Book #57 |
Book: Courting Mr. Lincoln | Author: Louis Bayard | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Kindle |
Pages: 417 | Duration: 07/20/25 – 07/22/25 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★★ | Genres: historical fiction, romance stories, politics, class | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Mr. Lincoln beloved by Mary and Joshua — who’s wooing who? 🖌6-word review: Beautifully written. Cerebral vocabulary. Homoerotic innuendo. |
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| 💭Favorite quote: “Had she not, in the early months of the campaign, longed for Harrison’s election as a nun longs for Christ — chastely and to the exclusion of everything else?” | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: treacled, mantua, merino, succubus, plenitudes, nightjars, hied, torpor, prolix, perforce, tippled, incommoded, interregnum, rube, reticule, descant, sward, badinage, plashing, auger, rictus, terpsichorean, caesura, cozen, lambrequins, heliotrope, surcease, annealed, blancmange, adumbrating, inveigled, senescent, crepuscular, effulgence, diminution, ormolu, pecuniary | |||
| Description:* Told in the alternating voices of the marriageable Mary Todd and Lincoln’s best friend, Joshua Speed, and rich with historical detail, Courting Mr. Lincoln creates a sympathetic and complex portrait of Mary unlike any that has come before; a moving portrayal of the deep and very real connection between the two men; and most of all, an evocation of the unformed man who would grow into one of the nation’s most beloved presidents.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: The title of this book caught my attention shortly after I had been looking at plays to see when we’re in NYC in September, and read about “Oh, Mary!” It turned out to be a little gem of a book, with the bonus being that the (gay, which I didn’t know) author teases out the (homoerotic) relationship between Abraham Lincoln and his best friend Joshua Speed in the context of both he and Mary Todd loving him. I love the author’s voice, which was consistent with a period piece, and at times reminding me of Downton Abbey or The Gilded Age. This is another book I’d consider putting forth as a future Mostly Social Book Club book of mine. | |||
See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.
