DDR Books

The New York Times bestseller “How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen” by David Brooks is this week’s DDR Pick. A practical, heartfelt guide to the art of truly knowing another person in order to foster deeper connections at home, at work, and throughout our lives—from the author of “The Road to Character” and “The Second Mountain.”

“More than a guide to better conversations, it’s a blueprint for a more connected and humane way of living. It’s a must-read for anyone looking to deepen their relationships and broaden their perspectives.”—Bill Gates, GatesNotes (Summer Reading Pick)

As David Brooks observes, “There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen—to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.”

And yet we humans don’t do this well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. In “How to Know a Person,” Brooks sets out to help us do better, posing questions that are essential for all of us: If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them? What kind of conversations should you have? What parts of a person’s story should you pay attention to?

Driven by his trademark sense of curiosity and his determination to grow as a person, Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience and from the worlds of theater, philosophy, history, and education to present a welcoming, hopeful, integrated approach to human connection. “How to Know a Person” helps readers become more understanding and considerate toward others, and to find the joy that comes from being seen. Along the way it offers a possible remedy for a society that is riven by fragmentation, hostility, and misperception.

The act of seeing another person, Brooks argues, is profoundly creative: How can we look somebody in the eye and see something large in them, and in turn, see something larger in ourselves? “How to Know a Person” is for anyone searching for connection and yearning to be understood.

This and other great sociology books are available at DDR Books, 7 S. Maple, Downtown Watertown. Shipping is available for just the cost of postage! Call us below or email us at [email protected]!

Historical fiction lovers of all ages will fall for Ruta Sepetys’s young-adult novel “I
Must Betray You,” this week’s DDR Pick.

A gut-wrenching, startling historical thriller about communist Romania and the citizen spy network that devastated a nation, from the #1 New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of “Between Shades of Gray” (aka “Ashes in the Snow”), Sepetys’s 2023 novel is set in Romania, 1989. Communist regimes are crumbling across Europe. Seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu dreams of becoming a writer, but Romanians aren’t free to dream; they are bound by rules and force.

Amidst the tyrannical dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu, in a country governed by isolation and fear, Cristian is blackmailed by the secret police to become an informer. He’s left with only two choices: betray everyone and everything he loves—or use his position to creatively undermine the most notoriously evil dictator in Eastern Europe.

Cristian risks everything to unmask the truth behind the regime, give voice to fellow Romanians, and expose to the world what is happening in his country. He eagerly joins the revolution to fight for change when the time arrives. But what is the cost of freedom?

This book and all of Sepetys’s work are available at DDR Books, 7 S. Maple in Downtown Watertown. Call us at 605-868-3705 or email us at [email protected] to reserve a copy or to arrange shipping anywhere in the contiguous US for just the cost of shipping.

Dark and humorous, literary but with the heart of a detective novel, “Ordinary Bear” by C.B. Bernard, this week’s DDR Pick, weighs the burden of grief while exploring our boundless capacity for humanity, kindness, and hope.

Farley stands out among his Iñupiat neighbors in the Alaskan village he calls home, both white and enormous, like the hungry polar bears that wander its streets. Jovial and a little hapless, he works as an investigator for a North Slope oil company, passing the long Arctic winters drinking whiskey with the village's preacher and playing in the weekly poker game hosted by its matriarch and mayor.

When his young daughter visits from thousands of miles away in Portland—where she lives with her mother, who despises him—a shocking moment of violence leaves her dead and Farley injured. Crippled by his wounds and hamstrung with guilt over his inability to save her, he goes home to Oregon to try to make amends.

There he strikes up an unlikely friendship with a single mother and her daughter. With their help, he begins the slow process of healing—until the girl goes missing. Faced with the opportunity to do what he couldn't do for his own daughter, Farley sets out on a brutal odyssey through Portland's quirky and dangerous underworld, using his wits and his fists to try to save her life along with the shattered remains of his own.

This DDR Pick and a world-class collection of detective novels are available at DDR Books, 7 S. Maple in Downtown Watertown. Reach us at [email protected] or 605-868-3705 to reserve your copy or to order a copy shipped within the continental US for just the cost of shipping!

