The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

In 1987 the album In My Tribe from a group called 10,000 Maniacs was released. Their second major label album, it was their first to find widespread success. The album stayed on the charts for 77 weeks. In 1989 Rolling Stone magazine included it in their 100 Best Albums of the 1980s list. A folk-flavored alternative band, 10,000 Maniacs featured lead singer Natalie Merchant, who broke from the group in 1994 and went on to success in her own right.

The final track on side one of the album was titled Don’t Talk. The song is about a relationship strained by alcoholism. Tired of her alcoholic partner’s insincere claims that they will quit drinking, the singer tells her partner to stop with the empty words by imploring that they “don’t talk”.

In much the same way the author of today’s book feels the American people are tired of politician’s empty promises but wants instead someone who will listen and act on their concerns.

You can see a lyric video of 10,000 Maniacs original recording here on YouTube.

The late Speaker Tip O’Neill from Massachusetts holds the record for longest uninterrupted time as Speaker of the US House. He led the House from 1977 until 1987, during the Presidencies of both Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican Ronald Reagan.

O’Neill was well-known for espousing the notion that “all politics is local.” The idea being that a voter will judge the success or failure of an infrastructure bill, for example, on the basis of the number of potholes that have been fixed on their own drive to work. If it’s not important locally, and not acted on locally, no legislation will be popular or will influence a voter to vote for you.

That notion competes with the idea that in today’s world “politics is tribal”. In this reckoning it is party identity that’s most important to voters, and party identity sways what they want to see carried out at the local level. School board policies, and banning of books spring to mind as examples of people taking nationally promoted Republican-identity “culture war” ideas and turning them into local actions.

The two ideas are almost mirror images of each other. One focuses locally and is “bottom up”, while the other focuses nationally and is “top down”.

In It’s All Local author Bryan Kennedy comes to the defense of a local focus for politicians. He provides a roadmap for how to run a political campaign or guide a local political party to success by focusing on local concerns and issues.

Author Bryan Kennedy is the four-term Mayor of Glendale, Wisconsin, and the current President of Democratic Municipal Officials (DMO). Photo source: https://bryankennedyauthor.com/about-mayor-kennedy)

Kennedy, the four term Democratic mayor of Glendale, Wisconsin is talking specifically to the Democratic Party. He feels that Democratic politicians have been too much under the influence of consultants, polling and “microtargeted messaging”. They’ve stopped talking directly “to” people and for too long have been talking “at” people.

Kennedy points to the Mamdani campaign in New York City as an example of listening to people and building the campaign’s message based on their concerns, rather than speaking to people in words crafted by polling to tell them what their concerns are. By listening to and reflecting back the concerns of your community, as priorities for your campaign, someone running for office builds trust and authenticity.

The Mamdani campaign is just one of many examples Kennedy uses in this book. Another notable example is the successful organizing done by the Obama campaign in 2008. Kennedy expresses his disappointment that the DNC more or less discarded that success in favor of continuing with the consultants, polling and messaging route.

Political campaigns are one area in which the author thinks the Democratic party needs to return to a local focus. But he also has ideas for how local party groups (usually county parties) can use the same tools and techniques he outlines to help guide candidates.

Kennedy touches on some of the issues the Republican party has as well. They do not focus locally, or listen to their constituents either, and in his assessment it is now starting to hurt them. Making it all the more important for the Democrats to get their act together.

His biggest message is that political actors need to do more listening and less “messaging”. They need to be genuine in their desire to actually represent their constituents.

I have some familiarity with the operation of my own local Democratic party, and I see the value in what Kennedy says. But his prescription for actions local parties need to take would require a commitment of time and money that I fear exceeds the capacity of most such organizations outside of major metropolitan areas.

This is a book that I would recommend to anyone involved in Democratic politics or organizing, particularly those involved in local or state elections. More casual readers would likely appreciate the analysis of campaign faults that Kennedy provides, but his recommendations for how to overcome them are realistically aimed at practitioners not laymen.

RATING: Five Stars ⭐⭐⭐

OVERALL COMMENTS: This book offers an analysis of shortcomings in Democratic campaigning and steps for addressing them. Aimed at political practitioners, the analysis would likely be of interest to anyone who would like to see the Democratic party do better.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I received an advance reviewer’s copy of the ebook through NetGalley, and courtesy of the publisher Köehler Books. The book is available to the public starting today, May 19, 2026.

