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Lincoln in the Bardo
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The captivating first novel by the best-selling, National Book Award nominee George Saunders, about Abraham Lincoln and the death of his eleven-year-old son, Willie, at the dawn of the Civil War
On February 22, 1862, two days after his death, Willie Lincoln was laid to rest in a marble crypt in a Georgetown cemetery. That very night, shattered by grief, Abraham Lincoln arri ...more
On February 22, 1862, two days after his death, Willie Lincoln was laid to rest in a marble crypt in a Georgetown cemetery. That very night, shattered by grief, Abraham Lincoln arri ...more
Audiobook
Published
February 14th 2017
by Random House Audio
(first published February 2017)
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Oct 30, 2016
Angela M
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
arcs-from-publisher
It's a beautiful and sad but a strangely told story, and the narrative is different from anything I've read . The back of the cover description tells a poignant detail about Lincoln which Saunders in the Q&A tells us was the thought that formed for him the heart of this story. At the time of his 11 year old son Willie's death by typhoid fever, it was reported that Lincoln went to the crypt at night to hold his son's body. The grief that one can almost feel in that image is the essence of this bo ...more

I should have known. I really don't do well with the avant garde. I want a plot, I want a story. I want character development. This offers none of the above. I felt lost. Vague memories of Ionesco and Beckett kept cropping up as I tried to plough through this. The book alternates between reading like a thesis, full of quotes from “other” sources and then almost more like a play. Ghosts come and ghosts go. They each have their own little mini-story but there is little continuity. Some ghosts appe
...more

”The rich notes of the Marine Band in the apartments below came to the sick-room in soft, subdued murmurs, like the wild, faint sobbing of far off spirits.” Keckley, op. cit.
William Wallace Lincoln is sick.
He is burning up with fever.
His head is pounding to the beat of a song with a faster tempo than what he hears seeping through the floorboards from below.
He...can’t...breathe.
It feels like a fat man is squatting on his chest.
His father comes to see him. His eyes are hollowed out cinder ...more

William Wallace Lincoln is sick.
He is burning up with fever.
His head is pounding to the beat of a song with a faster tempo than what he hears seeping through the floorboards from below.
He...can’t...breathe.
It feels like a fat man is squatting on his chest.
His father comes to see him. His eyes are hollowed out cinder ...more

Yes, I know I stand alone in my dislike for this book. EVERYONE loves it. Nope, not me. I actually hated it. I've heard people say they wanted to throw a book across a room and I never understood that desire to harm a book, but for me, this is one to throw. I should know better than to read a book in which the review says something like "an alternative writing" "a different way of telling a story". That just means it's weird, no plot, no character development, an author trying something new that
...more

From the first day I saw that George Sanders had a new release--I kept walking. I had a lot of resistance to read George Sanders again.
"The Tenth of December" was the number 1 best seller for months and months.....
Everyone seemed to 'LOVE' it. OUTSTANDING they all said. NOT FOR ME....I didn't understand the hype. It was 'alright'.....but not 'wow' for me by any means.
I remember thinking another 'lesser name' --- at the time --RISING today--was the OUTSTANDING collection of short stories -that ...more
"The Tenth of December" was the number 1 best seller for months and months.....
Everyone seemed to 'LOVE' it. OUTSTANDING they all said. NOT FOR ME....I didn't understand the hype. It was 'alright'.....but not 'wow' for me by any means.
I remember thinking another 'lesser name' --- at the time --RISING today--was the OUTSTANDING collection of short stories -that ...more

What a painfully boring book. 166 narrators chiming in and overlapping in a story that seems so random and disconnected for the most part. It might be deep, and it might be clever, but if there isn't the barest spark of something to make you care what's on the next page - then why even bother turning it?
I gave up at 35%. Life is way too short. ...more
I gave up at 35%. Life is way too short. ...more

