Our April book selection is
Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard. Pick up a copy of the book at the library. Also available in large print, audio CD, ebook and eaudiobook so there's no excuse not to read this one! Join us on Wednesday April 16th at 1pm by the fireplace at the library.
James A. Garfield was
one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into
abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War
hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for
president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the
corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration,
a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the
back.
But the shot didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what
happened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in turmoil. The
unhinged assassin’s half-delivered strike shattered the fragile national
mood of a country so recently fractured by civil war, and left the
wounded president as the object of a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle
for power—over his administration, over the nation’s future, and,
hauntingly, over his medical care. A team of physicians administered
shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. As his condition
worsened, Garfield received help: Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of
the telephone, worked around the clock to invent a new device capable
of finding the bullet.
Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the Republic will stand alongside The Devil in the White City and The Professor and the Madman as a classic of narrative history. goodreads.com
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