Father Lincoln: The Untold Story of Abraham Lincoln and His Boys - Robert, Eddy, Willie, and Tad

I received this as an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 4 Stars

One of the reasons I set this president goal for myself last year was because I have read extensively about Washington, Lincoln, and Kennedy, but few others. I thought I knew as much as there was to know about Lincoln. After all, he is arguably the most written-about president in US history. I was very happy then to see this book on NetGalley and requested it immediately (over a year ago of course, because in 2017 I got sidetracked by other projects and so many galleys lingered in limbo on my Kindle). I only knew vaguely of the supposed overindulgence that Lincoln engaged in with his young sons, but not much else. This book gives a completely new layer to the man known as the Great Emancipator. We see him in his most important role, that of a father to four boys. I feel like this book helps us to truly complete the picture of Lincoln as a whole man. He was 100% dedicated to providing for his family, which caused him to be away from Mary, Robert, and Eddy so often in those early years and he had to find a balance between his law practice and home life. This was a bit easier for him to do once in the White House, as his family was always with him - much to the irritation of some of his cabinet members.

There is a significant amount of research here. In my copy as an ARC, the text itself ended at 66% and the notes ran from 67%-90%. Following that, the primary and secondary sources ran 90%-96%. While I am still a bit skeptical on this idea that the author regularly asserts - that basically fathers in the 19th century were becoming more involved in the raising of their children, that does seem to be the case here for Lincoln in what we can interpret from letters, etc. This does not mean that fathers had nothing to do with raising their children ever until the 21st century, just that it almost came across at times as though the author was trying to assert that fathers wanted to also be in the caregiver role and I do not think that was the case. It is not a major flaw, as it is clear that Lincoln enjoyed spending time with his children, but I think it is a blanket statement that does not apply to all fathers of the period.

Before we are introduced the the relationships that Lincoln had with his own sons, we see the foundation of it being built in Lincoln's relationship with his own father. In previous books this has been a highly contentious relationship and Thomas has often been viewed as abusive and distant and overbearing. While those things may well be true, here Manning at least presents Thomas Lincoln in the context of his time period. Men in his generation did not think of saving for the future, they worked the land to survive. Thomas and Abraham could not have been more different and I do think that could be why later Lincoln was so indulgent with his own sons. They got away with everything because Lincoln had gotten away with nothing. Thomas physically disciplined young Abe, Lincoln could not have been more opposite. The entire tenure of the family's stay in DC is punctuated by the pranks and disruptions of the younger boys, Willie and Tad. And it seemed the boys knew their father would not discipline them, given memories recorded by observers to such activities. Nothing they did seemed to bother Lincoln, from their tendencies to ring all the bells in the White House to panic the clerks and messengers, to eating all the strawberries being grown for a state dinner. He did not ignore everything though, and even when he went about sorting out problems between the boys, he did so in a loving way. In one instance when the boys traded each other - a new knife for a few pieces of candy - and it was not fair, Lincoln put the questions to the boys whether it was fair and they fixed it themselves.

The majority of the book seemed to focus on Lincoln's relationship between the two younger boys, Willie and Tad. When Robert and Eddy were young, Lincoln was away in other towns, trying cases for those places that had no lawyers. He did so in order to build up his practice, and put in motion the wheels that would eventually carry him to the White House. As a result, Lincoln was not as close to Robert. The author spent a lot of time trying to explain this away as though Robert was trying to keep his family life private after his father's assassination. It very well could be a mix of the two, and to me this is not something that necessarily needs to be explained away. It makes sense that they would not be as close, given Lincoln's absences during Robert's formative years. However, there are references to correspondences throughout Robert's life, from his youth to his time at college. Perhaps the gap was not as wide as previous historians have assumed. Unfortunately Eddy passed away at a young age, before the other two were born. In the wake of Eddy's death we see Lincoln openly mourning his son and grieving the loss. Perhaps it was this loss that made Lincoln realize that he needed to be home more often, and the younger boys certainly benefited from that. We see that grief rear its head again when Willie - Lincoln's favorite son - dies at age 12.

One thing I appreciated greatly about this text was the fact that lived up to its name and focused on the side of Lincoln as a father. It does not become political and only discusses those major events in Lincoln's career from the viewpoint of him as a father and how/if anything impacted the boys. We are not given yet another history of the famed Lincoln-Douglas debates, his presidential campaigns, or much involving the Civil War. For the most part, the war is only dealt with in how it impacted Robert, who was of age to become a soldier and wanted desperately to do so - and his parents terrified of him doing so. In that instance we do see Lincoln and Mary as President and First Lady, but a father and mother afraid of losing yet another son too soon. Perhaps somewhat ironically, Robert would be their only son to live to adulthood. Tad died at seventeen, thought this was after his father's assassination. Only Mary would see the loss of yet another son.