The other books on my nightstand over the last week:

ONE BOOK I’M CURRENTLY READING

I’ve made good progress on The American Revolution and the Fate of the World by Richard Bell this week. I’m now about a third of the way through the book. Very good so far. And, following up on my comment last week, my husband and I have now finished all three seasons of Pennyworth on HBO. I think the first season was the best. Dark and full of what the Brits would call “dodgy” characters, the whole series is unsatisfying though. The camp comic book nature increases in seasons 2 and 3, and the overall story unfortunately ends with several cliffhangers that won’t be resolved due to HBO cancelling the show.

WHAT’S NEXT

Next week I’ll be reviewing Reading Matters by Joel Halldorf. Here’s a bit of the description of the book from publisher NYU Press:

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

In late 1964 country music legend Roger Miller recorded the song King of the Road for Smash Records. It became a smash hit, crossing over from #1 on Billboard’s US Country chart to #4 on the Easy Listening chart and becoming a #1 hit in both the UK and Norway.

Miller says he wrote the song after driving past a barn with a sign on its side that said “Trailers for Sale or Rent”, which became the first line of the song. The song is written from the perspective of an itinerant traveler, a hobo, who has little money but still refers to himself ironically as the “King of the Road”.

The song won Miller 5 Grammys. In 2024 Rolling Stone magazine ranked it #60 on it’s 200 Greatest Country Songs of All Time list. Miller made the rounds of TV shows performing his song in the late sixties. You can see him sing along with the host of the Johnny Cash Show in August of 1969 here on YouTube. (After some pretty funny banter back and forth between the two the song starts around the 3:10 minute mark.)

Isaac Fitzgerald is on a mission, and it sounds a bit crazy. Okay, maybe not, but it is fair to say that the author of American Rambler wonders about his own sanity as he journeys in the footsteps of American legend John Chapman, more commonly known as Johnny Appleseed.

While this book is ostensibly about Fitzgerald retracing the life of Johnny Appleseed, it’s really more of a peek into Fitzgerald’s own life, filtered through his connection with the legend, both geographically and spiritually.

Chapman/Appleseed was born in 1774 in Leominster, Massachusetts, not far from the farm where Fitzgerald’s mother grew up, and died in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Chapman was a restless soul who never settled in one place but moved from town to town planting and growing apples. He was a convert to Swedenborgianism, based on the teachings of the Christian theologian Emanuael Swedenborg. Many credit his transient lifestyle to this faith, which teaches that the more we suffer in this life the more we will be blessed in the next.

Issac Fitzgerald is the author of “Dirtbag, Massachusetts” and other books. He is a frequent contributor on the Today Show. (photo source: https://www.isaacfitzgerald.net/)

Fitzgerald was born poor, the son of two parents who were married at the time, just not to each other. As a child his family never owned a home of their own, and since he moved out, and up to the time of writing American Rambler, he’d never signed a lease himself, always crashing with friends or rooming with others. His transient life has led him across the country and back again. And his spiritual journey is on display in the book too. He often pauses for prayer and participates in a Swedenborgian service about midway through his Appleseed travels.

Mental health plays a role in the book as well. Fitzgerald’s mother had mental health issues when he was a child, and he has a few visions while on Appleseed’s trail that make him wonder if he may be facing mental health issues of his own.

Here’s a link with a video clip of Fitzgerald on the Today Show, reviewing books, and talking about American Rambler. I hadn’t seen this until after I read the book, but the large, intense personality he shows in this video definitely comes across in his writing.

American Rambler is in turns very funny and quietly serious. Its deeply personal while offering a vision of the humanity and kindness to be found across the country. It’s a modern Travels with Charley or Blue Highways, with a few more stops at local bars and a bit more partaking of illicit substances. It’s also one of the best books I’ve read in 2026, and my first five-star review this year.

RATING: Five Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

OVERALL COMMENTS: In turns funny and serious, American Rambler is deeply personal while sharing in the human kindness found across the country. Like Travels with Charley but with more stops at local bars and more illicit substances. The best book I’ve read in 2026.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I received an advance reviewer’s copy of the ebook through NetGalley, and courtesy of the publisher Knopf. The book is available to the public starting today, May 12, 2026.

The other books on my nightstand over the last week:

TWO BOOKS I’M CURRENTLY READING

I haven’t cracked the cover of The American Revolution and the Fate of the World by Richard Bell in two weeks. I almost feel guilty that it’s still here on my nightstand and this list. My excuse? Well, we travelled four days for a family wedding in Minnesota, and I had a very busy month with my volunteer work, culminating in a hectic last week of April. And I’ve made a commitment to my partner that we’ll finish Pennyworth on HBO. So I’ve been busy. But I think I’ll be digging into it at least a bit more in the coming week.

