Busting out books
Just because William F. Buckley, Jr. passed away recently doesn’t mean that you won’t see any more books from the prolific father of the conservative movement (he penned 54 books while alive).
His latest — number 55 — is out now, 9 months after his passing. “The Reagan I Knew” chronicles “the evolution of an extraordinary friendship between two American political giants, neither of whom would have accomplished what he did without the other” (according to book’s jacket blurb).
Could Buckley become the Tupac Shakur of books? (For those not big on hip-hop, new music by the murdered rapper seems to constantly be unearthed, 12 years after his passing). It’s possible. Even Buckley’s son — Christopher — hints at as much in the book’s prologue.
“This is my father’s fifty-fifth and, inasmuch as he died while writing it, one might suppose final book,” writes Christopher. “I put it this way not to be coy, but because there seems to be a possibility, given the enthusiasm in various publishing quarters, of bringing out another collection of his articles. So this might turn out not to be his last book. … At the time he died, his book ‘Cancel your Own Goddam Subscription’ (what a great title) had recently come out. As I type these words, his book on Barry Goldwater, ‘Flying High,’ has just been published. And now this, his memoir of his friendship with Ronald Reagan is — evidemment, as WFB would say in French — being published. My father writes more books dead than some authors do alive.”
