A March of serious endings...

I finished out the month of March with non-fiction, and though I thoroughly enjoyed every book I read this month, these two may be my favorites: Team of Rivals – The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin and Words To Live By a memoir by William Whitehead.

I listened to Team of Rivals in an unabridged edition with excellent narration by Suzanne Toren and augmented my listening by borrowing the actual book from Hinkle Memorial Library at Alfred State.  With less than 300 pages to go, I was thrilled to actually read the book and have access to the maps and illustrations.  This book was riveting and readable.  It really is a multiple biography of Lincoln’s rivals and his incredible ability to pull these men together into his cabinet.  I learned so much about men whose names meant nothing to me and enjoyed seeing the connections between politics in the 1850s and 1860s and politics today: nothing has changed.  Partisan politics was the issue then, and it is worse now.  But I have a greater appreciation of William H. Seward, Edwin M. Stanton, Ulysses S. Grant, and Abraham Lincoln because of this book.  The importance of other men and their contributions did not escape my understanding, but Grant, Stanton, and especially Seward emerged in my mind as men who understood and respected Lincoln when others were playing politics.  Goodwin also demonstrates that Mary Lincoln was an intelligent multi-faceted woman.  Even today people faced with chronic migraines are misunderstood; Mary Lincoln was institutionalized.  I will definitely read other books by Doris Kearns Goodwin and plan on adding a copy of this to my permanent library. 

 

SIDEBAR:  One other historical biography stands out in my memory:  Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose.  These two books taught me so much more about specific times/issues in United States history than I ever learned in school.

 Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Team of Rivals The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. Print.

  

William Whitehead’s memoir is a delightful romp through the life of a man who started out a child afraid of bugs, majored in entomology, was an actor, wrote scripts for an iconic CBC show, The Nature of Things, and shared 40 years of his life with Timothy Findley.  What makes this memoir so delightful is Whitehead’s love of words.  He ties his life together with the memories of the humor he has always found in words…especially at his own expense.  Here’s one example:  In the late 1950s he and other friends were invited to an elaborate evening party.  Upon arriving at the estate where it was being held, Whitehead saw two friends – Marigold Charlesworth and Jeannie Roberts, who were a couple – Roberts was wearing “A gorgeous silken print dress, silk stockings, high heels, beautiful make-up – with her auburn hair fashioned into a Dutch-boy bob.”   He was overwhelmed by the transformation and immediately thought of the famous childhood story about the little Dutch boy who saved his country.  Whitehead blurted out, “My God, Jeannie.  You look just like you should have your finger stuck in a dike!” (101).

 

There are also poignant moments.  The last section of the book is titled “Words to Die for.”  The closing left me speechless for several hours:

What will my experience of death be like?  By then, will I still have words to express what I feel?...Now, with a lifetime of images and memories, I could live without words.

And, if need be, I could die without them, too.

Complete.

And contented.  (248)

 

Thank you, William Whitehead.

 

Whitehead, William. Words To Live By. Markham, Ontario: Cormorant Books, 2012. Print.