During Justice Sonya Sotomayor’s recent confirmation hearings\, the idea of “biography” played a high-profile role in the debate. How much does a person’s experience affect his or her judicial opinions? Should personal history be a key consideration when determining qualifications to sit on the highest court in the land?
In this impeccably researched book\, journalist Bill Barnhart and retired lawyer and former legislator Gene Schlickman paint a detailed portrait of Justice John Paul Stevens’s remarkable life and tenure on the Court. Through vivid family history and a careful look at his work on the bench\, Barnhart and Schlickman offer the first biography of the second longest serving Supreme Court justice of the modern era—one who has proudly earned the title of the Court’s most prolific dissenter. To provide a nuanced and multifaceted look at the justice\, Barnhart and Schlickman interviewed Stevens and an extraordinary number of Stevens’s friends and family members\, former clerks\, current colleagues\, politicians\, and court watchers. They spoke with such public figures as former President Ford\, former Ford chief of staff Donald Rumsfeld\, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Interviews with Stevens’s children and one of his brothers provide personal insights into the man behind the robe. Tales of his childhood\, of growing up in an affluent family in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood\, and of the family business\, including The Stevens Hotel (now the Chicago Hilton and Towers)\, create a rich portrait of the independent man and judge. Intimate anecdotes from Stevens’s former law clerks reveal the lighter side of some of the most serious work in the country.
Barnhart and Schlickman also give careful consideration to Stevens’s career. They trace his early years as a Chicago lawyer\, his appointment to the federal appeals bench in Chicago\, and his ultimate nomination to the Supreme Court by Republican President Ford. They examine his best-known opinions\, including his emotional dissents in Texas v. Johnson and Bush v. Gore. They trace his growth as a molder of Court decisions.
In an era of an increasingly politicized judiciary\, the story of Stevens’s life\, as a lawyer who joined the bench with no political or ideological baggage\, is an urgent reminder of the importance of judicial impartiality and the need to cultivate it. This vibrant biography will be of interest to those fascinated by the inner workings of the Supreme Court as well as those who simply want to learn more about one of Chicago’s favorite sons.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T163906Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101012T230000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101012T230000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/edward-mcclelland-young-mr-obama URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/edward-mcclelland-young-mr-obama SUMMARY:Edward McClelland - Young Mr. Obama DESCRIPTION:Barack Obama's inspirational politics and personal mythology have overshadowed his fascinating history. Young Mr. Obama gives us the missing chapter\: the portrait of the politician as a young leader\, often too ambitious for his own good\, but still equipped with a rare ability to inspire change. The route to the White House began on the streets of Chicago's South Side.
Edward McClelland\, a veteran Chicago journalist\, tells the real story of the first black president's political education in the capital of the African American political community. Obama's touch wasn't always golden\, and the unflappable and charismatic campaigner we know today nearly derailed his political career with a disastrous run for Congress in 2000.
Obama learned from his mistakes\, and rebuilt his public persona. Young Mr. Obama is a masterpiece of political reporting\, peeling away the audacity\, the T-shirts\, and the inspiring speeches to craft acompelling and surpassingly readable account of how local politics shaped a national leader.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T163906Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101012T230000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101012T230000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/international-house-author-night-gurcharan-das URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/international-house-author-night-gurcharan-das SUMMARY:International House Author Night\: Gurcharan Das DESCRIPTION:Gurcharan Das will discuss his book The Difficulty of Being Good.
About The Difficulty of Being Good\:
Why should we be good? How should we be good? And how might we more deeply understand the moral and ethical failings--splashed across today's headlines--that have not only destroyed individual lives but caused widespread calamity as well\, bringing communities\, nations\, and indeed the global economy to the brink of collapse?
In The Difficulty of Being Good \, Gurcharan Das seeks answers to these questions in an unlikely source\: the 2\,000 year-old Sanskrit epic\, Mahabharata . A sprawling\, witty\, ironic\, and delightful poem\, the Mahabharata is obsessed with the elusive notion of dharma--in essence\, doing the right thing. When a hero does something wrong in a Greek epic\, he wastes little time on self-reflection\; when a hero falters in the Mahabharata \, the action stops and everyone weighs in with a different and often contradictory take on dharma. Each major character in the epic embodies a significant moral failing or virtue\, and their struggles mirror with uncanny precision our own familiar emotions of anxiety\, courage\, despair\, remorse\, envy\, compassion\, vengefulness\, and duty. Das explores the Mahabharata from many perspectives and compares the successes and failures of the poem's characters to those of contemporary individuals\, many of them highly visible players in the world of economics\, business\, and politics. In every case\, he finds striking parallels that carry lessons for everyone faced with ethical and moral dilemmas in today's complex world.
