Five volumes of handwritten diary entries in 8-by-11-inch leather-bound maroon books have been edited by the historian Douglas Brinkley to produce an abridged version of 734 pages which will hit stores on May 22. For $35 readers can glean insights into the president’s character and get a ringside seat on his contemporaneous takes on world events. A complete edition will be published in several volumes in the next year or two, said Tim Duggan, executive editor at HarperCollins.

If you’re wondering why now, Fred Ryan, chairman of the Reagan Library, said that about a decade ago Reagan had given the library permission to publish the diaries. “They contain tremendous amounts of information about the presidency, Ronald Reagan and America at that time,” Ryan said. “We thought that now would be a good time to release these.” Proving once more that information wants to be free – or at least relatively inexpensive…

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