Pretty easy choice. After reading "Truman," I knew I had to read this finally, especially as I liked the HBO miniseries so much.
McCullough does such a great job of according Adams his rightful place in American history. More than any man, he's behind the Declaration of Independence, even if Jefferson gets the credit for penning the text.
I'm only about a quarter through, and I keep the book by my bed for nights when I have trouble falling asleep, which means I treat it like an old friend.
My favorite bits all have to do with Adams' worrying about whether his life will have meaning and how he deals with his insecurities--very humanizing.
I wasn't ecstatic about Paul Giamatti being picked to play him, because Giamatti, while a great actor, doesn't exactly scream out New Englander. But I loved David Morse as George Washington, a guy who deserves a serious HBO treatment all the more.
The Adams family has long been a quiet obsession of mine, along with Vonne, because we lived in Quincy for a couple of years and Vonne worked in Braintree, where Adams was born and lived. So we're very familiar with all the historical sites.