I picked up an ARC of Tyrants and Rogues on Edelweiss this past week, and I started reading just to get a feel for the book. Before you know it I was several pages in. Looks like it will be a good one! This book comes out the second week of June so I’ll have a review for you then.

WHAT’S NEXT

Next week it’s something different - a book about “saving democracy from the ground up”. It’s called It’s All Local, and the author is the mayor of Glendale, Wisconsin.

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

In June of 1978 CBS Records released a studio double album called Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of the War of the Worlds. I don’t recall hearing anything about this album before seeing it on the rack at the music store in the local mall one day. I can’t tell you for sure what year that would have been, but I seem to recall it was fall. Probably it was 1978. Anyway, I bought it, took it home and put Side One on the stereo turntable that evening.

From the first sound — the spoken words of introduction from narrator Richard Burton — I was hooked. This is, simply, one of the coolest concept albums ever. The mix of spoken word narration and music that combines guitar, synthesizer and orchestral instruments carry the story along. As I recall the album came with a booklet of artwork that added to the overall impact.

Now, I know I also picked a song from a concept album for last week’s title too. I promise I did not pick two concept albums in a row on purpose. I will say though, that this week’s album is not as well-known as the Pink Floyd album of last week. If you’ve never heard this album, carve out a couple of hours on a lazy day and pull it up on your favorite musical streaming service. It is a masterpiece. (The album as a YouTube playlist is here.)

The song Forever Autumn is the fifth track. With music by Jeff Wayne and lyrics by Gary Osborne and Paul Vigrass, it is sung by Justin Hayword of the Moody Blues (who will be forever known as “the voice” of Nights in White Satin). The song is about lost love, and how life has changed because the singer’s lover is no longer here. That mourning of someone absent is a direct call to one of today’s books. It doesn’t hurt that the line occurs in the midst of a retelling of a classic science fiction tale. And that tale is full of anxious moments for its protagonists.

Okay so maybe that last line was a stretch to try to connect to today’s second book. Regardless, Forever Autumn is a great song, and you can hear it in all its War of the Worlds glory on this YouTube. Or you could listen to Justin Hayward, in a 2023 performance, tell the story behind the song and then sing it on this YouTube.

Absence is an ambitious novel by Andrew Dana Hudson. The premise? People, sometimes by themselves, sometimes in “clusters”, simply disappear. One minute they are there, then, with a popping sound, they are gone. People pop. They are no longer there. No one can explain it. No one knows what happens to those who have popped, where they go, and whether they are living or dead. They just disappear.

This has been going on for several years now, and the world has found ways to cope with the anxiety and lack of knowing that this phenomenon has engendered. For one thing, the government has formed the Bureau of Depopulation Affairs to track the disappearances and to make sure that folks are not trying to commit fraud or murder under the guise of a false pop. It’s at the Bureau that our protagonist, Harvey Ellis, works as a kind of investigator.

Author Andrew Dana Hudson calls himself “a speculative fiction writer and generalist, wearing hats such as researcher, teacher, and critical futurist” (Photo source: https://andrewdanahudson.com/)

One day his boss calls him in and asks him to take a trip to rural Kansas to investigate a woman who claims to have returned after having popped. So far, no one has ever been known to have returned. No one even knows if “returning” is possible.

What follows is a combination of a police procedural, a vision of societal breakdown, a meditation on religion and belief, and a rumination on our mortality and the fragility of life. It’s very well done, with each new scene and event building on the ones before in a slow but satisfying revelation. There is some repetitiveness, and the book went a bit too long to reach its clever conclusion. But those are quibbles that didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the book.

This is a science fiction story that is more fiction than science. For my tastes that would not normally be a positive statement. But in this case, it works beautifully. As I read, I started picturing its events as part of a TV miniseries, and my mind went to the adaptation of Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven. All of which is to say that I think Absence is a fine American novel. Read it for a window into a dystopian future, and a reflection back to our own lives.

RATING: Four and a Half Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐🌠

OVERALL COMMENTS: A debut sci-fi that is more fiction than science and is in fact a fine American novel. Read it for a window into a dystopian future, and a reflection back to our own lives.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I received an advance reviewer’s copy of the ebook through NetGalley, and courtesy of the publisher Soho Press. The book is available to the public starting today, May 5, 2026.

Addicted to Anxiety is a self-help book by a UK-based author. The book comes from the author’s own experience as a psychotherapist to posit that anxiety is best overcome if it’s treated like an addiction. That is an interesting premise. The author freely admits that anxiety addiction is not an official diagnosis. But treating anxiety like an addiction, based on his experience and clinical evidence, is effective.

The book is divided into three parts. In Section One you meet your anxious self and learn why anxiety is (or can be treated like) an addiction. Section Two covers steps to break the anxiety addiction, and Section Three offers advice on reclaiming your less anxious life, and words of hope and the future.

