Nonfiction Book Club

This month, we will discuss Destiny of the Republic: a tale of madness, medicine, and the murder of a president by Candice Millard.  

James 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. Four months after his inauguration, a deranged man shot Garfield in the back. But the shot didn’t kill Garfield.

The drama of what happened next 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. 

Copies of this book are available at the library. 

This month, the discussion will be entirely on Zoom.  Please register here to receive the meeting details: