Book Thread: 04/12/2026 [MP4]

Good morning, ‘rons and ‘ronettes. It’s time once again for the monthly MP4-hosted Sunday Book Thread. Dress is country club casual, but ladies are encouraged to wear some spring fashion, such as this:

So ask the barman for a Cape Codder, covfefe or tea and let’s get started!

When I was a child, there were two books that I absolutely loved. One was from 1900, The World’s Discoverers: The Story of Bold Voyages by Brave Navigators. It told the usual – Columbus, Magellan, Vasco da Gama, but a good half of the book is taken up by the search for the Northwest Passage and the attempts of both the Dutch and Russians to establish Arctic trading posts.

The other was by Philip Van Doren Stern, whose story, “The Greatest Gift,” was the inspiration for It’s A Wonderful Life. But the book I adored was his 1939 novel The Man Who Killed Lincoln: The Story of John Wilkes Booth, which is exactly what you imagine.

As I said, I loved both books. But somehow, over the years, I lost them. And it became a small obsession to find them again. Every time I would walk into a used book store, my eye would quickly scan the shelves, hoping against hope I would find one of the two.

Reader, I did. And, like Mr Burns with his teddy bear, I don’t plan to ever lose them again.

So what was it about those two books that made me love them? With Discoverers, it was not just the stories of heroic, yet all too flawed, men; it was the prose – old-fashioned, yet utterly engaging.

Here’s a sample, from the summary of Chapter 10:

Arrival in India and varied experiences there. Gama arrives in India. Ludicrous mistake of the Portuguese when they see images of Hindoo deities. Gama makes a big bluff in talking to the Indian king and is treated with great contempt.”

Now, doesn’t that make you want to find out just what Gama said and what happened to him? And as for Van Doren, he was a master storyteller; his view of Lincoln’s assassination and escape, told through Booth’s eyes, was just the sort of thing to appeal to a young child fascinated by history.

But there was another thing, too. ‘There is no frigate like a book,’ Emily Dickinson wrote. That’s the power of a great book: it can lift you out of your own world and immerse you in another, whether it be the Shire, Wonderland or even a 1920s summer house in England. I keep returning to Discoverers and Lincoln because they transform me. I’m not the sour, unhappy man looking at the world through the bottom of a glass; I’m at Columbus’ side when he hears the glad cry of ‘Land!’ I’m shivering as I watch Booth climb to the Presidential box, derringer in hand. I am, for a moment, that child curled up in a chair eagerly turning pages.

What about you? Did you have any books you loved, lost and found? Or ones that you’ve lost and never found again? What is it about some books (and tell me your faves) that makes them timeless?

posted by Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

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