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Jon Meacham, author of And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle

Hated and hailed, excoriated and revered, Abraham Lincoln was at the pinnacle of American power when implacable secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions bound up with money, race, identity and faith. In him we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations. At once familiar and elusive, Lincoln tends to be seen as the greatest of American presidents --- a remote icon --- or as a politician driven more by calculation than by conviction. This illuminating new portrait gives us a very human Lincoln --- an imperfect man whose moral antislavery commitment began as he grew up in an antislavery Baptist community; who insisted that slavery was a moral evil; and who sought, as he put it, to do right as God gave him to see the right.

Week of October 16, 2023

Paperback releases for the week of October 16th include AND THERE WAS LIGHT, in which Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Jon Meacham chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln, charting how --- and why --- he confronted secession, threats to democracy and the tragedy of slavery to expand the possibilities of America; THE MAGIC KINGDOM by Russell Banks, a dazzling tapestry of love and faith, memory and imagination that questions what it means to look back and accept one’s place in history; Natasha Lester's THE THREE LIVES OF ALIX ST. PIERRE, a lavish, unforgettable story of an orphan turned WWII spy turned fashion icon in Paris; THE RED WIDOW, a page-turning biography from Sarah Horowitz, who introduces readers to Marguerite Steinheil, an antiheroine who flouts society and the law at every opportunity...and gets away with it; and the paperback original AMERICAN GIRL by Wendy Walker, a pulse-pounding novel about a small-town business owner found dead and the teenage girl caught in the crosshairs.