President Jimmy Carter: A man of many written words

CHAMBLEE, Ga. - There are thousands — and we do mean thousands — of books crowding the aisles inside Atlanta Vintage Books in Chamblee. But one shelf in particular gets a little extra attention from owner Jan Bolgla.

"Just on a personal note, he is my personal superhero," she says. "I love him. I mean, I just think he was an amazing person."

Bolgla is talking about President Jimmy Carter. A prolific author during his long life, President Carter published more than 30 volumes, spanning every subject and genre under the literary sun.

"Religion, foreign policy, how he grew up; there’s a book about his mother," says Bolgla. "He wrote mostly non-fiction, but he did write some fiction."

In fact, Carter’s 2003 book "The Hornet’s Nest" was the first novel to be published by a United States President. This extraordinary body of work led to Carter’s 2006 induction into the Georgia Writer’s Hall of Fame — but Georgia Writers Museum executive director Melissa Swindell says more impressive than the number of pages in the president’s output is what’s actually printed on them. 

"Carter is really writing from his heart, I think," says Swindell. "It’s all very genuine and from his lived experiences, personal and professional and political. It really just speaks to how well he was able to write."

And not all of that output was typewritten. President Carter hand-signed a lot of books — and many of those signed editions are now part of the collection at Atlanta Vintage Books.

"On his earlier books, he would sign ‘Jimmy Carter.’ And as he moved along and wrote so many books and was signing so many books — he was very great about signing books — he started signing them ‘J. Carter,’ because that was faster," explains Bolgla.

Just one little shortcut from a man of many written words.