What We're Reading: Lincoln in the Bardo (Coming Soon!)

[caption id="attachment_4019" align="aligncenter" width="200"] (Coming soon to the Durham Tech Main Campus and OCC Libraries)[/caption] This book was read by Meredith Lewis, [mostly] the Orange County Campus Librarian. Title of book: Lincoln in the Bardo Author: George Saunders Genre: Literary Fiction #ReadGreatThings2018 Categor(ies): A fictionalized account of a real person's life & A book that contains a supernatural creature, occurrence, or event Why did you choose to read this book?

The press surrounding this book was weird-- I kept hearing about a huge number of people involved in the audiobook and wasn't quite sure why that was a thing. (The book is made up of various accounts of different events, both real and supernatural, so each narrator gets a new voice-- if you were wondering.) Aside from that, I like supernatural stories and the premise-- Willie Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's young son dies and is stuck between moving on to the world of the dead and staying behind on earth in the bardo (to greatly oversimplify: an in-between state in Tibetan Buddhism)-- was really interesting.

Lincoln in the Bardo was unlike anything I've read before-- the way the actual history backdrop of the story unfolded and how it was written was really interesting. It was kind of like reading a play, where it takes you a second to get used to the style and then you forget it's there.  

When I was younger, I read Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters and loved how weird and wonderful it was. One part of the storyline reminded me strongly of that book. 

I mean, it an award and stuff (if you're into that). 

People who like supernatural fiction and historical fiction and are looking for a well-written blend of both. It really was a great book about love and loss and regret and bravery and so much more.