Mike Donovan's Bookstore

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1099152038
80 followers! Thank you for your interest in my lifetime history project.

Mike Donovan's History of the USA 1961-2016 400,000 words of pure American History, from "Ask Not!" to "I just grab them by the. .. " It's all here. The Vietnam War, the Yippies, Patty Hearst, the Iran Hostage Crisis, the 1986 Raid on Libya, Reykjavik, Desert Storm, Bimbogate, Enduring Freedom, Obama, and the Election of 2016. This is comp...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1517303702
73 followers! This was my first book, published in 2015 with the help of comedian Steven Bjork.

101 Stories of American History These are 101 stories of American history written by comedian Mike Donovan. They range from silly to serious and are told in a light, conversational style. It is likely that you've never heard most of these true tale before. You'll be well educated and extremely entertained throughout.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1098764064

Mike Donovan's History of the USA 1789-1960 A half a million words of pure U.S. History! This book is all you need to know about the USA, from the Inauguration of Washington to the U-2 Incident of 1960. And out of all the thorough, readable, and highly entertaining histories of the United States ever written, this is the one that ... come ...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1722115033?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860
This is the Big-Font edition. It is 490 pages because of the size of the letters. It's under the pen-name Mikhail Eduardovich Donovan. I'm starting a second book under that name, '101 Stories of Russian History.' In Russia, your middle name is of your father's first name. My father, Edward, is 91 and living in Florida.

Russian History There are not very many general histories of Russia available for the general reader, and none written by a stand-up comedian. Russian History is Mike Donovan's 89,000-word book IN LARGE 16-FONT. After WWII, the story is a very brief account of select Russian affairs. This is for people who want ...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1687785317

Before the Presidency: Early Bios of the Presidents of the USA This a book of short biographies of the Presidents of the USA, up to the time they became the Chief Executive.

THE HISTORY OF MY HISTORY PROJECT
By Mike Donovan

At the very least, it keeps me occupied. It gives me a reason to get up and go take on every new day with enthusiasm.
I am self-educated. I left U-Mass Boston after one semester in the fall of 1972 (“left” is euphemism for “dropped out”). Then I attended the Career Academy School of Broadcasting, located at Fenway Park. It was attached to Fenway Park. If you broke down the wall, you’d walk into the upper left field grandstand.
Upon graduation I went straight to work as a DJ in Bath, NY.
Next was a year of apprentice comedian in NYC. That was 1975.
That year, I read a book by Theodore White, The Making of the President, 1964. The 25 cent paperback with the cover ripped off left me stunned with how little I knew about politics and how much work it would take to claim any strength there. Then I tackled a giant hardcover history book from U-Mass that I had never read more than a quarter of, The World Since 1500, by L. Stavrianos. Again, how little I knew!
I became sidetracked for about four years by a complete addiction to baseball. From 1975-79, 75% of my reading was about baseball. The other 25% was self-help, reincarnation, psychology and an occasional show business biography.
The reason I dropped out of history books was because I became radical left-wing and decided that “enjoying” war-books was a moral wrong. I’d been hooked on World War II books from age 12-15, and when I grew my hair long and went left from 16-19 - and I mean crazy left, like Jerry Rubin was my new idol, and his book Do it, was the new bible – I tried to avoid war books.
When I became a paper-boy for two stints, one at age 12 and the other at age 14, I started collecting front pages from the leftover papers and became hooked on newspapers for a long time. I was more into periodicals than books from 14-21.
Living in NYC and being able to attend Mets and Yankees games for really cheap prices is part of why I got hooked on baseball for a while. A subway ride and a ticket cost what it does now to buy a bottle of water. I decided I wanted to be a sportswriter. Then I wrote a book, in pen and notebook, called Diary of a Baseball Fanatic. I was hoping to get it published, but I lost a key notebook (for August of 77) and that stopped me from taking it to a publisher. (More on that one later.)
Now cut to August of 1979. I am 24 and my stand-up career is going uphill. I hitchhiked to Soo St. Marie Michigan to visit my good friend Martin Olsen. He had been a part of the original Comedy Connection in Boston and I missed him. We hung out and had a Michigan great time.
One day I went to the Soo St. Marie Public Library. It was a trip that would change my life.
I was walking around trying to find the row that had baseball books. The librarian had directed me to the correct aisle but I made a “wrong” turn and walked into the history book row by accident. I started browsing books on the American Indians. They held my attention like magnets. I ended up walking to a table with several books on the Indians, and, this time, not the Cleveland Indians.
For an hour I read these books. I finally closed the books, folded my arms and sat there, stunned for about 15 minutes. It was an epiphany.
This is my future. This is what I should be studying, not baseball. This is 20 times more important, and 20 times more interesting than baseball. When I get back to Boston, I am going to start buying history books, and I am going to drop the stupid left wing rule that it’s morally wrong to study war.
I didn’t drop all sports reading overnight, and I still make some time for it, but the main focus for the rest of my life will be history.
In September, I saw a paperback with a punch hole in the cover: Hi**er, a Study in Tyranny, by Alan Bullock. It cost me a quarter. I read the whole thing in a few days and I have never looked back. I have studied history 99% of all my days since the day I bought that book.
That is the marker for when I decided to turn my life, my body and soul into a machine in pursuit of academic excellence. I can’t say I made the goal, but I know I have tried and still try. Today, February 1, 2023, I started my day with 90 minutes of The Midnight War, by Richard Goldhurst. It is about the 1919-20 ‘Allied Intervention’ in Russia.

The Stand-Up Comedy Book: A Collection of Thoughts, Stories, Biographies, Jokes and Journals of Stand-up This is a book about my career as a stand-up comedian and it is a book about stand-up comedy in general. It is 81,000 words long. I've been doing stand-up comedy since 1971 when I did my first show at Lowell Tech at the age of 16.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1072387883

History of Russia This is a history of Russia from the Maeotians of 3.000 b.c. to the arrival of Putin. It is written with passion, clarity and a touch of humor. This history book is written for the general reader who wants to know the basics of Russian History. It is 109,000 words long.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1547191430
From Terry Allen to Marshall Zhukov 125,000 wds

Who's Who in World War II: The Americans; The British; The Chinese; The French; The Germans; The Japanese; The Russians; And the Rest, A-Z This is the perfect companion book when you're reading other books about WWII. Mike Donovan is a stand-up comedian and an opinionated American. He makes no claim to even attempt anything like objectivity here. These mini-biographies are lively and informative, but they also lead the reader into d...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1792879938

Who's Who in the Civil War This is a roll call of the big names of the Civil War from Burnside to Zollicoffer, who was probably killed because he had bad eyesight. Z mistook a Fed for a Reb and approached him with his guard down.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BQ9LM3ZT
The 12-font print edition 87,000 words.

Mike Donovan's People of Russian History This book is also available in large font under the title of Who's Who in Russian History. It is 76,000 words long. This is set in 12-font. The author is a stand-up comedian, so expect a little joke sprinkled in now and then, but it is a serious history book. Mike has also written a book called, ...