Feb 08, 2017
Taryn
rated it
liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
received-from-publisher,
netgalley
I had a complicated relationship with this book. The writing was exquisite and I was amazed at the brilliance of the author, but there were also long sections where I felt completely lost.
What I'm about to write doesn't even begin to sum this book up! President Abraham Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son Willie passes away after an illness. However, Willie doesn't realize he's dead. His soul is stuck in a ...more
The tide runs out but never runs in. The stones roll downhill but do not roll back up.
What I'm about to write doesn't even begin to sum this book up! President Abraham Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son Willie passes away after an illness. However, Willie doesn't realize he's dead. His soul is stuck in a ...more

Wow, this wasn't just reading a novel it was a true reading experience. Wholly inventive, imaginative, the amount of research staggering, something totally new and different. Will admit having some trouble in the beginning, couldn't see where the author was going with this, wondering if it was gong to progress, it did in a very interesting way. Not going to rehash the plot, the description only loosely defines this. The book is helped along by some very unusual narrators, Vollmam and Bevins, alo
...more

"My son, here may indeed be torment, but not death."
—Dante (Purgatorio)
There really, really must be something wrong with me.
Many of my esteemed Goodreads friends, whose rave reviews I have a lot of faith in, are smitten with George Saunders' book. It's even won the blimmin' Booker Prize for crying out loud!
Um, where to begin? he grimaces, wringing his hands in the manner of a doctor delivering bad news.
I tried my hardest to like it, I really did - in the same way I once tried to like green ...more
—Dante (Purgatorio)
There really, really must be something wrong with me.
Many of my esteemed Goodreads friends, whose rave reviews I have a lot of faith in, are smitten with George Saunders' book. It's even won the blimmin' Booker Prize for crying out loud!
Um, where to begin? he grimaces, wringing his hands in the manner of a doctor delivering bad news.
I tried my hardest to like it, I really did - in the same way I once tried to like green ...more

!! NOW AVAILABLE !!
4.5 Stars
How does one review a book such as this one? No words could possibly truly convey the potential journey a reader is embarking on when they open this novel. This is certainly nothing like any other book I’ve read, in concept or in style.
Before I requested this, I looked up several references to the definition of the bardo, both the Tibetan definition and how it’s meaning carries beyond the definition. Bardo is the “in-between place” a “transitional state,” the period ...more
4.5 Stars
How does one review a book such as this one? No words could possibly truly convey the potential journey a reader is embarking on when they open this novel. This is certainly nothing like any other book I’ve read, in concept or in style.
Before I requested this, I looked up several references to the definition of the bardo, both the Tibetan definition and how it’s meaning carries beyond the definition. Bardo is the “in-between place” a “transitional state,” the period ...more

Click here to watch a video review of this book on my channel, From Beginning to Bookend.
...more


In this award winning piece of historical fiction, a blend of fact and fiction, Saunders writes of 1862, the American Civil War has been raging for less than year, now intensifying to unbearable proportions with the rising tide of the dead. Amidst this background, Lincoln is facing his very own personally traumatic and testing times. After having already lost a son earlier, his gravely ill 11 year old son, Willie, dies and is laid to rest in Georgetown cemetery with a devastated Lincoln visiting
...more

Sorry Saunders, but I disliked your novel. Clearly, I'm swimming against the current on this one. Having read some convincing reviews, I thought it must be included in my TBR this year. Well, I almost tossed it aside 100 pages in and probably should have and not given it a rating.
This is a read of loss. A parent - president Lincoln - has lost his 11 year old son to an illness.
The bardo - is the place between heaven and hell - a purgatory of sorts. It's a story of ghosts, and of Willie, who are ...more
This is a read of loss. A parent - president Lincoln - has lost his 11 year old son to an illness.
The bardo - is the place between heaven and hell - a purgatory of sorts. It's a story of ghosts, and of Willie, who are ...more

Jun 24, 2018
Amalia Gkavea
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
american-literature,
favorites,
usa,
historical-fiction,
history,
19th-century,
classics,
literary-fiction
‘’My mother, I said. My father. They will come shortly. To collect me’’
Death is a cruel, cynical visitor. Sometimes invited, others unexpected, many more anticipated. Death is blind to age, race, religion, kindness or evilness. He does not discriminate, he takes everyone. He is the one certain thing in the life of every living creature. An unavoidable, unquestionable snatcher. However, don’t we all desire to know what happens next? Perhaps, this is what makes us so afraid, the fear of being ...more
Death is a cruel, cynical visitor. Sometimes invited, others unexpected, many more anticipated. Death is blind to age, race, religion, kindness or evilness. He does not discriminate, he takes everyone. He is the one certain thing in the life of every living creature. An unavoidable, unquestionable snatcher. However, don’t we all desire to know what happens next? Perhaps, this is what makes us so afraid, the fear of being ...more

