by Gore Vidal
A flattering blurb on the cover from Harold Bloom and one inside from Joyce Carol Oates certainly underlines this is a serious book; it's also an engaging and entertaining one, one that portrays the personalities and political machinations during the Civil War. Lincoln isn't just a celebrated Americ...
I really like how Vidal writes. I read half of this novel before I watched the Lincoln movie (not the vampire hunter one :D) and I was really impressed by the amount of research that went into this book. As someone who knows very little American history, I definitely gained a lot more knowledge afte...
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Formally abolishing slavery in the Un...
I doubt I'm going to get back to this. It's too long and, frankly, the writing is average at best. And historicalfiction, I suppose, is not my favorite genre - though I've read very, very little of it.
This quite the impressive book. HIstorical figures are rendered as believable characters. I buy Vidal's Lincoln as a human being in a way that I can't when I am handed one of the mythological portraits of him that are so dominant. There are some major factual errors but I don't think they are par...
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