Written with the flair and seemingly effortless erudition that have made Gurcharan Das a bestselling author around the world--and enlivened by Das's forthright discussion of his own personal search for a more meaningful life--The Difficulty of Being Good shines the light of an ancient poem on the most challenging moral ambiguities of modern life.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T163906Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101013T230000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101013T230000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/laura-kipnis-how-become-scandal URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/laura-kipnis-how-become-scandal SUMMARY:Laura Kipnis - How to Become a Scandal DESCRIPTION:We all relish a good scandal—the larger the figure (governor\, judge) and more shocking the particulars (diapers\, cigars)—the better. But why do people feel compelled to act out their tangled psychodramas on the national stage\, and why do we so enjoy watching them\, hurling our condemnations while savoring every lurid detail?
With "\;pointed daggers of prose"\; (The New Yorker)\, Laura Kipnis examines contemporary downfall sagas to lay bare the American psyche\: what we desire\, what we punish\, and what we disavow. She delivers virtuoso analyses of four paradigmatic cases\: a lovelorn astronaut\, an unhinged judge\, a venomous whistleblower\, and an over-imaginative memoirist. The motifs are classic—revenge\, betrayal\, ambition\, madness—though the pitfalls are ones we all negotiate daily. After all\, every one of us is a potential scandal in the making\: failed self-knowledge and colossal self-deception—the necessary ingredients—are our collective plight. In How to Become a Scandal\, bad behavior is the entry point for a brilliant cultural romp as well as an anti-civics lesson. "\;Shove your rules\,"\; says scandal\, and no doubt every upright citizen\, deep within\, cheers the transgression—as long as it's someone else's head on the block.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T163906Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101014T230000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101014T230000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/thomas-geoghegan-were-you-born-wrong-continent URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/thomas-geoghegan-were-you-born-wrong-continent SUMMARY:Thomas Geoghegan - Were You Born On the Wrong Continent? DESCRIPTION:In the 2008 presidential election\, Newt Gingrich was among those who claimed that Barack Obama wanted to bring us “European socialism\,” or\, as Jacob Weisberg described it\, “He wants to make us French.”
In an idiosyncratic\, entertaining travelogue that plays on public policy\, Thomas Geoghegan asks what our lives would be like if we lived them as Europeans. Sneaking out of his workaholic American life\, he takes five trips where he tries to understand so-called European socialism firsthand. After visiting France\, he ventures into Germany to see what some call the “boring” Europe. There he finds the true “other”—an economic model with more bottom-up worker control than that of any other country in the world—and argues that\, while we have to take Germany’s problems seriously\, we also have to look seriously at how much it has achieved. Social democracy may let us live nicer lives\; it also may be the only way to be globally competitive.
This wry\, timely book helps us understand why the European model\, contrary to popular neoliberal wisdom\, may thrive well into the twenty-first century without compromising its citizens’ ease of living—and be the best example for the United States to follow.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T163906Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101014T230000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101014T230000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/poetry-foundation-frank-bidart URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/poetry-foundation-frank-bidart SUMMARY:Poetry Foundation\: Frank Bidart DESCRIPTION:Now in its 56th year\, Poetry Day is one of the oldest and most distinguished reading series in the country. Inaugurated by Robert Frost\, Poetry Day has featured such poets as T.S. Eliot\, Marianne Moore\, Elizabeth Bishop\, W.H. Auden\, Seamus Heaney\, and Adrienne Rich.
In a career spanning 30 years\, Frank Bidart has established himself as one of the most original and compelling poets of his generation. Initially influenced by T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound\, and later by his teacher Robert Lowell\, Bidart has expanded the possibilities of poetry. His unflinching examination of human desire and guilt\, often as manifested in deviant or distraught personalities\, has opened once-taboo territories. His nonlinear\, magpie forms\, as well as his typography and punctuation are dictated by the unusual content of his lines rather than convention. Bidart is the author of eight critically acclaimed collections\, including\, most recently\, Desire\, Star Dust\, and Watching the Spring Festival (all from Farrar Straus &\; Giroux). Desire was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize\, the National Book Award\, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He received his second Pulitzer nomination for Music Like Dirt\, the only chapbook ever to be so honored. He won the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Award in 1997\, the Wallace Stevens Award in 2000\, and the Bollingen Prize in 2007. A past chancellor of the Academy of American Poets\, Frank Bidart has taught at Wellesley College since 1972.