**Man Booker Prize Winner!**
The way a moistness in the eye will blur a field of stars; the sore place on the shoulder a resting toboggan makes; writing one's beloved's name upon a frosted window with a gloved finger.
Tying a shoe; tying a knot on a package; a mouth on yours; a hand on yours; the ending of the day; the beginning of the day; the feeling that there will always be a day ahead.
Goodbye, I must now say goodbye to all of it.
George Saunders has written a magnificent, unique, experimen ...more
The way a moistness in the eye will blur a field of stars; the sore place on the shoulder a resting toboggan makes; writing one's beloved's name upon a frosted window with a gloved finger.
Tying a shoe; tying a knot on a package; a mouth on yours; a hand on yours; the ending of the day; the beginning of the day; the feeling that there will always be a day ahead.
Goodbye, I must now say goodbye to all of it.
George Saunders has written a magnificent, unique, experimen ...more

Lincoln in the Bardo is such a beautifully crystallized portrait of life, death, grief, and getting on, and really emphasizes our shared humanity in its unusual storytelling. I started and stopped in fits, but one massive read in a single sitting was the way for me to go on this, allowing it to crash and wash over me completely, and get acquainted with the style and be fully receptive to the ideas expressed here. Once submerged in the unique format, I was incredibly moved by the way Saunders is
...more

Jan 15, 2017
LeAnne: GeezerMom
rated it
it was ok
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
hot-mamas-book-club,
litmus-test
"And if you go.. chasing rabbits,
and you know you're.. going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar
has given you the call."
The unusual format, like oddly punctuated and inverted lines of a play, was fine by me. It just took some adjustment, and then it was easy to read.
But the random, psychedelic-seeming thought trains were way too artsy for me, and the periodic sophomoric vulgarity struck me as stupid (sorry). I did not titter for an instant. There was definitely a plot to follow, but lik ...more
and you know you're.. going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar
has given you the call."
The unusual format, like oddly punctuated and inverted lines of a play, was fine by me. It just took some adjustment, and then it was easy to read.
But the random, psychedelic-seeming thought trains were way too artsy for me, and the periodic sophomoric vulgarity struck me as stupid (sorry). I did not titter for an instant. There was definitely a plot to follow, but lik ...more

Feb 17, 2017
Diane Barnes
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
motley-crew,
favorites
ADDITION TO REVIEW AFTER LISTENING TO AUDIO
This is the most unusual, incredible reading experience I have ever had. George Saunders is either a genius, or an other-worldly creature living among us and posing as an author.
I will leave the book description to Goodreads and the book jacket. I will only say this: if you enter this world and let yourself be carried along, you will emerge a different reader at the end. Some of you may not be able to do this, some of you may not wish to accept what is ...more
This is the most unusual, incredible reading experience I have ever had. George Saunders is either a genius, or an other-worldly creature living among us and posing as an author.
I will leave the book description to Goodreads and the book jacket. I will only say this: if you enter this world and let yourself be carried along, you will emerge a different reader at the end. Some of you may not be able to do this, some of you may not wish to accept what is ...more

I avoid the G word. That’s a determination I like to put off until rereading. But this novel’s certainly masterful. I have read nothing so near perfect in some years. The narrative rides a kind of knife edge, between unbearable sorrow one moment and comic relief the next.
‘Almost unbearably moving’ was what Anthony Burgess used to say about some of the better books he reviewed. I must say the same with regard to Lincoln in the Bardo. It’s about unendurable personal loss and grief suffered by Pre ...more
‘Almost unbearably moving’ was what Anthony Burgess used to say about some of the better books he reviewed. I must say the same with regard to Lincoln in the Bardo. It’s about unendurable personal loss and grief suffered by Pre ...more