All in all, this was a very enlightening book about a side of Lincoln I did not really know. I knew him as the politician and this book does well to present him as a loving father who loved his sons deeply. Highly recommended.

Stacking the Shelves 1

Surprise, surprise, I have found another weekly feature that I simply must participate in because this one is all about acquiring books and that is something I do exceptionally well.

Here is a little info before we plunge ahead into the lovelies that I found this week, taken from Tynga's Reviews, the website where this feature began:

Stacking the Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in a physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts, and of course ebooks! To find out more, visit the official launch page.

It has been a relaxing and lazy winter break and of course it has gone by way too fast. I am not looking forward to January 8th, that's for sure. My daughter and I have been home in Minnesota since Christmas, and of course everyone has been sick except me (knock on wood). Today was the first day my little lady was feeling well enough to venture outside and I thought the public library would be the perfect place to test out how much better she was actually feeling. I was instantly drawn to the shelves of books for sale - $1 for hardcovers! I walked out with seven of them and am excited to get reading. You know, after I finish the fifty million other books on my TBR.

     

     

And lastly...because crazy is totally worth $1 each.

     

This feature works just like Top Ten Tuesday and First Line Friday. Follow the link to Tynga's Reviews to see this week's post and if you want to participate, use the Linky Widget and check out the other bloggers who are participating.

Happy Reading!
Sarah

First Line Friday - September 11th Edition

Welcome to the first First Line Friday of 2018! First Line Friday is a weekly feature hosted by Hoarding Books. It's super easy to participate, just grab the book nearest you and share the first line. Then head over to Hoarding Books and post your blog on the Linky Widget (like Top Ten Tuesday from The Broke and the Bookish), and visit other bloggers who have also shared this week.

"Never before in American history had our peace and well-being been so suddenly, fully, and unalterably changed as they were on the morning of September 11th, 2001."

This is a day I will never forget. I was a freshman in college, far from home. While I did not know anyone personally who lost their lives in this terrorist attack, this day left a permanent impression on me that will never leave me. It took a long time for me to be able to read anything about that day, but since then I have found some excellent books on the subject, despite the fact that I bawl my eyes out with every read.

John Quincy Adams and the Politics of Slavery: Selections from the Diary

I received this ARC for free via NetGalley from Oxford University Press in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 4 Stars

I have to confess my complete lack of knowledge about some of the earliest presidents after Washington. I vaguely thought both John Adams and John Quincy Adams were the only two among the first ten or so who never owned slaves and were staunchly against slavery. I could've sworn I read that previously. But as I started this one, I quickly found that was not the case at all and early on his career, JQA was actually a supporter of this cancerous practice that still impacts our country today. In fact, at around 49%, the books states "The Adamses rented slaves during their years in Washington DC...". This is quite a different picture painted of a man who, in the last years of his life, was so well-known for his opposition to slavery. He was even called by one of his political rivals, Henry Wise, "the acutest, the astutest, the archest enemy of southern slavery that ever existed." This is quite a contrast to how JQA even viewed himself, as he often criticized the abolitionists who didn't think he was going far enough to denounce slavery.

The editors did an excellent job with this volume, first introducing the journal, their purpose for choosing the entries they did, as well as their process for doing so. Throughout the text they also gave summaries and their own insights into many of the entries, explaining the larger politics of the time and events going on while JQA wrote what he did. They also provided commentary in comparing what he was writing in his diary versus what he was saying publicly on the issue of slavery. JQA left the most extensive collection of personal writings than any other statesman in the history of the US. These diaries give us one of the most complete pictures of any of these early politicians and the complexity of evolving views on a myriad of issues surrounding the young nation, slavery being at the forefront.

While I read this as a ARC on my Kindle, I definitely think it would best be read in a physical format. Throughout the text the editors reference other entries which are similar and it is just a bit more difficult going back and forth between them. There were also tons and tons and tons of footnotes. One must also be prepared for the mental exercise needed in reading a text like this. It will take some time, as sometimes reading what those who lived 200 years ago can be consuming. To quote one of my fave movies, National Treasure, "People don't really talk that way anymore." And it's true. I must also make note of the huge undertaking it was for the authors/editors to tackle such a project. JQA left behind 51 volumes to peruse, not a project that can be done in a few weeks. And if you care to browse any of the 51 volumes for yourself, you can find them online for here.

