I needn’t have worried. Though non-fiction, Destiny of the Republic is fast-paced, interesting, and comes across almost as fiction similar in vein to The Devil in the White City, one of my favorite non-fiction books (if not one of my favorite books ever).
Here we’re told the story of President Garfield, elected in 1880 and subsequently assassinated in his first term as well as the story of his assassin and other famous figures intertwined into this tale which could have been written for television. Reading it, I realized not just how little I knew about Garfield, about America during that time period (we seemed to jump right from the Civil War to World War I in school) but also how little I know about many of our presidents. Talking to my friend Stephanie, we’re thinking we should add a book about a president each year to our book club rotation.
Anyway, if you like intrigue, suspense or history but not dry history books, read this one.
Oh, and if like me, you read it on your kindle, don’t pay attention to the percentage complete. The book wraps at about 65%, the rest being acknowledgements, notes and illustrations.