A clever play on the Mother Goose stories is this week’s DDR Pick. “Mother Bruce,” a wonderfully illustrated book for children ages 2-5 by Ryan T. Higgins, tells the story of Bruce the bear, who likes to keep to himself. That, and eat eggs. But when his hard-boiled goose eggs turn out to be real, live goslings, he starts to lose his appetite. And even worse, the goslings are convinced he's their mother. Bruce tries to get the geese to go south, but he can't seem to rid himself of his new companions. What's a bear to do?

This and many other fabulous illustrated children’s books are available at DDRBooks—just call 605-868-3705, email [email protected], or stop by our store at 7 S. Maple in Downtown Watertown.

William Kent Krueger’s newest novel, “Spirit Crossing,” is this week’s DDR Pick, a tense thriller in Krueger’s hugely popular private detective series set in Minnesota.

A disappearance and a dead body put Cork O’Connor’s family in the crosshairs of a killer in the twentieth book in the New York Times-bestselling series from Krueger¬, “a master storyteller at the top of his game” (Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author).

The disappearance of a local politician’s teenaged daughter is major news in Minnesota. As a huge manhunt is launched to find her, Cork O’Connor’s grandson stumbles across the shallow grave of a young Ojibwe woman—but nobody seems that interested. Nobody, that is, except Cork and the newly formed Iron Lake Ojibwe Tribal Police. As Cork and the tribal officers dig into the circumstances of this mysterious and grim discovery, they uncover a connection to the missing teenager. And soon, it’s clear that Cork’s grandson is in danger of being the killer’s next victim.

This book and both signed and unsigned copies of Krueger’s work can be found at DDR Books, 7 S. Maple in Downtown Watertown. Call 605-868-3705 or email [email protected] to reserve a copy today. DDR Books can ship anywhere in the contiguous United States just for the cost of shipping!

The weather is staying hot, and so are the DDR Picks! This week’s Pick is a three-novel volume of Star Wars stories by Paul Davids and Hollace Davids, continuing the adventures of the beloved film characters.

Book 1: “Mission from Mount Yoda”
Kadann, Supreme Prophet of the Dark Side, plots to capture and destroy the carbonized body of Trioculus and take control of the Empire, while the Rebel Alliance races to save the archeologists of the dying planet Duro.

Book 2: “Queen of the Empire”
The battle against the evil Empire rages on as heroic men, women, and aliens of the Rebel Alliance continue their struggle to end the era of darkness. But the ultimate defeat of the Imperial forces could come from within the Empire itself.

The Imperial grand moffs are in revolt against the Prophets of the Dark Side. As the Alliance struggles with its latest weapon, project Decoy, Princess Leia is kidnapped by an old enemy, then menaced by the surprise appearance of another evil foe--one obsessed with turning Leia to the Dark Side and making her the Queen of the Empire.

Book 3: “Prophets of the Dark Side”
By rescuing an Imperial prisoner, have the Rebels brought disaster upon themselves?

While on a perilous quest in the mushroom forests of Arzid, Luke and Ken are captured by Kadann, Supreme Imperial Prophet. Having tempted the young Jedi Prince into revealing the location of the Lost City of the Jedi, the Supreme Prophet plans to steal the ancient knowledge of the Jedi Knights. Now Kadann will rule over a new tyrannical empire, as foretold by the... Prophets of The Dark Side.

Find this and an excellent selection of Star Wars and sci-fi at DDR Books, 7 S. Maple, Downtown Watertown. Call 605-868-3705 or email [email protected] with questions or to order books for shipping in the United States for just the cost of postage!

“An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s” a New York Times Bestseller by Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of America’s most beloved historians, artfully weaves together biography, memoir, and history. She takes you along on the emotional journey she and her husband, Richard (Dick) Goodwin embarked upon in the last years of his life in this week’s DDR Pick.

Dick and Doris Goodwin were married for 42 years and married to American history even longer. In his twenties, Dick was one of the brilliant young men of John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier. In his thirties he both named and helped design Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and was a speechwriter and close advisor to Robert Kennedy. Doris Kearns was a 24-year-old graduate student when selected as a White House Fellow. She worked directly for Lyndon Johnson and later assisted on his memoir.

