heat-Moon