The most astonishing thing about the office of author Jean Edward Smith is what's missing from it.

Though you will find innumerable books on Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ulysses S. Grant, no where in Smith's office will you find that which is almost a foregone conclusion when examining a workspace: A computer.

In fact his desk's most prominent feature is a large legal pad. It's almost a comfort in today's increasingly high-tech world to know that with some combination of ink marks on that simple yellow paper, he was able to craft the biography that is winning him praise across the nation: FDR.

As a young boy growing up in Washington, D.C., Smith's grandmother would often read biographies to him. His love of life stories continued as he grew, making biography writing a natural fit.

A John Marshall Professor of Political Science at Marshall University and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, the U.S. Army captain has written several biographies on subjects like Chief Justice John Marshall and General Lucius Clay.

For a man of his 74 years, a biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a logical next step.

"I was born three weeks before he was elected and for the first 13 years of my life, he was president, so he has always been a giant to me, he's always been my idea of what a president should be," Smith said. "So I think it was only natural that after I had a number of biographies under my belt I would turn and write about him."

His passion for the subject has not gone unnoticed by critics, who have heaped praised upon his book. A Washington Post reviewer, who put Smith's work on the cover of their book section, said "In sum, Smith's 'FDR' is a model presidential biography. He is that rarest and most welcome of historians, one who addresses a serious popular readership without sacrificing high scholarly standards."

Much of the praise is upon Smith's concision, how he managed to boil Roosevelt's entire life into just 880 pages. Much of the credit likely goes to Smith's strict writing regimen.

"It's a matter of discipline, I get up a little before six, I'm at the office by eight and I write until noon with no disturbances, and I do that seven days a week," Smith said.

That is, of course, 48 weeks out of the year. He says that for four weeks he allows himself vacation and "doesn't look at anything."

He's now spending those morning hours working on a new book about Eisenhower. Though he's currently writing (not typing, mind you) about his third president, Smith still makes no qualms about picking a favorite.

"I think it's pretty hard to top Roosevelt," he says with a smile.