How to Be Abe Lincoln

Jonathan Shapiro has written and produced some of television’s most iconic legal dramas, including HBO’s The Undoing, Amazon Prime’s Goliath, and NBC Peacock’s The Calling. An Emmy and Humanitas Award winner, Shapiro’s other television credits include Peacock’s Mr. Mercedes, based on the Stephen King novels, NBC’s series The Blacklist, FOX’s Justice, NBC’s Life, and the ABC series Boston Legal, The Practice, and Big Sky. His first play, Sisters in Law, premiered in 2019. He is the author of three books, including the novel Deadly Force (2015), and the memoir Lawyers, Liars, and the Art of Storytelling (2014). Prior to becoming a writer, Shapiro practiced law for 12 years in the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division, as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, and of counsel at Kirkland & Ellis. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, he earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in history from Harvard University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oriel College, University of Oxford. He is currently an adjunct law professor at the UCLA School of Law. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

Praise for How to Be Abe Lincoln"This is an invaluable, genre-defying book. Leavened with great humor, it treats Lincoln not only as a giant of history, but, far more uniquely, as the human we should all strive to be."— Scott Turow, #1 New York Times bestselling author and recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights 2003 Book Award"Jonathan Shapiro has pulled out something of a miracle: he has written a book on Abraham Lincoln unlike any other. And it’s a joy to behold. It is funny, wise, surprising, and important, not unlike the man himself. In a day when banning books is returning to fashion, we’d all be a lot better off if Jonathan Shapiro’s Lincoln book were required reading."— Stuart Stevens, political consultant, member of the Lincoln Project, and author"How to Be Abe Lincoln had me choking with laughter on one page and choking up with emotion on the next. It came from recognizing that “our better angels” are as real and relevant today as the ones guiding Lincoln. Jonathan Shapiro’s work of divine humor and wisdom is the book I’ll give to all my friends to celebrate whatever holiday comes next, because I can’t wait until President’s Day to share it."—Martha Williamson, writer/executive producer of Touched by an Angelhttps://youtu.be/LRatiLzJMpI?si=3V9XdV_IjsnfnNTV">MSNBC Morning Joe Interview