I am back at work again tonight. Though there was a particularly eventful moment during my shift, it was short-lived and I again found myself with time on my hands to read.

Taking longer than I had anticipated (possibly due to being distracted by ball games) it took me until tonight to finish my biography on Lincoln. I think what I will take from the book is how consistently loyal he was and how staunchly he stood by his convictions.

There was an account of two warring members of his cabinet, Chase and Seward. Both hated each other, a fact that had been known to Lincoln even before he hired them on. It came to a head at one point where Chase tried for a power play to oust Seward from the Cabinet. Seward tendered his resignation but much to Chase's chagrin, Lincoln refused to accept it. Then Chase gave a letter of resignation. To Chase's further astonishment, Lincoln refused him as well. Even though Chase and Seward's bickering was not befitting their offices nor were they productive at all in matters outside their own pride and attempts for power, Lincoln deftly and cunningly garnered and bolstered both of their support. The cabinet was stronger due to Lincoln's prowess of not panicking, and not losing the forest for the trees.

I am now beginning a biography on James Garfield, the 20th President of the United States. While I've only read the first chapter, I can already tell that I am going to enjoy this book. Garfield, like Lincoln, was poor. He escaped his poverty through learning. As an example of this intellect, while finding a bit of free time in congress, he wrote his own proof on the Pythagorean Theorem. This impressive feat can only be embellished by the fact that while writing this I originally misspelled theorem. 

He, like Lincoln, also had a lot of tragedy in his life. Only one chapter in and I have learned that Garfield lost two of his children to illness. I want to share a quote from the book. This comes right after he lost his second child.

"Searching for a way to teach his children this hard truth, to prepare them for what inevitably lay ahead, Garfield had often turned to what he knew best - Books. After dinner one evening, he pulled a copy of Shakespeare's Othello off the shelf and began to read the tragedy aloud. "The children were not pleased with the way the story came out," he admitted in his diary, but he hoped that they would come to "appreciate stories that [do not] come out well, for they are very much like a good deal of life.""

It is a fantastic coincidence that just last week I read Othello. Coincidence aside, I love his perspective. He turned to learning when he didn't understand the deep tragedies of his life. He turned to family and he turned to sharing what he learned. 

Furthermore, he read a book that took people out of their comfort zone. I think books or movies or television shows or the stories we share around the dinner table or the camp fire all work together to make us well rounded people. It is our sharing of perspectives that unites and refines us.

In my endeavor to read 52 books in 52 weeks, I have purposely aspired to read disparate books (though I admit the irony in that as I am reading back to back presidential biographies). This year so far I have read Science Fiction, Science Education, Fiction, Philosophy, Autobiography, Biography, Fantasy, and Poetry. After this next book I will add another genre, Horror, as I tackle Stephen King's Needful Things. I hope to keep expanding my horizons through books.

I can't wait to share some of the perspectives I come across through reading with you all.

-Bradley