I meant to write these separately, but I figured, since I finished the second book before I had a chance to post the first I’d just combine the two.

So, Manhunt by James L. Swanson. The subtitle gives it away: The 12-day chase for Lincoln’s killer. Interesting, I suppose. But Swanson’s writing is really… odd. Maybe he thought that since it’s a sensationalistic topic — I mean who wants to read a book about the “bad guy” after all? — he’d write a sensationalistic book. It reads like a really bad Gothic novel in parts. Here’s one example:

Marooned in this desolate place, did Booth reminisce about happier days, when he ad his beloved sister, Asia, played as carefree teenagers in the forests of Bel Air, Maryland? Once upon a time, before he became a famous actor and a denizen of America’s great cities, Booth loved to commune with nature… Booth and Herold murmured quietly, most likely talking of their crimes and speculating on their fate. What would they do? What would tomorrow bring? When would they cross the river and find rest on the other side? When Booth smelled the forest scent of the thicket, did its sweet, piney odor take him back to a time of youthful innocence and allow him, briefly, to forget murders and manhunts?

Do I really care?

On on level, albeit a voyeuristic one, I found this book fascinating. I didn’t know it took 12 days to find, and kill Booth (that’s a priceless scene: burning barns, bumbling army sergeants, simpering sidekicks, Booth as the tragic actor, and God-inspired snipers). I didn’t know that before his assassination, Lincoln was only considered a middling president (amazing how history changes itself). But, in the end, I still didn’t really care.

Plain and Simple, by Sue Bender, is a sparse, quick narrative of her journey to Peace and Understanding of Herself. I shouldn’t make fun. She needed it: in the early 80s, she was a teacher, therapist, artist, and — as she says herself — spinning too many wheels in too many directions. She was drawn to some Amish quilts and dolls that she saw, and began to think that life might have Meaning outside of Achievement. She found some Amish women who were willing to send her dolls and became a pen pal with one of them. She also, for two summers, found Amish families to live with. She learns Life Lessons (and writes down nine of them), and discovers that the Amish are 1) not all alike — the first family she stays with is much stricter and less healthy than the second; and 2) they find ways to be accepting and joyful about their life situation without pining for what is missing.

I’m not the target audience — I suppose I’ve already made that journey. Most days I’m happy with my life choice to jump the career track and stay home with my kids. Sometimes I wonder if there isn’t something “more”: I’d like to go back to work someday, but only if I can do something I enjoy. I do recognize that it is a luxury, because we can live off my husband’s income. Granted, that means living with less, but I think it’s worth it. I do agree with what she learned: Home and Community are supremely important; Living in the moment is better than pining for what has gone or what is to come; work and play are the same, if you make it so, and life can be art; there is freedom in limitations; and making a choice isn’t the same as having many choices. I could go on about the last one — it feeds into my belief that we’re totally off base in this country about rights, freedoms and choice, and that more isn’t always better. And in the end, that’s the message of the book (and the Amish): more isn’t better. More is… more. And sometimes the best lives are the ones that are lived simply.