JQA is a certainly an early politician worth getting to know better. He was deeply involved in those early decades of our nation - and how could he not have been, given the fact that his father was a Founding Father. JQA was not only a president, but he later served in the House of Representatives for Massachusetts. Time and again, he filled important roles within the government, also serving as a diplomat and Secretary of State. He literally gave his life serving his country, suffering a stroke on the House Floor after voting during a debate. Adams was a contradiction though, because while he opposed slavery later in life, he was also not keen to discuss it all that much either. He never identified with abolitionists though because he thought their demands were too extreme. So many proposals were put forth in how to handle ending slavery and what would become of all the freed men and women. Adams wrestled with this constantly, all the while worried that as the divide between the north and south grew, it would only lead to war and the potential destruction of the fledgling country.

The book is very involved. There were times I did not know if I would finish it, but it is worth the time. Definitely recommended for those who have an interest in the time period, as well as politics.

Long Road to Hard Truth: The 100 Year Mission to Create the National Museum of African American History and Culture

I received this ARC free via NetGalley from Proud Legacy Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 5 Stars

This is yet another ARC that I had put aside in 2017 when life was crazy hectic and I wish I had not. This book is so important to our nation's history and the specific struggle that our African American brothers and sisters have endured in fighting to be recognized as citizens in their own country. This book needs to be taught in all high school history classes.

In this text Robert L. Wilkins tells the story of how the National Museum of African American History and Culture finally came into being, after decades of starts and stops, permeated by the latent and outright racism of several players in this saga. Judge Wilkins writes not of the museum itself and the numerous artifacts, oral histories, and exhibits, or the celebrities who lent their time to its creation, but of what it took to actually get the museum built in the first place. He has exhaustively searched archives and all possible repositories of knowledge to find every single instance of attempts to create a museum of African American history and the multiple reasons those plans were halted. This became a kind of obsession for Judge Wilkins, first leading him to cut back on his time as a public defender to devote time to his goal of seeing a museum dedicated to the sacrifice and struggle of African Americans and their place in US history. I think Wilkins job as a public defender really helped him realize his greater purpose and it is something the author touches on at various points. He mentions that the majority of his clients are young black and Hispanic men, many of whom he says don't see a future for themselves when he asks where they see themselves in five years. The heartbreaking answer is that some do not even see themselves as being alive in five years. These young men, many still teenage boys, did not care much to know the history of the Civil Rights Movement, how people died for their right to attend proper schools and get the education they deserved. But, Wilkins also discovered something else: when many of these same boys and young men were incarcerated, they started reading because they had nothing else to do. When they truly learned about all that it took to get the access to that education, it opened their eyes to opportunities they had wasted. Wilkins saw the museum as an opportunity not only to showcase the achievements and contributions of African Americans, but to be an inspiration to the young men and women who saw only a bleak future for themselves.

Through this book Judge Wilkins chronicles the attempts by various groups to create a space to honor African American history. it begins with the exclusion of black troops being honored after the Civil War ended. Various excuses were made as to why the troops were not invited, and none were acceptable. To rectify this, on the 50th anniversary of the original Review, again when African American units were excluded, supporters first attempted to create a monument to these men who fought for the Union and were all but erased from history. Through the era of Jim Crow, which saw lynchings become a disgusting sport, these advocates sought to create a national museum. Decades of obstacles followed, including the back and forth on whether the Smithsonian should be involved, should it be located on the Mall, and so on. I was so very disappointed to read of the specific lack of interest from the Smithsonian in the creation of a national museum. As I was reading I did not understand the hesitation, as I hoped that surely such a bastion of culture and knowledge could not also be so deeply entrenched in systematic racism. I was disheartened to see an institution I held in such high esteem could be on the wrong side of history. Yet, it was.

In his quest to see this vision come to fruition, Wilkins was named as a member of the Presidential Commission. The commission was tasked with writing the plan to create the museum, the space to be used, and so on. Wilkins poured over every single document related to the attempts to create a museum in the past, also taking note of what the reasons were for the project not moving forward. All of this culminated in a report that was finally accepted and 100 years after this journey first began, Congress finally authorized the museum. The National Museum of African American History and Culture opened in September of 2016.

