This week, our book club is discussing The House of Lincoln by Nancy Horan, a historical novel in which a young Portuguese immigrant bears witness to Abraham Lincoln's journey to the presidency.

In Editor's Choice, we bring you another work of fiction that frames history in a unique way. Anne Berest's The Postcard, based on facts gathered from the author's own relatives, follows the experiences of a Jewish family in German-occupied France.

Plus, you can check out 1700+ reading guides for recommended books, the latest book news and a fresh Wordplay!

With best wishes,

Davina Morgan-Witts

BookBrowse Publisher

Nancy Horan, author of the million-copy New York Times bestseller Loving Frank, returns with a sweeping historical novel, which tells the story of Abraham Lincoln's ascendance from rumpled lawyer to U.S. president to the Great Emancipator through the eyes of a young asylum-seeker who arrives in Lincoln's home of Springfield from Madeira, Portugal.

"An informative and enjoyable historical novel. The reader takes a journey with Ana Ferreira, a 14-year-old house maid of Abraham Lincoln, and experiences from a different perspective the growth of Lincoln as a political force and leader." - carriem

"I thoroughly enjoyed reading this historical novel! I learned a great deal about Mary Lincoln and how Lincoln 'grew' into his position as President." - susannd

"For me, The House of Lincoln is a historical novel about the city of Springfield, IL. While we learn a lot about Lincoln, he and his family are used to help us understand the times." - MariontheLibrarian

Anne Berest's The Postcard — with an elegant translation from the French by Tina Cover — is marketed as a novel about a Jewish family during the German occupation of France but in fact skirts quite close to the line dividing fiction from memoir. Berest applies the narrative liberties afforded by fiction to augment an otherwise accurate account based on well-researched history, family documents and archival sources.

The central story of the Rabinovitch family in occupied France is approached from several directions: the years leading up to the Holocaust as the family flees Russia and makes its way to France via Latvia and British Palestine, and, equally, from the near-present reflecting back. The narrative voice is layered, often one family member recounting pieces of the story to another, reminding the reader that history is a living thing, reanimated through its telling. ... continued

In The Postcard, Jeanine Picabia, the author's grand-aunt, is a leader in the French Resistance movement. When she is betrayed, she becomes "one of the most wanted female fugitives in France." In December 1942, she flees to England by way of Spain, which she enters by crossing over the Pyrenees mountains. She takes a particularly challenging route, via Mont Valier, because "German soldiers won't go that way…it's too dangerous."

In choosing this route of escape, Jeanine Picabia was not alone. According to essayist Margarita Gokun Silver, writing for The Forward, "With Hitler's army sweeping through Europe, many fled across the Pyrenees into Spain — officially neutral during the war — either to join the Allied troops or to emigrate. Among these refugees were European Jews escaping certain death." ... continued

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Solve our Wordplay puzzle to reveal a well-known expression, and be entered to win a one-year membership to BookBrowse!

The answer to the last Wordplay: S I F A R Day

Meaning: Save it for a time of need

This expression can be traced back to the mid-16th century in Britain. Its first known use is in a play, The Bugbears, first performed in or around 1561:

"Wold he haue me kepe nothing against a raynye day?"

(would he have me keep nothing for a rainy day?)

It appears that The Bugbears was translated from Antonio Francesco Grazzini's La Spirita by a now unknown author, and only one manuscript of the play exists.

But what, you might ask, is a bugbear? ... continued