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"The Day Lincoln was Shot"(1984) book review.
What this article is about.
Ever since I was a young child, I have always been intrigued by presidents.If there was anytime that I would pay the most attention in history classes, it was when a teacher discussed a president in great detail. The presidents who have been assassinated has also been something I've been intrigued about. The first president to be assassinated while in office was the well known 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. I can vividly to this day recall being in the fourth grade watching a teacher give a slide show, while talking about the assassination of President Lincoln. My interest on this tragedy is what led me to purchase a book titled, "The Day Lincoln was Shot". In this article I'm going to give a brief review and bring attention to this book. I hope you enjoy.
Author of "The Day Lincoln was Shot", and how I came to read it.
"The Day Lincoln was Shot" is a book written by author, Jim Bishop. Bishop is known as the originator of "The Day" style of writing. Other "The Day" titles Bishop have previously written include: "The Day Kennedy was Shot", "The Day Christ Died", and "The Day Christ was Born". I picked "The Day Lincoln was Shot" up at a Wal-Mart during a time I had to evacuate from a hurricane. I was in a house with maybe 25 other family members with not much to do. The book was extremely cheap, and I figured it would be a good way to kill some time. I will admit that it took me awhile to completely finish this book. I ended up stopping and starting it over several times before I had enough time to truly invest in it. Once I made the full commitment to reading the book, I found myself unable to put it down. My head was in this book every spare second that I was able to find. Now lets get into my thoughts on the book.
What "The Day Lincoln was Shot" is about.
"The Day Lincoln" was shot is an hour by hour account of everything that took place on the day Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theater. The author, Jim Bishop obviously done an extensive amount of research as there are a lot of details included in this book that are seldom talked about on that fateful day. The book not only focuses on what President Lincoln done leading up to his visit to Fords Theater, but it also focuses on John Wilkes Booth and his planning towards assassinating the president. Thing thing that really shocked me was the amount of planning and help that John Wilkes Booth had towards carrying out his plan. I was also shocked at how Lincoln wasn't the only target. His Secretary of State, William Seward and Vice President, Andrew Jackson were both also targets. Those are things that are not really discussed in classrooms; at least they weren't when I was younger. This book went way more in depth than I could imagine. The book also goes into the hours following Lincoln's shooting leading up to his death the following morning. Throughout my time reading this book, I learned a lot more about Lincoln's death than I had previously known.
The verdict.
If I had to rate this book, I would give it 3.5 out of 5 rating. I personally felt like the first quarter of the book was very slow. However, it gets way more interesting and speeds up around the halfway point. Once you reach the halfway point, you most likely will not want to put it down. This book is also very descriptive in describing the violence that happened, so be aware of that is you are interested in reading it. If you are a person interested in history or President Lincoln in general, this would be a great read for you. This book has motivated me to want to look into other books regarding Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth. I hope you enjoyed my review of "The Day Lincoln was Shot". Thanks for reading.