Over the years, with humor, anger, frustration, and in the end, a growing understanding, Dick and Doris had argued over the achievements and failings of the leaders they served and observed--debating the progress and unfinished promises of the country they both loved.

The Goodwins’ last great adventure involved finally opening the more than 300 boxes of letters, diaries, documents, and memorabilia that Dick had saved for more than 50 years. They soon realized they had before them an unparalleled personal time capsule of the 1960s, illuminating public and private moments of a decade when individuals were powered by the conviction they could make a difference; a time, like today, marked by struggles for racial and economic justice, a time when lines were drawn and loyalties tested.

Their expedition gave Dick’s last years renewed purpose and determination. It gave Doris the opportunity to connect and reconnect with participants and witnesses of pivotal moments of the 1960s. And it gave them both an opportunity to make fresh assessments of the central figures of the time—John F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, and especially Lyndon Johnson, who greatly impacted both their lives. The voyage of remembrance brought unexpected discoveries, forgiveness, and the renewal of old dreams, reviving the hope that the youth of today will carry forward this unfinished love story with America.

This and other memoirs of the 1960s, presidential biographies, and the works of Doris Kearns Goodwin can be found at DDR Books, 7 S. Maple in Downtown Watertown. Stop in, call 605-868-3705, or email [email protected] to reserve a copy or to arrange shipping inside the continental United States for the cost of postage.

In this week’s multi-award-winning DDR Pick, an award-winning author investigates the entangled history of her Jewish ancestors' land in South Dakota and the Lakota, who were forced off that land by the United States government.

"Sharply insightful . . . A monumental piece of work."—The Boston Globe

Growing up, Rebecca Clarren only knew the major plot points of her tenacious immigrant family’s origins. Her great-great-grandparents, the Sinykins, and their six children fled antisemitism in Russia and arrived in the United States at the turn of the 20th century, ultimately settling on a 160-acre homestead in South Dakota. Over the next few decades, despite tough years on a merciless prairie and multiple setbacks, the Sinykins became an American immigrant success story.

What none of Clarren’s ancestors ever mentioned was that their land, the foundation for much of their wealth, had been cruelly taken from the Lakota by the United States government. By the time the Sinykins moved to South Dakota, America had broken hundreds of treaties with hundreds of Indigenous nations across the continent, and the land that had once been reserved for the seven bands of the Lakota had been diminished, splintered, and handed for free, or practically free, to white settlers. In “The Cost of Free Land,” Clarren melds investigative reporting with personal family history to reveal the intertwined stories of her family and the Lakota, and the devastating cycle of loss of Indigenous land, culture, and resources that continues today.

With deep empathy and clarity of purpose, Clarren grapples with the personal and national consequences of this legacy of violence and dispossession. What does it mean to survive oppression only to perpetuate and benefit from the oppression of others? By shining a light on the people and families tangled up in this country’s difficult history, “The Cost of Free Land” invites readers to consider their own culpability and what, now, can be done.

This and a huge range of books on the Lakota and prairie settlers can be found at DDR Books, 7 S. Maple, Downtown Watertown. Shipping of books in the US is available for the cost of postage by calling 605-868-3705 or emailing [email protected].

From the celebrated New York Times-bestselling author of “Such a Fun Age,” Kiley Reid, comes a fresh and provocative story about a residential assistant and her messy entanglement with a professor and three unruly students for this week’s DDR Pick.

It's 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. But Millie's starry-eyed hustle becomes jeopardized by odd new friends, vengeful dorm pranks, and illicit intrigue.

A fresh and intimate portrait of desire, consumption, and reckless abandon, “Come and Get It” is a tension-filled story about money, indiscretion, and bad behavior.

Both of Reid’s books are available at DDR Books in Downtown Watertown. Email us at [email protected] or call 605-868-3705 to reserve a copy or arrange shipping in the U.S. for the cost of postage.

Make room in your beach bag for this great summer read, perfectly sized to take anywhere!