Author Owen O’Kane is a UK-based psychotherapist. His book “Addicted to Anxiety” is already a bestseller in the UK. (Photo source: https://mentalhealthspeakers.co.uk/speaker/owen-okanehttps://mentalhealthspeakers.co.uk/speaker/owen-okane)

If you or someone in your life suffer from anxiety this book offers help. The reader will gain a better understanding of what causes over-anxiousness, and be armed with tools to address their anxiety addiction.

RATING: Three Stars ⭐⭐⭐

OVERALL COMMENTS: A self-help book for those suffering from anxiety. It offers practical steps to break the anxiety addiction and reclaim your life.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I received an advance reviewer’s copy of the ebook through NetGalley, and courtesy of the publisher St Martin’s Press. The book is available to the public starting today, May 5, 2026.

The other books on my nightstand over the last week:

ONE BOOK I’M CURRENTLY READING

Well, we had a family wedding out of town to attend over the weekend so I’ve not made any more progress on The American Revolution and the Fate of the World by Richard Bell. Still only one chapter in, but I promise to do better next week.

WHAT’S NEXT

Next week I’ll review American Rambler by Isaac Fitzgerald. It’s the story of the author’s year-long walk from Massachusetts to Indiana, in the footsteps of Johnny Appleseed.

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

Going “crazy” is a pretty common theme in pop music. From Patsy Cline to Gnarls Barkley and just about every recording artist in between has a song or two about love driving a person crazy. They are a dime a dozen. But when it comes to madness, that is not a theme you typically think of when you think of popular music.

There are exceptions. Lithium by the band Nirvana is ostensibly about a man turning to religion following a romantic breakup, but the words, the title, and the juxtaposition of quiet verses and loud choruses definitely makes one think of manic depression.

And then, there is a whole double album about the descent into madness. It’s arguably the best rock concept album ever produced, and it spent 15 weeks on the charts in the US in 1979. The album sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and is recognized on the Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. That album is The Wall by Pink Floyd. It spawned a movie and one of the highest grossing concert tours of all time.

The title today is a line from the song Comfortably Numb written by Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters. The song was inspired by Water’s experience of receiving a tranquilizer before a performance to deal with pain and allow him to get on with the show. But in the concept of the album it’s about the injection of hallucinatory drugs. It’s a key turning point in the album’s storyline.

It’s also one of the last collaborations between Roger Waters and his Pink Floyd partner David Gilmour. Waters envisioned an orchestral rendering while Gilmour favored a more stripped-down approach. They argued but finally compromised and so we get both (the final guitar solo is Gilmour’s). The compromise was acrimonious, leaving Gilmour feeling he could not work productively with Waters anymore. You can hear that final compromise on Comfortably Numb here on YouTube.

Justin Garson’s father suffered from schizophrenia. He recounts his father’s madness, and his experience with psychiatry in the introduction to The Madness Pill. At first, in the 1970s his treatment was therapy sessions. But when his illness came back in the 1980s pills became his treatment regimen. In between his first bout with mental illness and his second, psychiatry had undergone a revolution. And one of the reasons why was the work of Dr. Solomon Snyder.

Garson’s new book centers itself on the long career of Dr. Snyder. Other scientists make their appearances as well, especially as the book enters the 1960s, but Snyder was the one whose discoveries around dopamine, dopamine receptors in the brain, and their link to schizophrenia, revolutionized psychiatry.

Author Justin Garson is a historian of science at the City University of New York. (photo source: https://www.hunter.cuny.edu/people/justin-garson/)

Born in 1938, Snyder graduated from medical school at Georgetown University in DC, specializing in psychiatry. From there he spent time at Kaiser Hospital in San Francisco before landing a role as research assistant to Julius Axelrod at the National Institutes of Health. It was there where his love of laboratory science and scientific research took off. He spent decades searching for the biological roots of schizophrenia.

Garson’s book is part biography and part scientific history, and he has done an excellent job of blending the personal stories with the scientific work. Some of the experiments that Snyder and his peers conducted in the 1960s with psychedelic drugs, including LSD with themselves as the guinea pigs, shows both their dedication to the search for a solution to complex scientific problems, and the naiveite of the times.

This book has a lot in common with Off the Scales, Aimee Donnellan’s book about Ozempic and the discovery of GLP-1 drugs that I reviewed last November. Donnellan acknowledged in her book that obesity has both physical and psychological origins. Garson also acknowledges that the understanding of the chemical nature of mental illness, that Dr. Snyder played such a large role in uncovering, has led to the discovery of drugs much more capable of treating their effects. But there is a growing recognition that drugs cannot replace psychoanalysis but rather must supplement it.

