52 Books in 52 Weeks, it's called. The challenge is simple: read a book every week for a year.
40. Our Lincoln: new perspectives on Lincoln and his world.
“Our Lincoln aims to bring to bear on the study of Lincoln some of the new interpretations of Lincoln’s era, in the hope of producing a more nuanced understanding of both the man and his world.” (from the Preface, p. 12). Starting with Team of Rivals, and fed by a bicentennial issue of the New York Times Book Review and the lifelong interest of a pastor I follow, I’ve been picking up Lincoln biogs. This showed up on my library’s new book shelf, and I grabbed it. Interesting essays on Lincoln’s mastery of his image in art, Lincoln’s dogged pursuit of colonization for African-Americans, his ’sacramental language’ and mastery of oratory (the author, Andrew Delbanco, posits that Lincoln changed the nature of style in American writing), and the current political theft of Lincoln’s memory. The title, eyed on the bus, sparked one memorable conversation where Lincoln was variously vilified by my fellow (black) passengers, and compared to a gangster, a la Michael Corleone. There’s a new perspective for you.
