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Abraham Lincoln: A Life
I’m delighted to report that my 82nd audiobook, Abraham Lincoln: A Life by Michael Burlingame, was published yesterday on Audible.com. As with all of my titles, if you would like a free review copy, send me a message and I’ll send you a promo code.
This book was published as a two volume set in 1988 and quickly became recognized as a definitive piece of Lincoln scholarship. It’s very well-written and accessible, so the author and his associate Jonathan White decided to abridge it from over a million words to 300,000. It’s still the longest audiobook I’ve ever narrated; it came out to 33 hours. I enjoyed every minute of it. It feels like this is the book I have learned my craft over the past ten years to do.
What a man. What a story. What a book.
Published in General
… and what a narrator. You are very talented. I can’t wait to listen. Just in time for my long drive to Roanoke and back.
Thank you. Now that I have to compete with AI, that’s encouraging.
Looking forward to listening!
Y’all take him up on this offer.
Congratulations! Apparently the promo code only works on an existing Audible account, which I don’t have, so I’ll (sadly!) miss out. I still prefer books in hard form, though the Audible idea appeals for road trips. I just don’t take enough of them to make maintaining an account worthwhile.
It should work if you have an Amazon account. You have to use Audible’s app so it can set up a library. You can have an Audible account without a subscription so you don’t pay for a monthly book. If you don’t want to install the Audible app let me know, and I’ll zip the MP3 files and get them to you via Dropbox.
I enjoyed the first three chapters of the book yesterday while doing some remodeling in my house. I thought it noteworthy that Lincoln’s early life was considered by the author to be not much better than that of the slaves that he later freed. As a minor, Abe’s father pulled him out of school and hired him out to others for many laborious jobs, keeping the money. It was all quite customary and legal then. Lincoln’s stepmother seems to have been an important part of his life, convincing his father to let him read and study at home and not just at school.
Egad. I just did something I rarely do, checking sales figures before the end of the month. In two weeks, Lincoln: A Life has sold 60 copies! That’s remarkable, especially for a book that costs over $20 a ‘la carte.
Thank you, everyone.
I’m half way through. He just became president and Pinkerton warned him about an assassination attempt.
I worked for Pinkerton security in college. I got a lot of sleep.
No such thing as a specialized lawyer back then. He did it all.
Such calculus as I know I learned while at my desk as a Pinkerton guard. I also learned that one can fall asleep while standing or walking. I did each method once. Hitting the floor was a wake-up call.
Pinkertons were folklore in the nineteenth century. I’m remembering a lot of details from the Sherlock Holmes novel, “The Valley of Fear,” where the hero, Birdy Edwards, was a Pinkerton operative. Especially since the book I’m currently working on is about charismatic religions in the 1800s.
Kind of wish they had taken him more seriously. Histories like these show how details that seem unimportant at the time can affect major changes.
I started the Lincoln book today, while mowing the lawn. I’ll be heading out for more lawn mowing in a little while, but I’d like to report on two items now while I’m thinking about them.
First of all, this may be Douglas’s most polished narration so far. I didn’t even think about the narrator until I put the lawn mower away. That’s a sign of excellent work. It’s not so good when one is paying a lot of attention to the narrator’s style, which happens with a lot of them.
Second, I’m not so sure about the author’s treatment of Abraham’s father, Thomas, starting with the part about him being a carpenter of rather indifferent skill and workmanship. It’s the standard story that is often told, though with a bit more detail in this book. But I wonder if we haven’t been misled by all those who took their lead from his son, Abraham, in telling about him.
It was maybe 20 years ago when I took my father to visit the Studebaker museum in South Bend, Indiana, that I started to look askance at the usual tale. The museum exhibited a cabinet that had been made by Thomas. I was quite impressed by the fine inlay work, considering the time and place where it had been made. It was perhaps not quite up to the standards a king might have expected, but was far better than I had expected based on things about Thomas that I had read.
I may have a photo somewhere, but I’m not going to take the time to find it now.
In looking for a photo on the web just now, I found out that it may now be on display at the Indiana state museum. That museum has some Lincoln items that were (or are) on loan from the Studebaker museum. I hope to be doing some bicycle outings in northwest Indiana over the next few weeks, at places between here and Lafayette. A good rainy day activity may be to find out which museum actually has that cabinet on display now, and go take another look at it, and see if I still have the same impression.
But ever since I first saw it, I’ve taken everything Abraham told about his father, or everything his friends and acquaintances told about his father, with a grain of salt. I don’t think the whole story is 100 percent wrong, but Abraham had a difficult relationship with his father, and also had a lot of influence in how the story has been told.
Thank you for the kind words. I tried to give this one the best of my craft.