Just finished Gore Vidal's Lincoln

[Caoimhe]

and even though I of course knew how the story of Lincoln would end, it still left me sobbing. He really, truly humanized a President that I've seen on mountains and coins my entire life. I recommend it if you haven't read it.

My husband is reading Dean Koontz (he is in hibernation, fiction fluff mode right now.. after one of his students died on Friday before school) , and he compared what he is reading to saltine crackers and Gore Vidal to porterhouse steak. I tend to agree. Vidal keeps me thinking and keeps me interested in American History. Now I'm on to 1776!

My problem with Vidal is it takes me so long to read! I fall asleep after 10 pages because there are so many MANY details and names and events. It sounds bad to say a book puts you to sleep, but I can say that most times I fall asleep after reading Lincoln, I dream about what I just read, and the details come out in my dreams like they had leapt off the page into my consciousness.

Any Gore Vidal fans, check in and share the love.

[cathandler]

1. One of my all time favorite books. Ever.

n/t

[billbuckhead]

2. You never look at "history" the same

I like the whole American series.

[Caoimhe]

5. I've already noticed this phenomena

I watched BookTV today and was drawn to anything referencing the founding fathers in a way I've never been previously.

[saltpoint]

3. Vidal's LINCOLN is a smasher! I loved that book.

What a good idea you had to read it, and I'm really happy another person got a chance to "know" Abraham Lincoln through Vidal's great historical mind.

The entire construct with the druggist/apothecary was just terrific fiction-writing, and it felt very real.

[Caoimhe]

4. Yes and David was a real character

but he used David to expose the "insurgents" plans to the reader. Brilliant. With that amazing cast of characters, trying to figure out who to make your main characters is so key. I am also now enamoured with John Hay and Nicolay and I hope/wish/think that Hay is a character in other Vidal novels!? I see that Hay and Nicolay went on to publish a series of memoir type books about the Ancient. I plan on reading them.

I also was intrigued by Chase and his daughter, I wiki'd her and discovered she led a pretty sad life, having a bunch of kids with William Sprague in an apparently pretty loveless marriage and a very ugly divorce and never remarried. For the BELLE of Washington, it seems a sad outcome. Was money that important?

I've read Burr (which I adored) and now Lincoln. Is 1776 next?
Are you an advocate of reading them in "time chron. order" or in "when written order"?

[saltpoint]

6. Caoimhe, you almost can't go wrong with Vidal, but it's fun to

read them in order.

If somebody is already out of order, it doesn't really matter much, but still it's fun to take them in alignment with when they happened.

There was that really terrific description in LINCOLN of the Battle of Gettysburg.

That was top-drawer writing.

[whalerider55]

7. Loved it: ANother rec

Surprise; but of all people William Safire wrote a terrific book on Lincoln's first two years as President; hate the author but found the book wonderful. It helped me realize that one of Lincoln's astonishing strengths was an unerring moral compass, and the political skill to manipulate people to drag him kicking and screaming to the very place he wanted them to be.

an astonishing man, a great book. borrow it from the library, so you don't have to put a nickel in that scoundrel's pocket.

whalerider

[Smarmie Doofus]

8. I revere Vidal as an essayist and commentator, but....

... I cannot read, nor can I stand, his fiction.

Of the works I've sampled, 'Julian' was the least unreadable.

[Room101]

9. Vidal is my favorite author

I have read about 14 of his books/Novels. I'm currently reading 1876 follow up to Burr.
CREATION was without a doubt my favorite novel of his. Vidal was the first person to turn me onto history. He has the uncanny ability to make one feel like a fly on the wall during history's most epoch events.