This is an informative and interesting history of the late-twentieth century discoveries about the biology of schizophrenia. Read it for a window into the history of mental illness, psychiatry and our understanding of how the brain works.

RATING: Three Stars ⭐⭐⭐🌠

OVERALL COMMENTS: An short well-written history of the late-twentieth century discoveries about the biology of schizophrenia. Garson has done an excellent job of blending the personal with the scientific.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I received an advance reviewer’s copy of the ebook through NetGalley, and courtesy of the publisher St. Martin’s Press. The book is available to the public starting today, April 28, 2026.

The other books on my nightstand over the last week:

ONE BOOK I’VE READ

I finally read the novella Twice-Spent Comet by Ziggy Schutz that I’ve been talking about for the last few weeks. It’s a fantasy story featuring a young trans person sentenced to labor in a small penal colony on an asteroid, clearing the way for space mansions for billionaires. The story revolves around the found family they encounter there and slowly reveals hidden connections between them. Not everyone’s cup of tea perhaps, but I thought it had solid pacing and an interesting overall story arc. Three Stars ⭐⭐⭐

ONE BOOK I’M CURRENTLY READING

I’ve made a bit of progress on The American Revolution and the Fate of the World by Richard Bell. In chapter 1 I’ve learned a bit about the xenophobic anti-Chinese propaganda that accompanied the Boston Tea Party, and how the Revolutionary War contributed to the decline of the tea trade for the East India Company, leading them to pursue another market in China - opium. On to Chapter 2!

WHAT’S NEXT

Next week I’ll review two new books. Addicted to Anxiety is a self-help book that tackles the root cause of anxiety. The book will be released in the US next week but is already a best-seller in the UK.

Absence is a debut “speculative novel” set in a future beset by an epidemic of human vanishing. People are “popping” - suddenly disappearing into thin air. What happens when, one day, a woman long Absent reappears, claiming she’s been to the other side and back.

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

Two books again this week, and once again having two completely different subjects. It took a bit of googling and poking around to come up with a song lyric that captured something about both books.

The title today is a line from the song One Love by Bob Marley. It was first recorded by Bob Marley and the Wailers in 1965 as a ska tune on their debut album. But the version most people are familiar with is the reggae version that Marley reworked for the release in 1977 of Exodus, the album that propelled him to international fame. For legal reasons that version was titled One Love / People Get Ready because Marley had incorporated sections (today we’d call it sampling) of the 1965 song People Get Ready by the group the Impressions. Curtis Mayfield, writer of the Impressions song, was credited as co-writer of the 1977 version.

Marley’s song focuses on unity - “one love, one heart, let’s get together…” and that is also the key message of the sci-fi fantasy novel The Many.

Today’s second book focuses on the writing of Shakespeare — his plays have united generations of theatergoers. Each year translations of his plays are performed to audiences across the globe, making Shakespeare the playwright who has reached more audiences than any other.

You can hear the 1977 version of One Love in the official music video (released along with the 1984 compilation album Legend) here on YouTube (look closely - you may recognize some of the cameos by 80s music artists).

Canadian Sylvain Neuvel is the author of six previous science fiction novels, which make up two fantastic trilogies. I’ve read those six and thought they were very well done. The Many is the first that is a standalone story, with a very clear beginning, middle and end.

I had a bit of a rough start with this book. It’s set in the town of Marquette, Michigan, just a two-hour drive from my home. But it’s peopled with many characters who are not folks I’d expect to encounter on a visit to Marquette, which was a bit off putting. They include a homeless neo-Nazi prone to daily shoplifting at the local Target store. In fact, most of the characters are introduced with an emphasis on their bad points, or weaknesses - they drink too much, they have very little self-confidence, they struggle to be good parents, they never loved their wives, they rob stores regularly, they are psycho cops, etc.

“The Many” is the seventh published book by author Sylvain Neuvel. (photo source: https://www.instagram.com/sylvainneuvel/)

It took me until about a third to halfway into the book to realize that Neuvel was giving us these superficial, stereotypical characters for a reason. And that reason is that this is a parable. It’s a book with a simple message, and it needs paper tigers to set up that message. And carries the book for me isn’t its characters, but its sly humor.

At least in my reading, Neuvel knows that he’s set up paper tigers in service of his message. But I think he’s attempting his own equivalent of something like The Grinch - a ready-for-TV parable with a simple premise and enough oddity and humor to it so that it might last. It’s a gamble for the author, but if you, the reader, think of the book in that way then it makes much more sense. Once that lightbulb went off for me, I found it a real pleasure to read. In fact, I finished it in one day.

