Mario Cuomo

Mario M. Cuomo served three terms as governor of the state of New York. His latest book, Lincoln Matters, Today More Than Ever, will be published in June.

Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri; translated by Lawrence Grant White (out of print) and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Trafalgar Square, $23). These lead my list because their imagination, poetic ability, and intellectual and moral powers are unmatched.

Lincoln by David Herbert Donald (Simon & Schuster, $18). The latest of the great Lincoln biographies. It is unsurpassed in its psychological insights, revealing how Lincoln the man gave birth to Lincoln the icon. Donald’s candor as to Lincoln’s weakness on the question of race—and in other regards—is a tribute to his peerless professionalism as a writer of biography.

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The Divine Milieu by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (HarperCollins, $14). The greatest spiritual testimony of my time. It revealed and made accessible the joyous positivism of Roman Catholicism, particularly after Teilhard’s writings were approved by Pope John XXIII.

Non-Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny by Robert Wright (Knopf, $15). A brilliant disquisition, comprehensive and comprehensible, describing the evolution of man and society toward excellence. In Non-Zero, Wright doesn’t accept the idea of God, but his notion moves ever closer to Teilhard’s “Christ.” I await Wright’s next work, wondering whether he will move from agnosticism to faith.

Christ in Concrete