It is becoming increasingly hard to create original literature these days. The fundamental problem with modern art is that everything has been done before. Writers, painters and musicians have to concoct something extraordinarily different to be new.
And George Saunders has done exactly that. There has never been a book quite like this before and that’s why it won the Man Booker Prize 2017. The judges for the last few years have been weighing literary originality over literary quality in my opini ...more
And George Saunders has done exactly that. There has never been a book quite like this before and that’s why it won the Man Booker Prize 2017. The judges for the last few years have been weighing literary originality over literary quality in my opini ...more

Jan 10, 2017
Darwin8u
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
aere-perennius,
2017
"He came out of nothingness, took form, was loved, was always bound to return to nothingness."
- George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo

Again, I find myself wandering at night alone, reading grief literature. I'm not sure if I have just accidentally stumbled on my own special vein of grief literature or if this dark path has suddenly become more popular ("to hell with erotic fiction, let us read tales of the sad survivors"). But, here I am, writing another transuding review of another sad book. No. ...more
- George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo

Again, I find myself wandering at night alone, reading grief literature. I'm not sure if I have just accidentally stumbled on my own special vein of grief literature or if this dark path has suddenly become more popular ("to hell with erotic fiction, let us read tales of the sad survivors"). But, here I am, writing another transuding review of another sad book. No. ...more

Imagine the historical research approach of someone like David McCullough, and pull those details into a novel that takes place almost entirely in a graveyard, ghosts and all (picture The Graveyard Book), and you have this novel. I was lucky to receive a review copy of the audiobook from the publisher, because I think this is the preferred format for the novel.
Since George Saunders wrote the novel in 108 sections, with distinct voices, they decided to use 166 voices in the recording (Time Magaz ...more
Since George Saunders wrote the novel in 108 sections, with distinct voices, they decided to use 166 voices in the recording (Time Magaz ...more

This is an intriguing book; one that is very inventive and yet its basic premise is based on strong possibilities, if not probabilities. There are brief historical excerpts throughout from various sources that are amazing in that they outline stronger than ever that “eye witness” testimony is pretty much wasted without a camera to back it up. For example, on a historically memorable night 5 or 10 people can look at the same night sky and see no moon at all, or a moon – but in about 5 or 6 differ
...more

You know those half-awake, half-asleep dreams where you’re working through your problems of the day? The first wakeful moments in the shower usually let you know that any solutions you thought might apply were pure nonsense. Even more often you realize the things you were thinking about weren’t really problems anyway – it was all just anxiety for the hell of it. Anyway, last night I went to bed thinking about what I might say about this celebrated new Saunders book I just read. Even as I was fal
...more

Like a cosmic chorus in 'cordial unison' under brocades of blue and a rain of red glare
George Saunders' brilliant literary achievement is the ideal book for the Fourth of July in profoundly reminding us of our union as citizens of the United States of America, this great nation created by our forefathers' Declaration of Independence from the "absolute Despotism," "long train of abuses and usurpations" and "invasions on the rights of the people" by the then "King of Great Britain," our democracy ...more
George Saunders' brilliant literary achievement is the ideal book for the Fourth of July in profoundly reminding us of our union as citizens of the United States of America, this great nation created by our forefathers' Declaration of Independence from the "absolute Despotism," "long train of abuses and usurpations" and "invasions on the rights of the people" by the then "King of Great Britain," our democracy ...more

Jan 22, 2017
Trish
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
america,
war,
ebook,
favorite,
fiction,
literature,
audio,
horror,
historical-novel,
politics
The form of this novel is what readers will notice first. It begins as a series of quotes from reporters’ notebooks, eyewitness accounts, historians using original sources, and we must assume, Civil War-era gossip rags, describing an 1862 White House party which a thousand or more people attended. To say the affair was elaborate understates the case. Apparently when a thousand hungry guests descended on the tables of food, the quantity was such that it looked untouched after the assault.
Some of ...more
Some of ...more