This is a simple, quick read with a quirky sense of humor and a good message. Don’t read it expecting a realistic peak into small town America. Read it for its humor, its message, and its lone, rather weird alien. For sci-fi / fantasy fans this would be a good beach read this summer.

RATING: Three Stars ⭐⭐⭐

OVERALL COMMENTS: An uneven sci-fi standalone story with a stronger finish than start. The book has a quirky sense of humor and a ready-for-TV sensibility that make it a fun read.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I received an advance reviewer’s copy of the ebook through NetGalley, and courtesy of the publisher Rebellion Publishing. The book is available to the public starting today, April 21, 2026.

How does Shakespeare remain Shakespeare when every word has changed? That is the question this book sets out to answer. And it does so. In depth, and with a sense of humor.

The humor is appreciated, as is the way the book is organized. Each chapter takes on a different question about translation. One chapter deals with rhyming for example - how do you convey Shakespeare’s rhymes when the words you would translate to don’t rhyme? For that matter, how do you handle the iambic pentameter Shakespeare uses, a poetic structure unique to English that audiences who speak other languages won’t be familiar with?

And how does a translator deal with gendered languages like Spanish, or languages that have more specific words than English for relationships, like uncles (of which there are many in Shakespeare’s plays).

Daniel Hahn is an author, editor and translator. (Photo source: https://www.danielhahn.co.uk/)

For lovers of the English language there is a lot to like in Hahn’s book, as it highlights some of the idiosyncrasies of our native tongue as viewed through translation to other languages, revealing things about English we wouldn't normally think of.

If the book were more tightly paced it would have worked better for me. I do not come from a world of literary figures or have depth of knowledge on Shakespeare’s plays. Those who do will appreciate Hahn’s stories interspersed with the discussions of translation, stories that I struggled with.

I felt that I’d bit off more than I could chew with this book. When I hit the chapter on “Latinate vocabulary” I was way outside my comfort zone, and I confess I began to skim.

So, sorry to say, it’s a tepid review summary from me — Read it if you have a love of the English language, a literary bent, and a working knowledge of Shakespeare’s plays. In that case, I think you’ll appreciate the author’s humor and stories more than I.

RATING: Two and a Half Stars ⭐⭐🌠

OVERALL COMMENTS: A translator takes us through the challenge of Shakespeare, with humor and in depth. Appreciated the humor but the water got too deep for me.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I received an advance reviewer’s copy of the ebook through NetGalley, and courtesy of the publisher Knopf. The book is available to the public starting today, April 21, 2026.

The other books on my nightstand over the last week:

NO OTHER BOOKS READ

Honestly, fitting the two featured books into this one week was enough.

TWO BOOKS I’M CURRENTLY READING

Nothing new to report here. The American Revolution and the Fate of the World by Richard Bell is still sitting on my nightstand waiting to be picked back up, and I haven’t yet plucked that sci-fi novella that I talked about last week off of my To Be Read list (Twice-Spent Comet by Ziggy Schutz).

WHAT’S NEXT

Next week I review The Madness Pill, a history of the search for a drug to address schizophrenia and other mental disorders.

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

Two books. Two different genres, and completely different subject matter. Yet the words “maybe together we can get somewhere” manage to capture both titles. Those words convey the spirit of determination in our once young country that led to the creation of National Road, while at the same time expressing the caution and dedication of the group of people struggling in the darkly oppressive universe of The Faith of Beasts.

The line is, or course, from the song Fast Car by Tracy Chapman. The first single released from Chapman’s debut album in 1988, the song reached number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Chapman’s version of the song has over one billion streams on Spotify and has been certified Platinum in six countries.

In 2023 the song was re-recorded by country music singer Luke Combs. His rendition won the Country Music Award for “Song of the Year”, making Chapman the first Black songwriter to ever win a CMA award. Combs manager noted that “Luke is a songwriter too and Tracy is one of his favorite artists”, while Chapman was quoted as saying “I'm happy for Luke and his success and grateful that new fans have found and embraced Fast Car.”

One of my best concert memories is of seeing Tracy Chapman perform in, I believe, the Chicago Theatre in the late 1990s or early 2000s with my now husband Tony. We were in the upper tier of seats, and I smile every time I remember being surrounded by a group of happy lesbians as we all jumped out of our seats to dance and sing out the chorus to Give Me One Reason.

You can hear Tracy Chapman perform Fast Car in the official music video here on YouTube.