Many creatures must
make\, but only one must seek
within itself what to make
—from “Lament for the Makers”
Co-sponsored with the Chicago Public Library
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T163906Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101017T200000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101017T200000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/jacqueline-edelberg-how-walk-school URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/jacqueline-edelberg-how-walk-school SUMMARY:Jacqueline Edelberg - How to Walk to School DESCRIPTION:Practical advice from the author of the revolutionary and inspiring book that's transforming public education in America.
Discussion follows with CPS expert Ellen Lorden and representatives from Hyde Park &\; Kenwood Elementary Schools.
About the book\:
"\;How to Walk to School is the story of motivated parents galvanizing and then organizing an entire community to take a leap of faith\, transforming a challenged urban school into one of Chicago's best\, virtually overnight. The fate of public education is not beyond our control. In How to Walk to School\, Susan Kurland\, an entrepreneurial principal\, and Jacqueline Edelberg\, a neighborhood mom\, provide a blueprint for reclaiming the great public schools our children deserve."\;
Presented with the Parent Support Network of Hyde Park/Kenwood and The Family Resource Center of the University of Chicago.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T163906Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101018T230000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101018T230000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/george-dohrmann-play-their-hearts-out URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/george-dohrmann-play-their-hearts-out SUMMARY:George Dohrmann - Play Their Hearts Out DESCRIPTION:Hoop dreams aren’t just for players. The fever that grips college basketball prospects hoping to strike big-time NBA gold afflicts coaches\, parents\, and sneaker executives as well. Every one of them has a stake in keeping America’s wildly dysfunctional\, incredibly lucrative youth basketball machine up and running—no matter the consequences.
In Play Their Hearts Out\, George Dohrmann offers an up-close and unforgettable look inside the maw of that machine. He shares what he learned from his years spent embedded with a group of talented young recruits from Southern California as they traveled the country playing in elite Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) events. It’s a cutthroat world where boys as young as eight or nine are subjected to a dizzying torrent of scrutiny and exploitation. Coaches vie to have them on their teams. Sneaker companies ply them with free shoes and gear. “All-star camps” are glorified cattle auctions\, providing make-or-break opportunities to secure the promise of an elusive college scholarship.
At the book’s heart are the personal stories of two compelling figures\: Joe Keller\, an ambitious AAU coach with a master plan to find and promote “the next LeBron”—thereby paving his own path to power and riches\; and Demetrius Walker\, a fatherless latchkey kid who falls under Keller’s sway and struggles to live up to the unrealistic expectations his supposed benefactor has set for him. As their fortunes take shape and the pressure mounts—Demetrius finds himself profiled in Sports Illustrated at age fourteen\, while Keller cultivates his business empire—Dohrmann weaves in the stories of numerous other parents\, coaches\, and players. Some of them see their prospects evaporate as a result of poor decisions and worse luck. Others learn how to thrive in a corrupt system by playing the right angles.
Written with incomparable detail and insight\, Play Their Hearts Out is a thoroughly unique narrative that reveals the inner workings of an American game\, exposing the gritty reality that lies beneath so many dreams of fame and glory.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T163906Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101019T230000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101019T230000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/world-beyond-headlines-imtiaz-gul URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/world-beyond-headlines-imtiaz-gul SUMMARY:World Beyond the Headlines\: Imtiaz Gul DESCRIPTION:The Flood Disaster in Pakistan\: Socio-economic Consequences and Potential Geopolitical Ramifications
As much as one fifth of Pakistan’s total land area was underwater due to the floods in July of this year. Over twenty million have been injured or displaced. As the effects of flooding on the region’s infrastructure and food supply continue to be measured\, Imtiaz Gul will address the longer term political and social consequences.
Imtiaz Gul is Executive Director of the Centre for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad. He is the author of three books on the ongoing security concerns in South Asia\: The Unholy Nexus\, The Al-Qaeda Connection\, and The Most Dangerous Place.
Cosponsored by the South Asia Language &\; Area Center and the Committee on Southern Asian Studies with support from the American Institute of Pakistan Studies.