As I wrote earlier, this is a book that must be taught in high school history classes. Until we as a nation confront the fact that so much of our history is steeped in the horrors of  slavery and discrimination, from the rise of the KKK to Birth of a Nation, and everything beyond, this is a very real part of shaping our nation even today. It took so long for this museum to become a reality, far longer than it should have. Not until a bipartisan effort of both Democrats and Republicans, an effort also supported by George W. Bush, did this happen. This is something important to consider, and is worth reflecting on. Why did it take so long? I think the answer is a hard truth that we don't want to see.

While the text itself is not terribly long, there are extensive notes (12% of the ARC) that highlight the numerous sources the author drew on in his quest to see this project through to the end. I highly recommend this to all.

A Beautiful New Christmas Gift

I just HAVE to share one of my Christmas gifts that I am super excited about. This New International Version that my mom gave me for Christmas has beautiful verses and designs to color. Seeing as how we've already reached the high of -5 today and it will only get colder from here, I think today is the perfect day to stay in and add some color to my new Bible.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Here's hoping you have a happy, safe, and healthy 2018.

Cheers!

Sarah

Dawn of Infamy: A Sunken Ship, a Vanished Crew, and the Final Mystery of Pearl Harbor

I received this ARC for free via NetGalley from Da Capo Press in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 3.5 Stars

I have a slight obsession with reading anything I can get my hands on about Pearl Harbor. I think part of the reason is because I have been there, been out to the USS Arizona, and seen the memorials. It is a humbling experience and one not to be taken lightly. My grandma and I went to Hawaii a few years ago and we incredibly lucky to have two great tour guides from Home of the Brave Tours (one of whom was the owners' son) who took us to Pearl Harbor, Wheeler Airfield and Schofield Barracks, the Punchbowl, Fort Shafter, and a few other sites before the tour concluded at the museum run by the company. Just an aside, the tour was amazing and I highly recommend this tour company. Lots of high-interest sites and very informative - plus the museum had tons of great artifacts; Grandma and I had such a great experience. All photos belong to me and were taken in June, 2010.

Arriving at the USS Arizona

At Wheeler

At the Home of the Brave Tours museum

Now I suppose I should get on to the book, eh?

On December 7th, 1941 as the attack was getting underway by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, one of the enduring mysteries of that day was unfolding. An American cargo ship, the Cynthia Olson, was hauling lumber from the Seattle to Honolulu for the Army. Somewhere in between, the ship was fired on by a Japanese sub. After sending off one wireless message about an attack, the radio on board went silent. No one knows for sure what happened to the ship, how long she took to sink, if multiple subs were involved, or the fate of her 35 crew members. While the captain of I-26, the sub who fired on the Cynthia Olsen, has passed away, along with everyone else who was involved (either American or Japanese), we will never know for sure the true story.

"The humble Cynthia Olson - old, slow, and of virtually no military value in the greater scheme of things - was destined to die simply because she was in the wrong place at the very worst of times" (36%).

We can, however, make our best educated guesses based on the information we do have - though unfortunately certain ship logs that might shed light on the mystery have long-since disappeared, reported as destroyed.

Sounds like something we should have learned about in history class right? And we would have, had the full-scale attack on Pearl Harbor not also been happening at roughly the same time. And that is actually part of the mystery. There is kind of a muddle of information that does not make it clear when the warning shot was first fired at the ship. The sub's commander insisted he did not fire the warning shot until 8:00 AM Hawaiian time, when the first wave was to descend on Oahu. However, that may not have been true, and he may have ordered the first shot up to half an hour earlier.

I wavered between three and four stars on this one for a while, and really only because the beginning started off very slow. Truthfully, I even skimmed a lot of that because I wanted to get to the real point of the book. Prior to that though, we are given the entire history of the Cynthia Olson which, while important, made for heavy reading very early on. Given the fact that we really don't have answers, perhaps the back story was included to give some meat to the text, as I honestly do not think there was enough information to really flesh out the story. I think overall this is an important event though. These men deserve to have their stories told, at least as much as we can tell of them, given the information still available. Unfortunately for the men who hailed from the Philippines, with lack of contact information for their next-of-kin or descendants, this story will never really have an ending.

As mentioned above, the beginning of the book, perhaps about 1/4, is devoted to the history of the Cynthia Olson. We learned about her construction, the company that owned her, and the crew who were aboard the ship on December 7th. The problem again is that there was so little known about most of the crew, that they never really seem real. The crew was comprised primarily of Scandinavian-born naturalized US citizens and Filipino merchant marines who retained their citizenship in the Philippines. There was a bit more information known about the captain, Carl Carlson, and his officers, but other than that many times even the ages of the crew were unknown. These men mattered, their story matters, but we never really get to know them and there is no chance of that happening.