Immerse yourself in Middle-earth with J. R. R. Tolkien’s masterpieces in this gorgeous boxed set—the perfect gift for Lord of the Rings devotees or first-time readers of the series.

This four-volume, pocket-sized boxed set contains Tolkien's epic works “The Hobbit” and the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings (“The Fellowship of the Ring,” “The Two Towers,” and “The Return of the King”). The set comes shrink-wrapped with all four books covered in buttery leatherette in a leatherette-bound box with gold-foil stamping.

In “The Hobbit,” Bilbo Baggins is whisked away from his comfortable, unambitious life in Hobbiton by the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves. He finds himself caught up in a plot to raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon.

The Lord of the Rings series tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo Baggins and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the wizard; the hobbits Merry, Pippin, and Sam; Gimli the dwarf; Legolas the elf; Boromir of Gondor; and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider.
Tolkien's epic tales are at once a classic myth and a modern fairy tale—a story of high and heroic adventure set in the unforgettable landscape of Middle-earth.

DDR Books at 7 S. Maple in Downtown Watertown offers this fantastic set and thousands of other fantasy works, classic and new. Email us at [email protected], call 605-868-3705, or stop in!

This week’s DDR Pick comes from the author of the bestselling and terrific “A Gentleman in Moscow” and “The Lincoln Highway,” Amor Towles. “Table for Two” is a collection of shorter fiction that continues Towles’ witty examination of relationships of all kinds with six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood.

“Superb ... This may be Towles’ best book yet. Each tale is as satisfying as a master chef’s main course, filled with drama, wit, erudition and, most of all, heart.” —Los Angeles Times

The New York stories, most of which take place around the year 2000, consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages.

In the novella, a character from Towles’s novel “Rules of Civility” returns, the indomitable Evelyn Ross. She leaves New York City in September 1938 with the intention of returning home to Indiana, but as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood” describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself—and others—in a noirish tale that takes us through the movie sets, bungalows, and dive bars of Los Angeles.

Written with his humor and sophistication, “Table for Two” is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting fiction.

Pick up "Table for Two" and all of Towles' fiction at DDR Books at 7 S. Maple, Downtown Watertown.

Summer is heating up, and this week’s DDR Pick is red-hot! Set in the tumultuous year of 1968 in southern Virginia, a racially-charged murder case sets a duo of white and Black lawyers against a deeply unfair system as they work to defend their wrongfully-accused Black defendants in this courtroom drama from #1 New York Times-bestselling author David Baldacci, “A Calamity of Souls.”

Jack Lee is a white lawyer from Freeman County, Virginia, who has never done anything to push back against racism, until he decides to represent Jerome Washington, a Black man charged with brutally killing an elderly and wealthy white couple. Doubting his decision, Lee fears that his legal skills may not be enough to prevail in a case where the odds are already stacked against both him and his client. And he quickly finds himself out of his depth when he realizes that what is at stake is far greater than the outcome of a murder trial.

Desiree DuBose is a Black lawyer from Chicago who has devoted her life to furthering the causes of justice and equality for everyone. She comes to Freeman County and enters a fractious and unwieldy partnership with Lee in a legal battle against the best prosecutor in the Commonwealth. Yet DuBose is also aware that powerful outside forces are at work to blunt the victories achieved by the Civil Rights era.

Lee and DuBose could not be more dissimilar. On their own, neither one can stop the prosecution’s deliberate march towards a guilty verdict and the electric chair. But together, the pair fight for what once seemed impossible: a chance for a fair trial and true justice.

Over a decade in the writing, “A Calamity of Souls” breathes richly imagined and detailed life into a bygone era, taking the reader through a world that will seem both foreign and familiar.

This entry in Baldacci’s ‘Calamity” series and his other novels are available at DDR Books, located at 7 S. Maple in Downtown Watertown. Contact us to reserve a copy!

