Three Bicentennial Birthdays

2009 is the year for three significant bicentennial birthdays: Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin, and Edgar Allan Poe. Lincoln and Darwin were even born on the same day, February 12th, 1809. Poe was born on January 19th, 1809. The library has a number of books relating to each of these men in the areas of history, science and literature.

There are literally thousands of books in print about Abraham Lincoln. Here are some of Perrot’s most recent acquisitions:

• Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer, by Fred Kaplan
• President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman, by William Lee Miller
• The Age of Lincoln, by Orville Vernon Burton
• Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe’s America, by Andrew Ferguson
• The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows, by G. S. Boritt
• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
• Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided (DVD)
• The Last Days of the Civil War (DVD)
  

The library has three copies of Darwin’s own famous publication, The Origin of Species. Other titles on Darwin include:

• Darwin and the Beagle, by Alan Moorehead
• The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution, by David Quammen
• Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion, by Francisco J. Ayala
• Darwin in 90 Minutes, by John and Mary Gribbin
• Evolution’s Workshop: God and Science on the Galápagos Islands, by Edward J. Larson
• The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong, by Francis Hitching
• Charles Darwin: Evolution's Voice (DVD)

Also of note, a recent book called Angels and Ages, a short book about Lincoln, Darwin and Modern Life by Adam Gopnik, which is a bicentennial twin portrait of two men who changed the way we think “about death and time.”

Edgar Allan Poe, though best known as a writer of macabre short stories, was also a poet, editor and literary critic. Here are some books at Perrot for you to try:

• In the Shadow of the Master: Classic Tales
• Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
• Edgar Allan Poe: Poems and Essays on Poetry
• Edgar Allan Poe: Essays and Reviews
• Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe, by John Evangelist Walsh
• Edgar Allan Poe: A Concise Biography (DVD)
  

Some of these books are on display in the library, so be sure to ask at the Reference Desk if you do not find them on the shelves.