Waiting for Eleanor, Volume 3

President-elect Barack Obama mentioned on "60 Minutes" the other night that he's reading a new book about F.D.R.'s first 100 days. That set off all kinds of speculation about which book he was speaking of, as reported in the Times.

The discussion got me thinking about the Roosevelt book that I've been waiting for: the third volume of Blanche Wiesen Cook's biography of Eleanor Roosevelt. I read the first two volumes years ago, and though the book group I was in at the time usually preferred fiction over nonfiction, everyone agreed they were two of the best books we'd read. (The paperback Volume 2 came out in 2000, Volume 1 in 1993.) I checked with Penguin yesterday and all they would say is that Volume 3 "is in the works," with no publication date yet. Stay tuned.