I love mysteries, and I read them every night before I go to bed.

In Lincoln's day a President's religion was a very private affair. There were no public prayer meetings, no attempts to woo the Religious Right. Few of Lincoln's countrymen knew anything at all of his religious beliefs.

Maybe I will write a memoir, perhaps I'll do some essays, or maybe I will write a mystery story.

Here is Theodore Roosevelt with all his faults and with all his strengths - the devoted family man, the passionate game hunter, the astute politician, the frustrated warrior. This is a deeply moving account of the last years of a very great man.

The big biography of Lincoln necessarily had to do so much with his political career, his ambitions, his accomplishments in public, with less time to spend on his private life, his inner life, and I thought this might be a way of getting at that.

I love mysteries, and I read them every night before I go to bed.

I'm not sure Lincoln would fare well if he were a presidential candidate today.