Greg Iles’ “Southern Man” is July’s first DDR Pick. What John Grisham calls “a first-rate political thriller” is a sequel to Iles’ Natchez Burning Series and is about a man—and a town—rocked by anarchy and tragedy, but unbowed in the fight to save those they love

Fifteen years after the events of the Natchez Burning trilogy, Penn Cage is alone. Nearly all his loved ones are dead, his old allies gone, and he carries a mortal secret that separates him from the world. But Penn’s exile comes to an end when a brawl at a Mississippi rap festival triggers a bloody mass shooting—one that nearly takes the life of his daughter, Annie.

As the stunned cities of Natchez and Bienville reel, antebellum plantation homes continue to burn and the deadly attacks are claimed by a Black radical group as historic acts of justice. Panic sweeps through the tourist communities, driving them inexorably toward a race war.

But what might have been only a regional sideshow of the 2024 Presidential election explodes into national prominence, thanks to the stunning ascent of Robert E. Lee White, a Southern war hero who seizes the public imagination as a third-party candidate. Dubbed “the Tik-Tok Man,” and funded by an eccentric Mississippi billionaire, Bobby White rides the glory of his Special Forces record to an unprecedented run at the White House—one unseen since the campaign of H. Ross Perot.

To triumph over the national party machines, Bobby evolves a plan of unimaginable daring. One fateful autumn weekend, with White set to declare his candidacy in all fifty states, the forces polarizing America line up against one another: Black vs. white, states vs. the federal government, democracy vs. Fascism. Teaming with his fearless daughter (now a civil rights lawyer) and a former Black Panther who spent most of his life in Parchman Prison, Penn tears into Bobby White’s pursuit of the Presidency and ultimately risks a second Civil War to try to expose its motivation to the world, before the America of our Constitution slides into the abyss.

In "Southern Man," Greg Iles returns to the riveting style and historic depth that made the Natchez Burning trilogy a searing masterpiece and hurls the narrative fifteen years forward into our current moment—where America itself teeters on the brink of anarchy.

“Southern Man” is available at DDR Books, at 7 S. Maple, in Downtown Watertown, or for the cost of shipping in the United States by calling 605-868-3705. This and many more political thrillers are available on our website, at www.ddrbooks.com.

The latest jaw-dropping thriller from New York Times bestselling author Riley Sager is this week’s DDR Pick.

In “Middle of the Night,” a man must contend with the long-ago disappearance of his childhood best friend—and the dark secrets lurking just beyond the safe confines of his picture-perfect neighborhood.

The worst thing to ever happen on Hemlock Circle occurred in Ethan Marsh’s backyard. One July night, ten-year-old Ethan and his best friend and neighbor, Billy, fell asleep in a tent set up on a manicured lawn in a quiet, quaint New Jersey cul-de-sac. In the morning, Ethan woke up alone. During the night, someone had sliced the tent open with a knife and taken Billy. He was never seen again.

Thirty years later, Ethan has reluctantly returned to his childhood home. Plagued by bad dreams and insomnia, he begins to notice strange things happening in the middle of the night. Someone seems to be roaming the cul-de-sac at odd hours, and signs of Billy’s presence keep appearing in Ethan’s backyard. Is someone playing a cruel prank? Or has Billy, long thought to be dead, somehow returned to Hemlock Circle?

The mysterious occurrences prompt Ethan to investigate what really happened that night, a quest that reunites him with former friends and neighbors and leads him into the woods that surround Hemlock Circle. Woods where Billy claimed ghosts roamed and where a mysterious institute does clandestine research on a crumbling estate.

The closer Ethan gets to the truth, the more he realizes that no place—be it quiet forest or suburban street—is completely safe. And that the past has a way of haunting the present.

“Middle of the Night” is available at DDR Books, located at 7 S. Maple in Downtown Watertown. Email us at [email protected] or call 605-868-3705. Stop in to browse our impressive selection of mysteries and thrillers!

James Patterson’s newest novel, “The #1 Lawyer,” is this week’s DDR Pick. Biloxi’s best criminal defense attorney has never lost a case. Then his client’s beautiful wife is murdered, and America’s #1 lawyer suddenly becomes its #1 suspect.

Stafford Lee Penney is a small-town lawyer with a big-time reputation for winning every case he tries. In his sharp suits and polished Oxford shoes, Penney is Biloxi, Mississippi’s, #1 Lawyer and top local celebrity.

