Over the years, I’ve managed to read several biographies of Abraham Lincoln. I read Carl Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years. I read Jon Meacham’s And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle. I read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. One Lincoln book, however, has sat on my shelf since the 1990s without my ever having read it: David Herbert Donald’s Lincoln. I remember seeing an interview with President Bill Clinton sometime in the 1990s where he mentioned he was reading this book and recommended it, and like many other people, I went out and bought a copy, and then, never got around to reading it.

That notorious streak ends today. I’m nearly finished with this month’s book club book, and should have it finished in another hour or two. Once that is done, the Lincoln biography is next on the queue and I can correct a oversight that has gone on far too long.