It should come as no surprise that JFK’s reading speed stemmed from a lifelong, dedicated reading habit. And when we say “habit,” we really mean “near-obsession.” As the National Park Service quotes his wife and renowned first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, “He read in the strangest way … He’d read walking, he’d read at the table, at meals, he’d read after dinner, he’d read in the bathtub … He really read all the times you don’t think you have time to read … He was always reading — practically while driving a car.”
JFK’s love of reading started with his mother, Rose. The National Park Service says that Rose curated reading lists for her children — all nine of them. JFK, however, was the only one who obeyed the lists. The JFK Presidential Library and Museum not only lists JFK’s favorite books as an adult but also his favorite childhood books. The list reads like a who’s who of some of the most prominent, well-recognized children’s fiction in English literature: “The Jungle Book” by Rudyard Kipling, “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson, “Black Beauty” by Anna Sewell, and many more. There are also some more mature, well-respected works in there, like, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe and “Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan.
The National Park Service says that JFK was a sickly child diagnosed with Addison’s Disease, a potentially life-threatening disease involving hormone deficiencies. Reading became the young, bedridden JFK’s refuge.
