Whew, just finished (reading) CARO's volume 4 of his LBJ biography.
A few months ago circumstances put his project in my way. I had avoided his LBJ thing all these years because almost all of my adult life has been against the backdrop of the KENNEDYs, LBJ, and Vietnam, and I had thought I had, first of all, lived through the events, and then become painfully devastated by Vietnam and then disillusioned with all the personal failings of all of them.
The disillusionment turned into bitter scorn with NIXON, Watergate, and then just total contempt with Shrub. It was always the lingering wilderness of RAYGUN and Poppy, and yes the disappointment of Bill CLINTON's blunting our brief wins with his own JFK self-indulgence above our political agenda.
So, despite that I had purposefully ignored CARO's work, avoided it, and just barely heard snippets about his definitiveness and literary prizes, after the last decade when I had finally put my own life experience behind me and this decade had finally numbed me, I ran across the CARO books in great condition at a used book store, the 2nd & 3rd volumes of which were hardbacks brand new and never read by anybody, at the price of SIX DOLLARS each. And for months the clippings said the 4th was due soon.
So I sighed and jumped in. It was better this way, reading them all in a lump together, the way I have hardly ever followed t.v. series when they were on the air piecemeal, but liked them after syndication when all of the episodes run heel to toe. Plus, while waiting for #4, I read his The Power Broker, about Robert MOSES, where his precursor techniques of staggering detail and context that were familiar from the LBJ books made their debut.
I'm not getting into a review situation here, have done some paragraphs on the earlier volumes. I'll just say that it is a worthy continuation of the CARO achievement. I will say that this volume seems more porous, less dense, even in the physical weight of the physical book itself. The march of technology has apparently developed PHYSICALLY lighter weight of paper and binding. The prior hardbacks and paperbacks of his I handled almost bent my wrists off. This is a feather by comparison. And this is not a disparagement, but CARO seems to fill this volume with a more general, somewhat less intensely detailed, style.
Hookay, so he's (near?) 80 and has Vietnam to go. It's not so much whether HE makes it as ME!1
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I still haven't read his LBJ but plan to begin next month. He's got to be one of the best storytellers around. 
He seems to devote about a decade each to his books about LBJ and, when he releases the final product, it's well worth waiting for. I am slightly embarrassed to confess that I haven't finished reading his earlier volumes of work
but I've certainly read enough of his last book, LBJ: Master of the Senate, to know the painstaking and loving care that he puts into his authorship. The latest volume of his work arrived for me last week and, already from the first few pages, I know it's going to be another masterpiece
I really hope he gets to complete his series on LBJ's life. We are so lucky to have him