Author Brady J. Crytzer calls himself a “specialist of the frontier history of North America” and if his latest book is an indication, it’s a very apt description. This book paints a vivid picture of the evolution of the American frontier from the days of Revolution through the mid to late 1800s.

The National Road takes us on an engaging journey into one of America’s most transformative early infrastructure projects. Crytzer has taken what could have been a dry account of roads and logistics and spun it into a highly readable narrative brimming with early American ambition, risk taking, and full-on nation building. The surveyors, settlers, travelers and politicians who people this history helped shape our early republic.

Crytzer writes with the assurance of a historian who has done his research, and the storytelling instincts of a talented narrator. The result is a tale of political debates, engineering challenges, and frontier dramas that gallops along without ever losing momentum.

Author and historian Brady J. Crytzer has written eight books about the early American frontier. (photo source: the author’s webpage: https://www.bradycrytzer.com/)

The “National Road” at the heart of this book is our country’s first ever federally funded interstate road. We are not talking about our current interstate highways, built as a result of the vision of President Eisenhower. This is a much earlier effort that goes all the way back to our first President, Washington, who dreamed of connecting the nation’s Eastern Seaboard with the edge of the frontier in the Northwest Territory - that early “western frontier” so far away over the Appalachians - in what today we call “the Midwest”.

This is the story of our early nation through the lens of its first significant infrastructure project, and it is so well done that I zipped right through it. Read it for its fascinating stories of a young United States, and for both its well-known and its forgotten history.

RATING: Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

OVERALL COMMENTS: A highly readable look at the story of our early nation through the lens of its first significant infrastructure project.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I received an advance reviewer’s copy of the ebook through NetGalley, and courtesy of the publisher Diversion Books. The book is available to the public starting today, April 14, 2026.

The Faith of Beasts is the second book in a planned trilogy series called The Captives War, written by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, the duo who write together under the pen name James S. A. Corey. I reviewed the first book, called The Mercy of Gods last June.

In that first book the authors, out of necessity, spent time creating the world of its characters, and explaining their place in it, before then dashing that world apart through an alien invasion, and sending those characters into strange and uncharted territory. With that already behind us, this second book is rooted not in spectacles of alien worlds or strange species, but in the moral and psychological weight placed on the humans at the center of the story.

James S. A. Corey is the pen name for the duo of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. The two authors originally collaborated on the book Leviathan Wakes in 2011, the first book in the Hugo Award winning series The Expanse, the basis for the multi-award-winning Syfy & Amazon TV series of the same name. Note that this picture is fairly dated - I think it is from their initial collaboration. But it remains the featured photo on their website. (Photo source: https://www.jamessacorey.com/)

Our heros are captives on an alien world, slaves to a race of beings - the Carryx - who do not care if they or the entire human species live or die. How they cope and what they do to survive continue to be the focus carried from the second half of the first book.

Somewhere off-stage is the “deathless enemy” of their captors, revealed in the first book through the presence of a “swarm” being who inhabits a human host, using that host as a vessel to conduct its spy mission. In The Faith of Beasts more about the deathless enemy is revealed.

This is a tightly paced book focused on well-written and empathetic characters. I liked it better than the first book. Read it for the smart, character-driven science fiction.

RATING: Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

OVERALL COMMENTS: The second book in The Captive’s War trilogy is a character-driven, fast paced science fiction novel. An absorbing, rewarding read from the duo who brought us The Expanse.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I received an advance reviewer’s copy of the ebook through NetGalley, and courtesy of the publisher Orbit Books. The book is available to the public starting today, April 14, 2026.

The other books on my nightstand over the last week:

NO OTHER BOOKS READ

Honestly, fitting the two featured books into this one week was a lot.

TWO BOOKS I’M CURRENTLY READING

As I thought last week, I’ve had to set aside The American Revolution and the Fate of the World by Richard Bell, but I’ll be eager to get back to it. There is also a sci-fi novella on my To Be Read list that keeps calling to me. It’s called Twice-Spent Comet by Ziggy Schutz. It was shared with me by indie publisher Meerkat Press, and I promise I’ll get to it soon.

WHAT’S NEXT

I have a whole bunch of reviewer’s copies stacked up for the next month and a half. Next week I’ll be reading and reviewing two of them - the sci-fi novel The Many by Canadian author Sylvain Neuvel and what looks to be a fun nonfiction read called If This Be Magic, subtitled “The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation”.

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

“Sharp words like knives” are hurled in a fight between parents in the 2015 song Broken Home. The song is from the second studio album released by the Australian band 5 Seconds of Summer. The band of four teenagers first gained fame by posting cover songs on YouTube. Here are two of the four (Calum Hood and Luke Hemmings) in a 2013 YouTube video covering Ed Sheeren’s The A-Team.

