Book recommendations

[LincolnMan]

That is the book I posted a thread on earlier. I had bought it in an old antique store and found it had the author's signature in it. It's like everyone says-kind of a nice book-especially for those not familiar with much Lincoln. He relies heavily on Herndon.

[RJNorton]

Bill, as I look inside the cover of my 1959 edition, I see I paid $9.50. It is not signed by the author (he passed away in 1955). And you paid $2.00 for a 1936 autographed copy! Ouch!
Neat find on your part - kudos!

[L Verge]

I know this thread deals with recommended books, but may I comment on a recent book that I would avoid? I was at work today at Surratt House when a question came up about a new historical novella entitled David E. Herold His True Confession, authored by Cristina Bryan.

I first met the author about two years ago when she came to a program at Surratt House and introduced herself to me as the owner of a new publishing company in the area. At that time, she said she was interested in recruiting authors to work with. About six months ago, however, she authors and publishes this piece of fiction with a little history thrown in. Her writing style is nice, but I wish I could say the same for her interpretation of history.

She recently participated in a program in a neighboring county, and two of my staff members went to hear her presentation. They left very disappointed to find that she seems to believe and is prepared to preach another version of the old "Booth escaped" canard.

I want to put a plug in here for one of my staff members and a poster on this forum, Lindsey Horn. Lindsey has been working on a historical novel about Davey Herold for several years now, and I was astounded recently when I heard her conversing with some Herold descendants on genealogy. Lindsey knew more than they did! Hopefully, her work will be done soon - and we assassination nuts can enjoy and benefit from Lindsey's years of research. I'm pretty sure that it will be far better than the previously mentioned novella.

[BettyO]

Bravo, Laurie!

It's really time that someone put that old "Booth Escaped" canard to rest....it's been floating around far too long!

And kudos to Lindsey on her Davey Herold research and writings -- I know that if Lindsey writes something that the research will be impeccable!

[LincolnMan]

Thank you Roger. I sure thought I had found a great deal!

[jonathan]

I'll be pretty happy when that Herold book gets finished. I can imagine that it will be chock full of interesting.

[L Verge]

Lindsey is on my staff - now she'll be asking for a sabbatical to finish her work! Just remember, Lindsey, that will be an unpaid sabbatical.

Another book to mention: I just started reading Under A Flaming Sky by Daniel James Brown. It's been out about five years and deals with the awful Hinckley firestorm in Minnesota in 1894. The relevance to our forum is that many historians believe that Boston Corbett died in that fire. Some who survived the fire recalled a man who called himself Tom Corbett living to himself out in the same forests where the fire began. As we know, Thomas was Boston's given name.

I have only read about forty pages of this book, but I have made up my mind not to live near heavy forests or lumber mills...

[Thomas Thorne]

Off topic, I just finished Ron Chernow's magnificent epic Pulitzer prize winning biography of George Washington. Shame on you if you do not read it!!!

Chernow mentions that Washington's security when going to the theater as president "probably" exceeded Lincoln's on 4/14/65. GW's security detail consisted of a soldier stationed at each stage door and four distributed in the gallery.
Tom

[BettyO]

Just started reading Stahr's Seward the other day -- highly interesting and very readable! I'm enjoying it. I'm learning some new things about Seward that I did not know; such as he started out in his youth as a School Master in Georgia. An interesting fellow, Mr. Seward. Definitely pick this one up!

[L Verge]

I am going to shamelessly tout a three-volume set of books that we sell at Surratt House. Since the fall of 1976, the Surratt Society has published a monthly newsletter with each copy having more history than current news in it. In the 1990s, we decided to take the best of the assassination articles and combine them into our first volume, entitled In Pursuit Of...Continuing Research in the field of the Lincoln Assassination.

Since then, we have published two more volumes; and I have Lindsey Horn of this forum working on volume #4. Each volume has approximately 200 pages. The articles in these books come from of the great researchers in the Lincoln assassination field: Hall, Brennan, Tidwell, Gaddy, Loux, Kauffman, Miller, Hanchett, Richter, Stanton, Steers, Dodels, Head, Martin, Ownsbey, Houmes, Sloan, Chaconas, Alford, and many more. Newbies in the field are also now contributing to the newsletter, several of whom are members of this forum (Dave Taylor and Wes Harris among others). Other articles have come directly from primary sources in the James O. Hall Research Center at the museum. These materials came via donations to the Surratt Society and the museum with the understanding that they could be used to further the public's knowledge of our topic.

Unlike some others in the field, the Society and the museum respect copyright laws. The authors of these articles are recognized as the originators who gave permission to the Society and The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (the government agency which owns and operates the museum) to print their work.

That said, the three current volumes are available from Surratt House. Check our book store listings on www.surratt.org or call 301-868-1121 for further information. I can also be reached at laurie.verge@pgparks.com. I am not quoting prices here without Roger's permission -- don't want to be a complete huckster!

[RJNorton]

My wife bought these for me years ago as birthday and Christmas gifts. What are the prices?

[L Verge]

The books sell individually for $25/each plus $3 postage. However, the full set is $65 plus $5 postage.

[LincolnMan]

Anyone familiar with the book Lincoln Inc., Selling the Sixteenth President in Contemporary America by Rowman Littlefield? It looks interesting-even has a picture of a Lincoln bobblehead on the cover.

[jonathan]

Okay, I've just finished reading My Thoughts Be Bloody by Nora Titone. For some reason I wasn't all that excited about it despite the fact that it's been recommended in this thread, but wow, am I glad I gave it a chance. For anybody here who hasn't read it, you need to. In my opinion, it was very well written, easy to read, and thoroughly interesting from cover to cover. If you're just becoming interested in the assassination and you've run across this thread, I certainly wouldn't make it my first book to read, but if your interest continues then you definitely need to add it to your list. It has given me an entirely new perspective on the Booth family and John Wilkes in particular, of course.