Registration is recommended for this event. Please click here to do so.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T163906Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101021T230000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101021T230000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/simon-mawer-glass-room URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/simon-mawer-glass-room SUMMARY:Simon Mawer - The Glass Room DESCRIPTION:Honeymooners Viktor and Liesel Landauer are filled with the optimism and cultural vibrancy of central Europe of the 1920s when they meet modernist architect Rainer von Abt. He builds for them a home to embody their exuberant faith in the future\, and the Landauer House becomes an instant masterpiece. Viktor and Liesel\, a rich Jewish mogul married to a thoughtful\, modern gentile\, pour all of their hopes for their marriage and budding family into their stunning new home\, filling it with children\, friends\, and a generation of artists and thinkers eager to abandon old-world European style in favor of the new and the avant-garde. But as life intervenes\, their new home also brings out their most passionate desires and darkest secrets. As Viktor searches for a warmer\, less challenging comfort in the arms of another woman\, and Liesel turns to her wild\, mischievous friend Hana for excitement\, the marriage begins to show signs of strain. The radiant honesty and idealism of 1930 quickly evaporate beneath the storm clouds of World War II. As Nazi troops enter the country\, the family must leave their old life behind and attempt to escape to America before Viktor's Jewish roots draw Nazi attention\, and before the family itself dissolves.
As the Landauers struggle for survival abroad\, their home slips from hand to hand\, from Czech to Nazi to Soviet possession and finally back to the Czechoslovak state\, with new inhabitants always falling under the fervent and unrelenting influence of the Glass Room. Its crystalline perfection exerts a gravitational pull on those who know it\, inspiring them\, freeing them\, calling them back\, until the Landauers themselves are finally drawn home to where their story began.
Brimming with barely contained passion and cruelty\, the precision of science\, the wild variance of lust\, the catharsis of confession\, and the fear of failure - The Glass Room contains it all.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T163906Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101026T000000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101026T000000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/benjamin-percy-wilding URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/benjamin-percy-wilding SUMMARY:***THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED*** Benjamin Percy - The Wilding DESCRIPTION:***WE APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE\, BUT THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED TO A DATE TBA.***
Echo Canyon is a disappearing pocket of wilderness outside of Bend\, Oregon\, and the site of conflicting memories for Justin Caves and his father\, Paul. It’s now slated for redevelopment as a golfing resort. When Paul suggests one last hunting trip\, Justin accepts\, hoping to get things right with his father this time\, and agrees to bring his son\, Graham\, along.
As the weekend unfolds\, Justin is pushed to the limit by the reckless taunting of his father\, the physical demands of the terrain\, and the menacing evidence of the hovering presence of bear. All the while\, he remembers the promise he made to his skeptical wife\: to keep their son safe.
Benjamin Percy\, a writer whose work Dan Chaon called “bighearted and drunk and dangerous\,” shows his mastery of narrative suspense as the novel builds to its surprising climax. The Wilding shines unexpected light on our shifting relationship with nature and family in contemporary society.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T163906Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101027T230000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101027T230000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/eric-foner-fiery-trial-abraham-lincoln-slavery URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/eric-foner-fiery-trial-abraham-lincoln-slavery SUMMARY:Eric Foner - The Fiery Trial\: Abraham Lincoln & American Slavery DESCRIPTION:In this landmark work of deep scholarship and insight\, Eric Foner gives us the definitive history of Lincoln and the end of slavery in America.
Foner begins with Lincoln's youth in Indiana and Illinois and follows the trajectory of his career across an increasingly tense and shifting political terrain from Illinois to Washington\, D.C. Although "\;naturally anti-slavery"\; for as long as he can remember\, Lincoln scrupulously holds to the position that the Constitution protects the institution in the original slave states. But the political landscape is transformed in 1854 when the Kansas-Nebraska Act makes the expansion of slavery a national issue. A man of considered words and deliberate actions\, Lincoln navigates the dynamic politics deftly\, taking measured steps\, often along a path forged by abolitionists and radicals in his party. Lincoln rises to leadership in the new Republican Party by calibrating his politics to the broadest possible antislavery coalition. As president of a divided nation and commander in chief at war\, displaying a similar compound of pragmatism and principle\, Lincoln finally embraces what he calls the Civil War's "\;fundamental and astounding"\; result\: the immediate\, uncompensated abolition of slavery and recognition of blacks as American citizens. Foner's Lincoln emerges as a leader\, one whose greatness lies in his capacity for moral and political growth through real engagement with allies and critics alike.