So, we are left to focus on what we do know and the story does pick up its pace as the ship and sub cross paths. I-26 is commanded by Minoru Yokota, and we get his background and resume as well. We are told that the Cynthia Olson sent a distress call after being stopped with a warning shot. Japanese accounts then state that Commander Yokota gave the crew time to abandon the vessel, it being an unarmed ship, and both lifeboats were swung away, the davits empty in ensuing photos taken from the sub. Then, after the men were off the ship, the Cynthia Olson was slowly but surely sunk to the bottom of the Pacific. There is not clarity about how long the sinking actually took, and accounts contradict one another. At one point in later interviews, Commander Yokota says it took several hours to sink, yet this would not have been possible when the search vessels arrived to assist the Cynthia Olson crew. Unsurprisingly, they find nothing, no debris, no crew, no bodies, nothing. Other accounts state that a second sub, I-19 (later to actually be identified as I-15), came upon the crew in their lifeboats and gave them some additional provisions. The current and winds would have carried the lifeboats away from the location of the sinking, making any hope of rescue impossible. We are privy to this fact based on the coordinates of the rescue ships and the vast area they covered in their box search.

The final section relates to what the author considers the three essential questions revolving around the mystery of the lost ship. First is a question of timing and whether or not the Cynthia Olson was sunk before shots were ever fired on Pearl Harbor. Secondly, whether news of the attack have been enough of a warning that more was coming. And last, the most important, what happened to the 35 men who woke up to a new day on an uneventful routine sea voyage that would ultimately be their last?

In the end, we will never have concrete answers to these questions, except perhaps question number two. Even if Commander Yokota had ordered his crew to fire that warning shot, it could not have been more than 30-45 minutes before the rest of the force attacked. And really, would he have jeopardized the bigger mission, for surely he would have thought that rescue ships and/or planes would have come to the Cynthia Olson's aid. As for the fate of the crew, the author presents us with four options:

1. There was no warning shot and the ship was sunk with the crew on board, violating international treaties in regards to unarmed ships

2. The crew was able to get off the ship in the life boats, and then were killed by I-26

3. The crew was killed by the second sub, I-15

4. The crew perished in the lifeboats, either from starvation, dehydration, exposure, etc.

The author does point out, logically, that scenario one and two don't make a lot of sense. This primarily rests on the fact that the wireless operator, Sam Ziskind, had time after the sub's appearance to send both the auto alarm and the follow-up message with the ship's coordinates. As such, one would have to wonder what the point would have been for the commander to allow the crew to board the boats, only to kill them in the water. It would have seemed to be a waste of precious time, especially as the rest of the country was finding out what was happening on Oahu.

Further digging into the possibility of scenario #3 indicates that neither I-15 nor I-19 could have come into contact with the Cynthia Olson lifeboats. This is according to records and the author's research into those records.

The final scenario then seems the most likely, though we will never be certain. It is most likely that the men drifted on the open water, exhausting the provision each boat was equipped with, eventually succumbing to the conditions. This is the conclusion the author states can only be the true, logical conclusion to this tragic story. While I do not share his conviction 100%, it does make sense.

Though I mentioned before that there truly was not enough material here to make this a full book, I do have to admire the research the author put into this text. It appears he searched through every archive, spoke to every person he could, to glean any scrap of info possible about the ship, her crew, and her final hours. The Notes section runs from 79% to 92%, noting several contacts around the US, as well as a few other countries. Primary and Secondary Sources then run from 92% to 96%.

Overall, I can recommend it for those who truly have an interest in WWII and Pearl Harbor in particular. For those who may have only a passing interest in the subject, the massive information dump in the beginning may be off-putting. Still, I do see the value in this story being told. It is the least we can do for the crew of the Cynthia Olson.

Reading Goals for 2018

You'd think that with my complete and utter failure of my 2017 goals that I would be a little smarter about what I choose to accomplish this year. Not going to happen, unfortunately, because as of January 1st, 2018, I am all about these lofty goals that I SWEAR I WILL ACCOMPLISH THIS YEAR!

So, here we go:

1. 2017/2018 Presidential Reading Goal

I am going to be more serious about this goal in 2018. I thought I had all the time in the year to get this one done in 2017 and then BOOM! A new writing project happened and all my time was directed at that project. This year, though, will be different. My Goodreads Challenge goal will coincide with this and my attempts to read more quality books, as there are so many great titles about these past leaders who, for better or worse, set the path which we now travel today.