Just as Penney notches his latest courtroom victory, his wife is scandalously killed. He spirals into a legal and personal losing streak, damaging his reputation and ruining his career.

That’s when Penney makes a bold decision. He stops trading on his power-lawyer identity and creates a new one: lawyer lifeguard. Moonlighting at the beach, showing up to court in flip-flops, mentoring a law student, the new Penney is at first unrecognizable.

It’s said that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. But when Penney is accused of murder, the #1 Lawyer will find a way to triumph.

All of Patterson’s recent work and his classics, including signed volumes, are available at DDR Books in Downtown Watertown. Stop in at 7 S. Maple, Watertown; call us at 6058683705; or shop now at https://www.abebooks.com/ddrbooks-watertown-sd-u.s.a/463883/sf!

Author CK Van Dam will be signing her trio of novels about pioneer women making lives for themselves on the frontier Sat., June 29, noon to 2 pm at DDR Books in Downtown Watertown.

CK Van Dam is a daughter of the Dakota prairies. She writes historical fiction/western romance about the strong women who have built our nation and our world. Her series, “On the Dakota Frontier,” includes three novels: “Proving Her Claim,” “Lone Tree Claim” and “Medicine Creek Claim.” They see women determined to build new homes, fight nature, compete with rival claim-holders, foster new friendships, and kindle new love with grit and determination.

“Proving Her Claim” received two Spur Awards from Western Writers of America: Best Western Romance and Best First Novel. She is currently working on the fourth book in the series.

DDR Books is located at 7 S. Maple in Downtown Watertown. Call us at 605-868-3705 or email us at [email protected] to reserve a copy. DDR Books can also ship books across the US for the cost of postage.

June’s first DDR Pick is John Grisham’s newest novel, “Camino Ghosts,” the third and final book in his Camino series.

Number-one New York Times bestselling author Grisham takes you back to Camino Island, where bookseller Bruce Cable and novelist Mercer Mann always manage to find trouble in paradise.

In this new thriller on Camino Island, popular bookseller Bruce Cable tells Mercer Mann an irresistible tale that might be the plot of her next novel: A giant resort developer is using its political muscle and deep pockets to claim ownership of a deserted island between Florida and Georgia. Only the last living inhabitant of the island, Lovely Jackson, stands in its way. What the developer doesn’t know is that the island has a remarkable history, and locals believe it is cursed…and the past is never the past….

DDR Books has all three books in the Camino series and a huge collection of Grisham in new and used copies; pickup is available, or shipping is available for the cost of postage. Email us at [email protected] or call 605-868-3705.

All five of the “A Court of Thorns and Roses” paperbacks in a gorgeous box set perfect for summer beach reading is this week's DDR Pick!

“Passionate, violent, sexy and daring.... A true page-turner.” -- USA TODAY on “A Court of Thorns and Roses.”

Feyre is a huntress. The skin of a wolf would bring enough gold to feed her sisters for a month. But the life of a magical creature comes at a steep price, and Feyre has just killed the wrong wolf....

Follow Feyre's journey into the dangerous, alluring world of the Fae, where she will lose her heart, face her demons, and learn what she is truly capable of.

The world expands in “A Court of Silver Flames with the story of Feyre's fiery sister, Nesta.

This stunning five-book box set of the #1 New York Times bestselling series by Sarah J. Maas includes “A Court of Thorns and Roses,” “A Court of Mist and Fury,” “A Court of Wings and Ruin,” “A Court of Frost and Starlight,” and “A Court of Silver Flames.”

A new number-one bestseller by master storyteller Erik Larson is this week’s DDR Pick—“The Demon of Unrest,” a riveting reexamination of the five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War.

“Perhaps no other historian has ever rendered the struggle for Sumter in such authoritative detail as Larson does here.”—The Washington Post

“Even history buffs will find much that is new here.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

On November 6, 1860, Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter.

Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.”

At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between them. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous secretary of state, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans.

Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.

“The Demon of Unrest” is available at DDR Books for pickup or shipping for the cost of postage. Contact us at 605-868-3705 or [email protected] to order your copy.