Abraham Lincoln

There are days when the currents of history flow together to illuminate a particular place or time. So it is here in Baltimore where President-elect Barack Obama will pause today to speak on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend as he travels to Washington. Mr. Obama's trip by rail from Philadelphia to his inauguration Tuesday is intended to evoke memories of Abraham Lincoln's inaugural journey, and Baltimore is rich with the ghosts of people who played significant roles in the long struggle of African-Americans , a journey in which his election represents an important milestone.

Heart must be part of budget priorities State Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller says of his strategy to balance Maryland's budget, "You manage it like a businessman manages a business" ("Tough choices," Jan. 11). Given the high failure rate for businesses, we want to propose a better way: Manage the budget with heart. When the heart dictates our priorities, essential needs are met first. But Maryland has lost its heart. It is the wealthiest state in the nation yet it ranks near the bottom in spending on essential services for citizens with severe disabilities.

In the mid-1960s, the Guinness World Records claimed that more had been written about Abraham Lincoln than about any other figure in world history. As the bicentennial of his birth approaches, Lincoln has surely lengthened his lead. Here are some of the most intriguing recent volumes. Abraham Lincoln by James M. McPherson Oxford University Press / 96 pages / $12.95 At just 96 pages, this probably qualifies more as an essay than an actual biography, but if you consider it as the first book you read on Abraham Lincoln, it's a bargain.

Lincoln's Cottage Where:: Upshur Street at Rock Creek Church Road Northwest, Washington When:: Daily 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays and noon-4 p.m. Sundays What:: Celebrate the coming 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birthday (and beat the inauguration crowds) with a visit to this historic site. Recently renovated, Lincoln's Cottage offers guided tours of Lincoln's country home and workplace, where he spent a quarter of his presidency. "Historical voices" and images illuminate the compelling stories of Lincoln as a father, husband and commander-in-chief.

Stacey D'Erasmo Stacey D'Erasmo's third novel, The Sky Below, has its roots in journalism; its protagonist is an obituary writer for a paper in Manhattan. "You've seen me," the book opens. "I'm the guy opposite you on the subway or the bus, I've passed you on the street a million times." Yes ... but no, not really, for D'Erasmo has something more in mind. Her story is not about dissolution but redemption - a revolutionary concept for a journalist these days. Journalism is a territory D'Erasmo knows firsthand; she's a former senior editor at the Village Voice Literary Supplement.

Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln By John Stauffer Twelve / 432 pages / $30 Frederick Douglass didn't think much of Abraham Lincoln's assertion in 1862 that blacks were the cause of the Civil War or his plan to send as many of them as possible to the republic of Colombia. The innocent horse does not make the horse thief, Douglass fumed. It is "the cruel and brutal cupidity of those who wish to possess horses, or money, and Negroes" that ought to be blamed.

The new great truth in media and politics is that Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama will be America's "first cybergenic president" if he is elected in November. The basic idea is that like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, who were the first to grasp the importance of radio and TV, respectively, Obama is the first to understand the many ways in which the Internet and other new media are transforming politics and American life. It isn't really true, of course. In fact, if you want to be McLuhanesque about it, a more apt description of Obama should he get elected might be the "last TV president."

The Lincolns Portrait of a Marriage By Daniel Mark Epstein Ballantine Books / 544 pages / $28 Leo Tolstoy was wrong. Happy families are not all alike - nor is every unhappy family unhappy in its own way. Enduring marriages, in fact, are - serially and simultaneously - happy and unhappy. As Daniel Mark Epstein reminds us, they rarely follow "a simple trajectory," proceeding instead "in a jagged arc, as husband and wife agree, disagree, compromise, and experience estrangement and reconciliation in the adventure of their life together."

For 17 of the 22 years they spent together, Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln cheated the laws of gravity. Their marriage was forged from the heavy materials dug from the earth, yet it was engineered with such precision it could ride on a puff of air. It was only after Lincoln went to the White House, according to Baltimore author Daniel Mark Epstein, that the couple's delicate balance began to lose its equilibrium. Epstein, 59, has chronicled the pair's loving, turbulent relationship in The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage.

Whether it's a secluded ranch in Crawford, Texas, a family compound in Hyannisport, Mass., or a mountain bungalow at Camp David, American presidents have long established homes and retreats beyond Pennsylvania Avenue. Beginning in the summer of 1862, the year after the Civil War began, Abraham Lincoln and his family also had such a sanctuary: a remote four-bedroom brick-and-stucco cottage some three miles from the White House, where they lived side by side with disabled military veterans on government grounds known as the Soldiers' Home.