Fans pick 100 books like Lincoln on the Verge

Jay Bonansinga is best known as a horror writer – he took over the Walking Dead novels when Robert Kirkman “handed him the keys to the Jaguar”, as Jay charmingly puts it. He brings that visceral immediacy and intensity to his nonfiction as well. This is his book on the sinking of the Eastland as it was being loaded with passengers for a picnic excursion. On July 24, 1915, this tragedy claimed more lives than the Chicago Fire. Nearly 10,000 people could only stand by and watch helplessly as the overloaded Eastland rolled, righted itself, then counterbalanced and rolled to the other side, sinking in the Chicago River. Jay tells the story of the people (many of them immigrants) who lived this history, and brings their stories to life once more.

The Lore series, based on the World of Lore podcast, is a wonderful collection of the strange, bizarre, and creepy. This particular book focuses on people who gained fame through their disturbing hobbies and unpleasant predilections: serial killers, criminals, psychopaths, and other associated weirdos. I've always been drawn to collections like these, and this is one of the best. Check out the others in the series too.

I will read absolutely anything that Richard Estep writes. He has written books about the Villisca Ax Murders, Malvern Manor, and other crazy-haunted places. This one, about a site in his native England, is utterly terrifying. Estep writes with a very straightforward, matter-of-fact style (his writing reminds me much of my own style), and the evidence he presents for this haunted site is deeply chilling -- especially since his team is one of the groups that has investigated the Cage. 

Because of my work with the splendidly haunted Peoria State Hospital, I have a massive soft spot for tales of struggles with mental illness. This is a topic that is very close to my heart for many reasons, and it's fascinating to read about historical figures that suffered with mental illness or mental disabilities. Rosemary Kennedy was a beautiful, lively, spirited girl who grew up in one of the most famous families in America. But due to injuries suffered during her birth, she was mentally challenged – and this did not sit well with the Kennedys. Rosemary's disability was at odds with their own image of themselves as a powerful political juggernaut ... so she was shunted aside. As a young woman, she was lobotomized, which destroyed her bubbly, outgoing personality. After this, she was institutionalized and largely forgotten. This is a painful story to read, but Rosemary, and others… show more.

If you can read only one book on Lincoln, this is the one I would choose. In my opinion—as well as that of many professional historians—it is the best book ever written to examine why Lincoln waited two years after becoming president to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. In this brilliant and elegantly written book, a Pulitzer Prize historian argues, entirely convincingly, that the need to keep together his pro-union coalition required Lincon to proceed very cautiously.

To be sure, Foner writes that while Lincoln’s long-held anti-slavery convictions were not in doubt, he also initially shared the racist attitudes that black people were not ready for full freedom. However, Foner emphasizes that as Lincoln grew in office, his beliefs increasingly moved towards those of Frederick Douglass—whom Lincoln came to greatly admire—and other full-fledged abolitionists.

I loved this book because it is the most original, detailed, elegantly written, and argued examination of Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg address, by common acclamation, one of the greatest and most powerful political speeches in world history.

In this Pulitzer Prize book, Wills argues that at Gettysburg, Lincoln “came to change the world, to effect an intellectual revolution”—and succeeded in doing so. “No other words,” Wills writes, could have successfully brought about both “a revolution in thought” and  “a revolution in style.” Wills concludes that the address “wove a spell that has not, yet, been broken,” as Lincoln “called up a new nation out of the blood and trauma.”

I loved this book for its examination of how John Brown (the Zealot), a violent terrorist,  and Abraham Lincoln, a cautious political genius, shared the same goal—the end of slavery—but radically differed in their methods. Yet, despite their differences, it is striking that Frederick Douglass considered both men to have been essential to ending slavery.

Brands note that Douglass, though a critic of Lincoln’s caution for many years, came to appreciate how Lincoln overcame the many obstacles to ending slavery. As for Brown, Douglass told a black college audience his  “zeal in the cause of my race was far greater than mine….I could live for the slave, but he could die for him.”

I loved this book because it analyzed Lincoln’s life, thoughts, and character as they developed in 19th-century America. In this “cultural” biography, as it has been termed, an acclaimed historian focuses in particular on how Lincoln sought to reconcile his two major goals before and during his presidency: to preserve the Union and end slavery.

Though Lincoln hoped this could be done without a civil war, the obduracy of the southern states over the slavery issue made war unavoidable. Yet, the defeat of the Confederacy resulted in the realization of both of Lincoln’s goals.

Abraham Lincoln famously had little formal education but was capable of sophisticated logical thinking in his arguments. He credits his ability to form his arguments to his encounter with Euclid’s writings about geometry. He felt in awe by the notion of “demonstration” and went on to apply that notion to his compelling arguments about the injustice and hypocrisy of slavery. 

How did the war start? Certainly, the South seceded after Lincoln’s election, but was apocalyptic war inevitable? Why did the North rise to defend the Union so passionately? If I may be so bold, Adam Goodheart’s 2011 book reads like the gripping sequel to my book.

In a series of powerful, beautifully written geographically and biographically focused stories, running from the 1860 election to the electric response to Fort Sumter, the rising of the state militias, the horrors of Bull Run, and the first moves toward emancipation at Fort Monroe.

In wonderful narrative form, Goodheart tracks the eruption of Union sentiment and the emergence of Lincoln as president, both so essential to carrying the North through the war. A great read, presenting important perspective on coming of the Civil War.