What are you reading now?

[HerbS]

Don't drink the Kool-Aid!

[BettyO]

Especially THIS brand.....

   

[HerbS]

I agree with you BettyO!How about the Jonestown brand though?That was a very sad day in history!

[L Verge]

I only had time to flip through the pages today, but the relatively new magazine in the Civil War field, Civil War Monitor, sent its April issue today. It is packed with what appears to be a lot of good articles on the end of the war from Petersburg through the assassination. We have ordered 50 copies for the bookstore at Surratt House. Nice souvenir piece to commemorate the end of the 150th.

[RJNorton]

On p. 57 of Roscoe's The Web of Conspiracy it says, "Druggist Thompson considered Herold reliable enough to be trusted with an errand to the White House. Herold met President Lincoln. He delivered a bottle of castor oil, and Lincoln - probably with some appropriate, thigh-slapping joke - asked to have it charged. On a day for afterthought, David Herold would recall the President's sense of humor."

This (allegedly?) happened when Herold was working as a clerk in Thompson's drug store at 15th and New York Avenue.

There is no footnote for the story.

Truth or fiction?

[L Verge]

Roscoe's research is now out-dated (fifty years old?), and there are some errors, but it is still one of my favorite books. I tend to believe that Roscoe got this one right.

[LincolnToddFan]

"The Civil War Diary of George Templeton Strong"...the guy was frightfully bigoted and imo kind of a coward...he paid a Dutchman $1100 to go to fight for the Union in his place. He had a sharp, brilliant wit that reminds me of that of Lincoln's secretary John Hay...I wouldn't want to have been on the bad side of either of them. But a more ferociously partisan pro-Union person was not be found anywhere. He was very much in favor of mass executions of all the leaders of the former Confederacy after the war's end.

"FDR's Last Year", by Jim Bishop

"The Afterlife" by Donald Antrim...the author writes about his intense relationship with his alcoholic and mentally ill mother after her death. Sad, but surprisingly funny as well.

[Thomas Thorne]

The Surratt Conference brings out my inner Vandal when it comes to books. I finished "The Finger In Lincoln's Brain." I am reading Bill Richter's 'The Assassinator" and who can provide more fireworks than Bill?

For a change of pace I am also reading "Rubicon" another book about ancient history by the remarkable Tom Holland. I have always been leery of classical and medieval history because our sources are so limited. Tom Holland is such a flamboyant, brilliant and witty writer you forget the limitations of his material.
Tom

[HerbS]

I have a change of pace book that I am reading also,"Haven".This is book that is well written about 2000 Jewish refugees[true story] that were sent by FDR to Oswego,NY[home of Dr.Mary Walker] to Fort Ontario for a safe haven during WW-2.Fort Ontario was used in the American Revolution and Civil War to guard against invasion in the Great Lakes Region.This book tells a rare story of a Jewish Exodus to thier Haven!

[Eva Elisabeth]

Next on the list is Alford's Fortune's Fool, of course! Can't wait to get into that one!

I, too. And into your "Alias Paine"!!! And into all the treasures I brought home
   
...and all the ones that will (hopefully) follow via mail as they didn't fit in the suitcase. Books are so much more irresistible as for buying them when one can see and thumb through them. And I now thoroughly regret that I did resist two further purchases - "Mourning Lincoln", and "The Assassin's Doctor" (would especially love to read the letters Mudd wrote from Fort Jefferson).

However, I've started incorporating the stack with "The Assassin's Accomplice" and "Abe and Fido" - love both! Alias Paine will be the next.

[RJNorton]

(would especially love to read the letters Mudd wrote from Fort Jefferson).

Hi Eva. These letters are online here. Text version is here.

[Eva Elisabeth]

(would especially love to read the letters Mudd wrote from Fort Jefferson).

Hi Eva. These letters are online here. Text version is here.

THANK YOU SO MUCH, Roger!!!!

[LincolnToddFan]

Fortune's Fool is getting wonderful reviews on Amazon. Can't wait to read it!

[ReignetteC]

Harold Holzer reviewed "Fortune's Fool" in a recent edition of The Wall Street Journal.

"But “Fortune’s Fool” is so deeply researched and persuasively argued that it should stand as the standard portrait for years."

To read more: http://www.wsj.com/articles/book-review-...1427487254

(If the link doesn't bring you to the full-page review, then google "To Kill a President" [and] Holzer. That should do it!)

[LincolnToddFan]

To read the entire review, you have to subscribe or go through a log-in process...drat!

But thanks for the link, Reignette!