Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson, Simon and Schuster, $30, ISBN 0684807610
Bolt of Fate by Tom Tucker, Public Affairs, $25, ISBN 1891620703
THE author of Benjamin Franklin: An American life draws his readers’ attention to something amiss with Benjamin West’s painting Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky. This depiction of the lightning snatcher out in a storm in the summer of 1752, says Walter Isaacson, “mistakenly shows a wrinkled sage, rather than a lively 46-year-old…” Tom Tucker, author of Bolt of Fate, goes even further in his account of this quintessential event in American history. He suggests Franklin never flew the kite at all.…
