This was a very short biography, but very readable and enjoyable. I have not read any other biographies of Grant yet and this one was a great place to start. I think that Korda did a nice job of piecing together parts of Grant's life to give us a nice picture of who he was, what he was driven by and to a small extent, how things ended up as they did in Grant's life. And while the asides to current times or the comparisons so other presidents don't add to the story of Grant, they do make it more comprehensible to a non-history buff reader.