Currently reading: The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson 📚

I tend to go in and out of book genres. I’ll read 5 books on cooking or biking or health or historical fiction and then need 5 years before I will want to read another book in that genre. Lately, I have really come to appreciate the book category where the author has done extensive research on a historical event and then pieced together a story which really draws you in. So much so you can picture in your mind the characters and scenes. The category is non-fiction, but reads like a novel, and Larson seems to have perfected it.

This book takes place during the 5 months between Lincoln’s election win and the sacking of Fort Sumter beginning the Civil War. I enjoyed how the author uses diaries and letters to really tell the story and bring out how people, especially in Charleston, were thinking and feeling. You know about historical events, but I surely did not think deeply about what people were thinking and how did the events lead up to a nation going to war with itself.

After reading the book I watched the movie ‘Lincoln’ directed by Spielberg and had a much better appreciation of how the lead up to the war and Lincoln’s actions played out. A great pairing.

I do not believe the times we are living in today are as divisive as they were in 1860, but reading this book certainly highlighted some similarities. There are those who feel they can shout everyone into submission, those with a dogmatic moral code, and the many who can only follow the biased narrative from their tribe.