A reader of George Saunders’ 2017 novel Lincoln in the Bardo will make immediate comparisons to Thornton Wilder’s 1938 drama Our Town and Edgar Lee Master’s 1915 book Spoon River Anthology as well as observing references to Dante’s Inferno and the Bible.
Saunders, known for such unique and original works as Tenth of December and CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, has again stretched the limits of creative writing and has here produced a work of fiction unlike any other. Extensively researched (though I ...more
Saunders, known for such unique and original works as Tenth of December and CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, has again stretched the limits of creative writing and has here produced a work of fiction unlike any other. Extensively researched (though I ...more

One of my great passions in life is reading – and reviewing – books. But how to review this book? It renders me speechless and. I almost feel compelled to reduce my review to two words: “Read it.”
Years ago, I learned, while visiting the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois, that Abraham Lincoln was so prostrated by grief after the death of his favorite son Willie that he visited the crypt for months afterwards, opening the coffin and stroking the face and hair of his deceased son. It’s a maca ...more
Years ago, I learned, while visiting the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois, that Abraham Lincoln was so prostrated by grief after the death of his favorite son Willie that he visited the crypt for months afterwards, opening the coffin and stroking the face and hair of his deceased son. It’s a maca ...more

Mar 09, 2017
Matthew Quann
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
avant-garde, black humour fans
Update: Booker Prize Winner 2017, a well deserved win for this excellent novel!
I came upon Lincoln in the Bardo as someone comes upon a house on fire—tentatively. Placing a hand to the embossed dust jacket and turning deckle-edged pages at random filled me with the sphincter-tightening dread, which I have previously equated to looking down at the earth from a significant height. It seemed as if the book were more screenplay than proper novel, and I had no interest in dawdling amidst incomprehen ...more
I came upon Lincoln in the Bardo as someone comes upon a house on fire—tentatively. Placing a hand to the embossed dust jacket and turning deckle-edged pages at random filled me with the sphincter-tightening dread, which I have previously equated to looking down at the earth from a significant height. It seemed as if the book were more screenplay than proper novel, and I had no interest in dawdling amidst incomprehen ...more

This was one of the most unusual books I have ever read! I think it is what you would have to describe as a reading experience since it is told in multiple voices aided by constant footnotes attributing the text to its sources. So clever! And so much research. The author must have become a real expert on Abraham Lincoln by the time he finished writing.
Amazingly the whole fascinating book takes place over one night immediately after Lincoln's young son's funeral. Lincoln makes a last visit to his ...more
Amazingly the whole fascinating book takes place over one night immediately after Lincoln's young son's funeral. Lincoln makes a last visit to his ...more
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Play Book Tag: [Poll Ballot] Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders -- 3 Stars | 4 | 16 | Aug 17, 2020 10:23AM | |
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History Museum on...: How did you consume this book? | 1 | 7 | Apr 09, 2020 01:33PM | |
History Museum on...: Form | 1 | 3 | Apr 09, 2020 01:31PM | |
History Museum on...: Final Scene | 1 | 3 | Apr 09, 2020 01:30PM | |
History Museum on...: Lincoln's Son | 1 | 2 | Apr 09, 2020 01:26PM |
George Saunders was born December 2, 1958 and raised on the south side of Chicago. In 1981 he received a B.S. in Geophysical Engineering from Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. He worked at Radian International, an environmental engineering firm in Rochester, NY as a technical writer and geophysical engineer from 1989 to 1996. He has also worked in Sumatra on an oil exploration geophysi
...more
Articles featuring this book
Well, here we all are, sheltering in place, buying canned beans, and generally trying to figure out how to stay inside and keep our minds busy....
93 likes · 67 comments
15 trivia questions
More quizzes & trivia...
“His mind was freshly inclined toward sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that everyone labored under some burden of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content; all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact; that his current state of sorrow was not uniquely his, not at all, but, rather, its like had been felt, would be felt, by scores of others, in all times, in every time, and must not be prolonged or exaggerated, because, in this state, he could be of no help to anyone and, given that his position in the world situated him to be either of great help, or great harm, it would not do to stay low, if he could help it.”
—
114 likes
“Everything was real; inconceivably real, infinitely dear. These and all things started as nothing, latent within a vast energy-broth, but then we named them, and loved them, and, in this way, brought them forth. And now we must lose them.”
—
90 likes
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