2. Goodreads Challenge: 150 Books

This goes back to that quality over quantity thing mentioned in my first goal. I read a bunch of shorter books that really shouldn't count, but I did and now I will try to rectify that problem this year. I have to focus on my own writing as well, and realize that this may be the year where I do more writing and editing than actual reading. That thought is actually terrifying to me. Reading is what soothes me when life is crazy and I need to re-center myself. If I do not read for at least an hour a day, I get jittery. It's a legit addiction folks, but hey, it could be a lot worse.

3. Give NetGalley Attention!

2017 is the year I was reeeeeally lax on my NetGalley reading. Part of that again had to do with my Eleanor of Aquitaine project, but it also had to do with my obsession with BookBub and it just got way out of control. I have about 25 galleys on my Kindle awaiting to be finished - some even waiting to be started! It is my goal to put these books at the forefront of my reading in the start of the new year (or even here at the of 2017 still) and get that feedback provided. All are published now, but I can still review them and get the word out about the ones I really loved. This goal is a MUST! Aaaaaand it will totally help me get back above 80% again. Right now I am hanging right at 80%, which is just not good enough for me. Or major publishers who only look at that percentage and thus will not give me the books I so desperately want. (Case in point, Dan Jones' Templars book. It even says right there in my profile that Dan Jones is the bees knees and my fave historian, but I was denied a galley. My guess is that is was that pesky percentage. No worries though, I bothered Dan about it on his Facebook page and voila! A couple weeks later the galley was mine!)

4. Write a Damn Book Already

Okay, so technically yes I am doing this as we speak. I started back in February of 2017 and got lost in the readings and the articles and the primary sources and it has been wonderful. I am learning so much more about the period as I go - a period I thought I already knew so much about. I have the first few chapters written, and there will be much editing in those alone, while I am also delving into the meatiest part of Eleanor's life - her marriage to Henry Plantagenet, Henry II of England, their 'demonic' off-spring, her imprisonment, and finally the moment when Eleanor takes her rightful place on stage as one of the most powerful women in Europe while Richard is off at war (and then requires his mother to save him on his way home). My specific goal this year is to get the first draft done and submitted by August 1st, 2018. It is kind of scary to type that out, but I am also taking into account the fact that I do not have the luxury of sitting home and writing all day. I am still currently an educator in a very demanding and exhausting position working with emotionally disturbed 3rd/4th/5th graders. There are days I can not write because I am too tired to even think. But I have to power through because I know that this path is the best one for me, and in turn is the best one for my daughter. I hope future projects will follow, but first I have to get this one out there.

5. Buy Less, Read More

I have a serious BookBub addiction. Or, HAD, I should say. No joke, I had to quit using BookBub about two months ago because my Kindle was out of control. I have 700+ books on there right now, in addition to an out of control physical bookshelf (that I reorganized on Christmas Eve, to better help me accomplish my president goal. All the president books were blocked by all the Amberley books I have ordered in the last six months, so I will pretend that is the reason I failed at that goal for 2017: I couldn't SEE the books). I have far too many books to continue acquiring new ones at the rate I was there for a while. And I am supposed to be an adult who is fiscally responsible, so I'm just going to read what I have, sell what I want to, and THEN get more books. This will probably be the toughest for me, because turning down a deal on any book, physical or digital, is TOUGH.

What are your reading goals for 2018?

Happy Reading and Happy New Year!

Sarah

2017 Neglected Galleys That I MUST Read ASAP

When I discovered NetGalley back in 2015, it was a dream come true. All these wonderful, beautiful books could be mine BEFORE publication! I could get access to titles I had been not-so-patiently waiting for and be part of initial chatter about the books I loved and shout about them for all to hear.

Then 2017 came and man, I crashed haaaaard. I had so many great galleys but when I began my own book about Eleanor of Aquitaine, all of those books I was so excited to have been approved for fell to the wayside. I knew I could not devote the proper time and energy to them for constructive reviews, and I fell behind. All of them are published now, so I am late to the party, but there truly are some really wonderful titles that I am determined to read as my last books of 2017 and my first books of 2018. 

Here are the titles I am going to be reading/reviewing in the next few weeks, courtesy of NetGalley and their respective publishers.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

Bonus: a few of these will be very helpful in also achieving my goal of reading about each president.

Have you read any of these titles? Do you, like me, go on request sprees on NetGalley, only to find there is no way you can read in all the books you have requested by their publication dates?

Happy Reading!

Sarah