A Tale of Presidents and Enemies

With his bestseller MANHUNT, author and historian James Swanson turned the story of John Wilkes Booth into a page-turning thriller.

He returns to the fading days of the Civil War for his latest book, BLOODY CRIMES. Swanson talks about another "villain" to the North: Confederate president Jefferson Davis.

Swanson discusses the parallels between the two presidents and how the view of both men in history became formed as Davis fled the Union and Lincoln's corpse began a procession back to his final resting place.

LISTEN: JAMES SWANSON - BLOODY CRIMES

Historian Nora Titone has taken a deeper look at the protagonist of Swanson's first hit book: John Wilkes Booth.

Titone, who once worked as a researcher for presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, examines the Booth family in her new book MY THOUGHTS BE BLOODY.

A family of actors, the Booths had a family dynamic that echoed Shakespearian tragedies. Titone discusses the bitter rivalry, professionally and politically between John Wilkes Booth and his far more famous (at the time) brother, Edwin.

LISTEN: NORA TITONE - MY THOUGHTS BE BLOODY

Lincoln vs. Vampires vs. History

What's more popular than Abraham Lincoln? Vampires! Or at least that's what one's perception might be from the shelves of the local bookseller.

Abe's 200th birthday year and the ongoing love of bloodsuckers have produced many hot-selling titles lately. Seth Grahame-Smith, the mind behind PRIDE & PREJUDICE & ZOMBIES has combined the two sure-fire subjects in his latest effort ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER. His books is a faux-historical retelling of Abe's secret drive to take out the bloodsuckers. Grahame-Smith took his inspiration from the many recent bios of the 16th president.

LISTEN: SETH GRAHAME-SMITH - ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER

National Geographic Historian Mark Collins Jenkins is also looking through old letters and records for a new take on the undead. In Jenkins' case, though, he is taking a new look at some old conceptions. VAMPIRE FORENSICS looks to the birthplace of many of the supernatural myths that were given iconic status in the fictional world. The author examines folklore with a new scientific eye and explains how so many came to believe the dead walked the Earth...

LISTEN: MARK COLLINS JENKINS - VAMPIRE FORENSICS

Getting a Picture of Lincoln

There is perhaps no more recognizable American face than that of Abraham Lincoln. And yet Philip Kunhardt III thinks there is more to be learned from looking at the 16th President's image.

Kunhardt and his family have collected and curated historical photographs for five generations. The Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation contains a massive collection of pictures from the 19th and 20th centuries. Over the years Philip Kunhardt has studied photographs of Lincoln in the collection and outside of it in great detail. The new book LINCOLN, LIFE SIZE, edited by the Kundhardts, takes photographs of Lincoln, familiar and more obscure, and blows them up for life-sized detail.

LISTEN: PHILIP KUNHARDT III - LINCOLN IN PHOTOS