This powerful work will transform our understanding of the nation's greatest president and the issue that mattered most.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T163906Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101028T233000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101028T233000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/judith-heineman-daniel-marcotte-grimms-grimmest-darker-side-fairy-tales URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/judith-heineman-daniel-marcotte-grimms-grimmest-darker-side-fairy-tales SUMMARY:Judith Heineman & Daniel Marcotte - Grimm's Grimmest\: The Darker Side of Fairy Tales DESCRIPTION:CD Release Party and Performance of Grimm's Grimmest\: The Darker Side of Fairy Tales
What happened after Sleeping Beauty is awakened by the Prince's kiss? How much blood was spilled before Cinderella tried on that slipper? "\;Happily ever after..."\; is only relative and what relatives inhabit these lurid tales! Don't even ask about the fate of the smoked sausage. Listen to the Tales of the Brothers Grimm as originally intended for adults\, and gain a new bloodier persepective on your childhood fairy tales. This mayhem is accompanied by music skillfully sung and evocatively played on Renaissance lute\, set to 16th Century ballad tunes and transformed through Judith and Dan's 21st Century interpretations. Revisit these tales through blood-spattered specatcles. And join in the "\;Bloody"\; choruses if you dare!
This is a highly interactive\, humorous and slyly wicked performance.
Recommended for ages 9 and up.
Judith Heineman\, Storyteller and Dan Marcotte\, Musican are proud to announce that their Grimm CD just won the NAPPA (National Parenting) Honors Award! They are also Illinois Humanities Council Road Scholars who tour extensively in the midwest with a variety of original programs.
END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20120523T163906Z DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101029T230000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20101029T230000Z UID:http://www.semcoop.com/event/nora-titone-my-thoughts-be-bloody URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.semcoop.com/event/nora-titone-my-thoughts-be-bloody SUMMARY:Nora Titone - My Thoughts Be Bloody DESCRIPTION:The scene of John Wilkes Booth shooting Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre is among the most vivid and indelible images in American history. The literal story of what happened on April 14\, 1865\, is familiar\: Lincoln was killed by John Wilkes Booth\, a lunatic enraged by the Union victory and the prospect of black citizenship. Yet who Booth really was—besides a killer—is less well known. The magnitude of his crime has obscured for generations a startling personal story that was integral to his motivation.
My Thoughts Be Bloody\, a sweeping family saga\, revives an extraordinary figure whose name has been missing\, until now\, from the story of President Lincoln’s death. Edwin Booth\, John Wilkes’s older brother by four years\, was in his day the biggest star of the American stage. He won his celebrity at the precocious age of nineteen\, before the Civil War began\, when John Wilkes was a schoolboy. Without an account of Edwin Booth\, author Nora Titone argues\, the real story of Lincoln’s assassin has never been told. Using an array of private letters\, diaries\, and reminiscences of the Booth family\, Titone has uncovered a hidden history that reveals the reasons why John Wilkes Booth became this country’s most notorious assassin.
These ambitious brothers\, born to theatrical parents\, enacted a tale of mutual jealousy and resentment worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy. From childhood\, the stage-struck brothers were rivals for the approval of their father\, legendary British actor Junius Brutus Booth. After his death\, Edwin and John Wilkes were locked in a fierce contest to claim his legacy of fame. This strange family history and powerful sibling rivalry were the crucibles of John Wilkes’s character\, exacerbating his political passions and driving him into a life of conspiracy.
To re-create the lost world of Edwin and John Wilkes Booth\, this book takes readers on a panoramic tour of nineteenth-century America\, from the streets of 1840s Baltimore to the gold fields of California\, from the jungles of the Isthmus of Panama to the glittering mansions of Gilded Age New York. Edwin\, ruthlessly competitive and gifted\, did everything he could to lock his younger brother out of the theatrical game. As he came of age\, John Wilkes found his plans for stardom thwarted by his older sibling’s meteoric rise. Their divergent paths—Edwin’s an upward race to riches and social prominence\, and John’s a downward spiral into failure and obscurity—kept pace with the hardening of their opposite political views and their mutual dislike.
The details of the conspiracy to kill Lincoln have been well documented elsewhere. My Thoughts Be Bloody tells a new story\, one that explains for the first time why Lincoln’s assassin decided to conspire against the president in the first place\, and sets that decision in the context of a bitterly divided family—and nation. By the end of this riveting journey\, readers will see Abraham Lincoln’s death less as the result of the war between the North and South and more as the climax of a dark struggle between two brothers who never wore the uniform of soldiers\, except on stage.
END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR