Henry Fonda had a go, then Daniel Day-Lewis — and now it’s Billy Campbell’s turn to play Honest Abe, this time in “Killing Lincoln,” the adaptation of Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard’s book, airing Feb. 17 on the National Geographic Channel. And while Campbell’s yet to see Day-Lewis’ Oscar-nominated performance (“I went the other day but the projector was broken”), his crew shot in the same Richmond, Va., field as the film did. “I never thought of myself as Lincolnesque, but then, I played Moses at one point, so who’s to say?” says Campbell, who had a memorable part in AMC’s “The Killing.” An avid sailor — his home port’s in Nova Scotia — he’s sailed ’round the world twice, reading all the way. Here’s what’s in his library.
My Family and Other Animals
by Gerald Durrell
This is one of a series by the famous British zoologist, the brother of author Lawrence Durrell. It’s a very cozy and hilarious autobiography of a family summer in Corfu and has what might be my favorite opening paragraph ever, about weather “calculated to try anyone’s endurance.”
A General Theory of Love
by Dr. Thomas Lewis, Dr. Fari Amini and Dr. Richard Lannon
A book that blew my brain (the reptilian part of it, anyway). A beautifully written, scientifically sound, emotionally transporting treatise on our need for intimacy, hypothesizing that our nervous systems aren’t self-contained but that our brains entwine with those closest to us, determining in a very real sense our fate: Who we become depends on whom we love.
Master and Commander
by Patrick O’Brian
This and the 20 novels in the series are the books that made me run off to sea. It’s a trove of historical treasure: the manners and mores of the time (the Napoleonic wars) and the tactics and traumas of sailing and fighting wind-driven war machines on the ever-changing surface of the world’s great oceans.
Alas, Babylon
by Pat Frank
I have a thang for (well-written) apocalyptic fiction, and this is one of the best. Written in 1959, it’s about nuclear holocaust and how, in a small Florida town spared against all odds, men and women of all ages and races find the courage to join together and push against the darkness. I know, the description sounds cheesy, but the book is great!