Volume 4 is coming!

Could 2012 get any better? I just discovered it was announced last November that the next volume in Robert Caro's biography of LBJ, covering his time as VP up to his elevation to the Presidency will be published in May. Huzzah! I say. And not only that, there is a fifth volume in the works as well. I know what I am asking for for (French) Father's Day in June.

If you haven't read the three preceding volumes I envy you the treat you have in store. It is literally a monumental work that goes far beyong simple biography. The picture he paints is in turns inspiring and repulsive, of a ruthless, driven,  greatly flawed man who siezed and wielded extraordinary power through a potent combination of domineering will, ruthless ambition, relentless drive and consummate political skills, aided at critical junctions by crucial helpings of blind luck and all implemented with amoral ruthlessness.
And yet he achieved great and lasting progress as well, from transforming the life of poverty-stricken rural communites across the USA by championing and coercing electrification programs through to piloting the first Civil Rights legisaltion past the seemingly impassable obstacle of the US Senate, which before becoming VP he ran virtually as his personal fiefdom. Caro takes the time to meticulously recreate every crucial component  of the milieu from which LBJ emerged, backwoods poverty in rural Texas, through to the arcane dealings of American politics, especially as tied into the great issues of the civil rights movement andVietnam.
Roll on May 2012!