Only rarely have I met or known an enthusiast of American history, certainly not back in my school days. So then, how to explain the enduring popularity of Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard, which has ensconced itself on The New York Times Best-seller List for a formidable thirty-six weeks as of this writing. Most people know Bill O'Reilly as the popular host of "The O'Reilly Factor" on the Fox News Channel. Yet few people are aware that O'Reilly was a history teacher before he entered the world of broadcast journalism. But love him or hate him, O'Reilly (and Dugard) serve up a riveting four-act tragedy as compelling as any suspense novel of recent memory.

We enter the story a mere fourteen days before the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The Confederate Army, under the command of Lee, is on wobbly last-legs; out of food and supplies, their uniforms and shoes in tatters, men (and horses) are falling or deserting daily as Lee leads them in an incessant, punishing march south toward the Carolinas, desperately attempting to save his soldiers' lives. Each step of the way, they are relentlessly pursued and pounded by Grant's larger and well-equipped army, forcing the Confederates to turn and fight yet again, refusing to accept what is inevitable. It is a heartbreaking first act, viewed from a boots-on-the-ground perspective. Meanwhile, Lincoln is desperate for the four-year war to end, so that the true healing of our divided nation can begin.

Lincoln hardly sleeps, his eyes are hollowed, he suffers bouts of depression, and he has lost thirty-five pounds from worry and dismay over this country he loves so dearly, and whose needless death of Americans on both sides tears him apart. Meanwhile, Confederate loyalists and spies conspire to kill Lincoln, so infuriated are they over his freeing of the slaves and the resultant changes to their beloved South. Lincoln is well aware his life is in mortal danger. His only solace is found in his love of Shakespeare, the simple and loyal dedication of his wife, Mary, and a few verses of daily reading from his tattered Bible.

Enter John Wilkes Booth, a flashy, good-looking bon vivant and actor, who is determined to kill Lincoln on behalf of the South, with the promise of his own egocentric immortality at stake. We discover the wheres and hows of Booth's recruitment and funding, the exquisite detailing of his fiendish plan, including a theatrical flair Booth will add to the finale, and his planned escape to Mexico, all in staggering detail. O'Reilly's telling of the final day is masterful, giving us an hour-by-hour interplay of the two main characters hurling toward their destiny. The narrative is swift and fully engrossing.

While O'Reilly's book is strictly nonpolitical, I find myself now pondering the differences between Lincoln, one of America's greatest Presidents, and today's political leaders.

Check out an excerpt of Killing Lincoln.

Imagine your child was accused of a heinous crime. How far would you go to find out the truth and protect him? At what point would you start blaming yourself? Noah Hawley's latest psychological page-turner, The Good Father, examines this scenario and poses heartbreaking questions about parenting, love's limits, and good versus evil. Told from the perspectives of both the determined, anguished father and his lost son, Hawley takes us deep into a family's history and unearths a tragic backstory, all the while keeping the reader guessing about the son's culpability until the shocking ending.

Dr. Paul Allen is a Chief Rheumatologist who specializes in diagnosing patients with mysterious ailments. One day, relaxing at his comfortable home in the Connecticut suburbs with his twin boys and his second wife, he sees his nineteen-year-old son, Daniel, from his first marriage, on the television news. It appears his son has assassinated the Democratic candidate for president. What follows is Dr. Allen's quest to vindicate his child, who he believes is innocent -- it must be a mistake that Daniel was caught on camera with a gun. Dr. Allen begins retracing his son's wayward journey toward this fateful day.

Dr. Allen uses his skills and background as a medical problem solver to try and piece together the clues of what truly happened, who the real killer is, and how his son may have been framed -- and it's fascinating. Simultaneously, he analyzes his first marriage and the aftermath of his divorce, during which he moved across the country, leaving Daniel in California with his irresponsible mother. All at once, Dr. Allen has to come to terms with his early experience of fatherhood, confront his guilt, and control his obsessive need to save Daniel, which is threatening his marriage and family life.

Though Hawley presents his story in a style reminiscent of a journalist -- he references multiple political assassins and terrorists from Sirhan Sirhan to John Hinckley to Timothy McVeigh -- it is emotionally harrowing as you viscerally sense the father's agony and the son's loneliness. And still, it is extremely readable. If you like Jodi Picoult's writing, this book will resonate with you.

Steel yourself though. Throughout this suspenseful novel, you will consider the nature of unconditional love and question the parenting decisions you have made in your own life. What would you do in the shoes of this loyal father, who, when faced with his son's demons, recognizes his own part in creating them? Could you give up everything to protect one of your children?

In November 2008, as then President-elect Barack Obama recited his acceptance speech before a massive audience in Chicago’s Grant Park, the television cameras scanned the crowd, stopping upon a visibly moved, openly weeping Jesse Jackson. Jackson, once a close aide of Martin Luther King Jr., was at the Lorraine Motel the night he was assassinated. In fact, he made the call to King’s wife, Coretta, to deliver the news.

What must that moment in 2008 have meant to him? We can imagine it had something to do with King’s dream: that his four children would “one day live in a nation where they [would] not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” In Hampton Sides’ spellbinding narrative Hellhound on His Trail, we revisit the before-and-after of that fateful evening on April 4, 1968, and are given a painstakingly complete portrait of both King and his assassin James Earl Ray.

Today our country honors King’s birth, his life, and his contributions. We have come a long way in the forty years since his death, and yet we still have miles to go. It is necessary, then, to take a look back at the events that surrounded his death — the swirl of anger, resentment, and unrest that overtook the country during the late 1960s — to better understand why a man fighting for peace and humanity met such a grisly end.

With a gripping pace that’s utterly absorbing, Sides expertly weaves together the ancillary events that played upon each other to ultimately make history. Sides has done his homework to assiduous degree. Every character and location is fully realized. The level of detail is visceral; we are transported. The book begins with the prison break of inmate 416-J and, despite a known outcome, the suspense never wavers.

We trace the steps of a man named Eric S. Galt, described as “an oddity: a null set of stewing ambition, wiry and watchful, seemingly paranoid — and emphatically alone.” His commitment to Alabama governor and presidential-hopeful George Wallace’s “neo-Confederate” platform propels his actions as he travels from Los Angeles to Memphis. We are given background on the political situation brewing — King’s stature waning, his Poor People’s Campaign facing backlash, as well as the “cognitive dissonance” between FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who disliked King, and attorney general Ramsey Clark, who admired him. We also become privy to King’s own internal world. We are shown the man, rather than the icon: his fidelity issues, his physical fatigue, and his perpetual willingness to give “just one little speech.”

Sides presents a timeline of April 4 down to the minute: At 6:01 PM the assailant “wrapped his index finger around the cool metal trigger”; at 6:02 he was on the run. The police dispatcher broadcast a description of the shooter at 6:10. King entered the emergency room at 6:15. At 6:20 Jesse Jackson called Coretta. At 7:05 King was pronounced dead. What follows from there is “a manhunt that would become the largest in American history,” a sixty-five-day search for the guest in room 5B. With a nation enraptured and forensic evidence in tow, the FBI investigates lead after lead, alias after alias until, at last, they capture their man.

Skillfully and respectfully told by Sides, this story cannot be undone. But neither can King’s legacy.