I found this great idea for a reading challenge, but decided to change it to a perpetual reading challenge.  I was trained as a U.S. History teacher, so reading about the Presidents sounds like great fun to me.  I plan on getting started after the New Year. 

The rules are simple:

1. Read at least one non-fiction book about each of the U.S. Presidents 2. Take as much time as you need 3. Have fun learning about U.S. history and its leaders 4. And if you like buttons for your blog, feel free to add this one provided by the fabulous Michele at A Reader's Respite. Thanks, Michele!

That's it! If one book about each president sounds a bit like "too much information" to you, feel free to choose books that talk about more than one president at a time and count it for each one. Tailor this project to suit your personal level of interest. Maybe you just want a passing knowledge of each one. Maybe you found a couple presidents interesting enough to read two or three or more books about them. Maybe you'll discover so many avenues you'd like to explore that we'll need to start an American History Reading Project. :-) The possibilities are endless!

LIST OF U.S. PRESIDENTS

1. George Washington (1789-97)
2. John Adams, 1797-1801 (Federalist)
3. Thomas Jefferson, 1801-9 (Democratic-Republican)
4. James Madison, 1809-17 (Democratic-Republican)
5. James Monroe, 1817-25 (Democratic-Republican)
6. John Quincy Adams, 1825-29 (Democratic-Republican)
7. Andrew Jackson, 1829-37 (Democrat)
8. Martin Van Buren, 1837-41 (Democrat)
9. William Henry Harrison, 1841 (Whig)
10. John Tyler, 1841-45 (Whig)
11. James Knox Polk, 1845-49 (Democrat)
12.  Zachary Taylor, 1849-50 (Whig)
13. Millard Fillmore, 1850-53 (Whig)
14. Franklin Pierce, 1853-57 (Democrat)
15. James Buchanan, 1857-61 (Democrat)
16. Abraham Lincoln, 1861-65 (Republican)
17. Andrew Johnson, 1865-69 (Democrat/National Union)
18. Ulysses Simpson Grant, 1869-77 (Republican)
19. Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 1877-81 (Republican)
20. James Abram Garfield, 1881 (Republican)
21. Chester Alan Arthur, 1881-85 (Republican)
22. Grover Cleveland, 1885-89 and 1893-97 (Democrat)
23. Benjamin Harrison, 1889-93 (Republican)
24. William McKinley, 1897-1901 (Republican)
25. Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-9 (Republican)
26. William Howard Taft, 1909-13 (Republican)
27. Woodrow Wilson, 1913-21 (Democrat)
28. Warren Gamaliel Harding, 1921-23 (Republican)
29. Calvin Coolidge, 1923-29 (Republican)
30. Herbert Clark Hoover, 1929-33 (Republican)
31. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933-45 (Democrat)
32. Harry S. Truman, 1945-53 (Democrat)
33. Dwight David Eisenhower, 1953-61 (Republican)
34. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1961-63 (Democrat)
35. Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1963-69 (Democrat)
36. Richard Milhous Nixon, 1969-74 (Republican)
37. Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr , 1974-77 (Republican)
38. James Earl Carter, 1977-81 (Democrat)
39. Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1981-89 (Republican)
40. George Herbert Walker Bush, 1989-1993 (Republican)
41. William Jefferson Clinton, 1993-2001 (Democrat)
42. George W. Bush, 2001-2009 (Republican)
43. Barack Hussein Obama, 2009- (Democrat)