Not your typical “This Day in History”…

This is a great short daily read with interesting bits of history you probably won’t have heard unless you’re a history major. I’m not one to really get excited about history but this was the most interesting of the books available on the Thomas Nelson Publishers book review list and I’m glad I chose it.

I read the intro and then the first 10 or so pages before deciding that it was going to be the perfect gift for my dad for Christmas. He’s hard to buy for and just so you know, I bought another copy for myself because I want to continue to read it. It’s a nice break from the business books I’m typically drawn to.

I don’t think this book is a geared towards reading it straight through (so I’m breaking the book review rules a bit by doing the review before I’m finished.) Even reading 10 or so in one sitting felt a bit disjointed because that’s not really how the book is intended to be read. You’re reading events based on a day, January 1st for example, instead of by year so it’s not like you’re following a time line.

Each day has an event that’s rich in detail that fills most of a page and then listed at the bottom of the page are additional events that occurred on that day in history. The table of contents doesn’t really give you an idea of what the book is because it lists just what’s at the end of each month outside of the daily pages; things like the full Constitution of the United States. There is definitely a lot more here than you first expect. The binding is also beautiful with a paper printed cover with the edge done in some sort of cloth in a way that mimics older style book binding.

Obviously I thought it was worth buying as well as giving as a gift since I did both.