A book promises the chance to escape the noise and busyness of our daily lives. In its pages we are never alone, yet we are also shut off, shut off from the thousand decisions and distractions that attack us at any moment. When we open ourselves up to a book we are embedded in the preciousness of ideas, growth, and mindful stimulation. Few modeled this better than Abraham Lincoln. Amid the chaos of a nation divided, Lincoln always found time to read widely and deeply. It bega