Gripping, heartbreakingly beautiful storytelling by one of our most brilliant historians about Abraham Lincoln, who is referenced to the point of cliché in American politics, but poorly (or incompletely) understood.
I read/listened to this book on a long overseas assignment, with lots of solitary time, hikes, and travel—some of it by boat. This book was the unifying thread that ran through this trip.
Reading it was a sort of voyage itself, the kind that offers perspective and at the end, made me wiser, clearer, and somehow a better citizen. It could have been a too heavy subject, but the book is written with inviting warmth.
It inspired hours of contemplation about our country and its painful history of slavery, and the flawed, visionary, and deeply human 16th president who ended it.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Jon Meacham chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln, charting how—and why—he confronted secession, threats to democracy, and the tragedy of slavery to expand the possibilities of America.
“Meacham has given us the Lincoln for our time.”—Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Winner of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize • Longlisted for the Biographers International Plutarch Award • One of the Best Books of the Year: The Christian Science Monitor, Kirkus Reviews
A president who governed a divided country has much to teach us in a twenty-first-century moment of polarization and political crisis. Hated and…
An original, shatteringly beautiful book of stories told from the perspective of animals, all of which are dealing with climate disaster, war, the threat of extinction, or some other existential pain.
To put it simply, this book changed me, and pushed me to consider, in a different light, the mess humankind has made of our planet, that we share with all living beings. It made me think, cry, smile, and feel the greatest tenderness and compassion for the animals—a donkey, a white bear, a dog that tried to protect his friend the rhino from a poacher.
The soft, empathetic writing almost did me in at times: “I don’t understand why the Hunter has done this to me. I was only looking for my brother,” a wolf says after being taken down by a bullet. How could anyone ever respond?
Longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection, Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Fiction. Finalist for the 2023 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction.
A Ms. Magazine, Bustle, Publishers Weekly, Chicago Review of Books, Debutiful, and ALTA Journal Best Book of September
An Orion Best Book of Fall
In nine stories that span the globe, What We Fed to the Manticore takes readers inside the minds of a full cast of animal narrators to understand the triumphs, heartbreaks, and complexities of the creatures that share our world.
As a travel writer, I believe that fiction is great preparation for understanding a country and its people.
As a reader (and author with an Indie press), I am trying to read more books in translation, especially from small presses: both are woefully under-celebrated. I read this book on an assignment to Slovenia, a beautiful country I knew little about, and I dipped in and out of it, from a different hotel room every night—it was a great companion.
With the breakup of Yugoslavia and Slovenia’s becoming independent at its core, this epic, decades-spanning book is an absolute knockout, with writing that is muscular and gentle, and characters that are layered, complex, and dazzlingly alive. The writer is a master, and in my opinion, should be known worldwide.
Sebastijan Pregelj’s award-winning novel, In Elvis’s Room, tells the turbulent story of Slovenian independence from the perspective of Jan, an only child growing up in Ljubljana.
Jan’s life in 1980s Yugoslavia is idyllic, filled with family outings, Star Wars, and good friends. But as Jan gets older, and the ties that have held together Yugoslavia begin to tatter, the contours of life change. He and his friends, Elvis and Peter, are bullied walking to and from school, because Elvis is Muslim and Peter is a bookworm.
The friends stand by one another, strengthening not only their friendships but those of…
In her New York Times review, Melissa Febos wrote, “Intrepid and empathetic, gifted with the dispassionate gaze of a born observer…a harmonious collage of worldview and character, a wunderkammer of experiences in a life fully lived.” This memoir-in-essays starts in a dreary Moscow hotel room in 1983, weaves all over the world, back and forth to rural New England, and ends on a West Texas trail in 2021. Written by an award-winning essayist and journalist for Vogue,Travel + Leisure, and Air Mail, A Hard Place to Leave immerses us in stories about restlessness, curiosity, and finding one’s place anywhere on earth. Each subsequent voyage leads to revelations about the author’s search for solitude, a capacity for adventure, and always, a longing for home.