The band’s 2014 self-titled debut album reached number one on charts in ten countries, including the US and Canada, and represented the height of their popularity on this side of the Pacific. The band is probably best known in the US for their 2014 hit She Looks So Perfect.

Broken Home focuses on the breakdown of the relationship between two parents from the viewpoint of their child. The dysfunctional family relationship of today’s featured book is mostly between two sisters, with a father barely spoken of, and a mother who refuses to acknowledge the war raging between her daughters, as more than sharp words are hurled.

You can hear Broken Home here on YouTube.

Ellie has a problem. Well, she has several actually. First, her sister keeps trying to kill her. Second, her mother is in a coma. Third, her sister tasks her with a cleanup of the underpinnings of the universe that Ellie is not thrilled to take on, and which turns into more than she bargained for.

John Chu’s debut novel The Subtle Art of Folding Space combines the dysfunctional dynamics of an immigrant family with a physics-bending multiverse-spanning scf-fi crisis. Ellie’s family, it turns out, are part of an underground group of people who keep our universe humming along as it should be. They do this by designing, building, maintaining and verifying a series of, well, I’m not sure what to call them - some kind of machines - that stop anomalies from cropping up and knocking our reality for a loop.

The metaphors for all those machines come from the worlds of plumbing, mechanics and computer science. Ellie and her compatriots work on pipes, valves, gears, gates, etc. There is some internal logic to the concept Chu puts forth but it’s pseudoscience rather than “hard science” fiction in this part of the story.

The family dynamics however would seem to spring from Chu’s real-world knowledge or even personal experience. Chu is a gay Taiwanese American author. The family is Taiwanese American and one of the main characters is Ellie’s gay cousin Daniel.

John Chu is a Hugo and Nebula Award winning short story author. “The Subtle Art of Folding Space” is his debut novel. (photo source: Tor Publishing Author Page: https://torpublishinggroup.com/author/john-chu/)

The book is written with a light tone, and with plenty of comic relief. Even the explanations of what the machines do and why they need fixing are not too deep - just enough explanation is given to support the story. Like the pseudoscience of a Star Trek episode, the science-y mumbo jumbo sounds good coming out of the character’s mouths, even if the science itself may be suspect.

Star Trek seems like a good reference point. If you are a fan of Star Trek or are comfortable with the pseudoscience-y part of the science fiction / fantasy spectrum, then this book will be a natural fit for you. If you are more of a fan of the knights and dragons at the fantasy end of science fiction / fantasy, this book will likely be a stretch.

Despite the light tone and the pseudoscience, the family drama is fairly serious, and Ellie’s struggle with her sister seems plausible, and grounded in realistic family tensions. Resolving this drama is the heart of the book. I fell for both the family drama and the pseudoscience and found this a quick and enjoyable read.

RATING: Three Stars ⭐⭐⭐

OVERALL COMMENTS: Debut novel by the Hugo and Nebula Award winning short story author. Read it for the immigrant family drama and the quirky multiverse spanning sci-fi crisis.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I received an advance reviewer’s copy of the ebook through NetGalley, and courtesy of the publisher Tor Books. The book is available to the public starting today, April 07, 2026.

The other books on my nightstand over the last week:

ONE BOOK I’VE READ

I finished American Scoundrel, a biography of Dan Sickles. Sickles was a pre-Civil War New York politician. As a Tammany Hall Democrat, he was well liked by his constituents, but among his peers he earned a reputation for accumulating debt and frequenting ladies of the evening. He went on to marry (which did not put a stop to his sexual adventuring). But it was his wife’s infidelity that led to scandal, and then to murder. Sickles goes on from that to become an important figure for the Union during the Civil War.

The book bogs down during the murder trial but is otherwise entertaining and enlightening. It’s amazing both how much, and how little, social mores have changed in the last hundred and fifty-ish years. Three and a Half Stars ⭐⭐⭐🌠

TWO BOOKS I’M CURRENTLY READING

I’ve made some progress on the book The American Revolution and the Fate of the World by Richard Bell, but I’m afraid I may have to set it aside for a bit, because I have two others that I need to finish and review for you next week. Bell’s book has an interesting premise - that the American War for Independence was actually a World War in everything but name. I’ll be eager to get back to it.

WHAT’S NEXT

Next week I’ll be reviewing The National Road and The Faith of Beasts. The first is the story of the first highway built with federal funding. A vision of our first president, the National Road eventually stretched from Cumberland, Maryland to Vandalia, Illinois. The first time I ever heard of the National Road was when I encountered a portion it in Indiana. That portion forms part of the route of the one day 160-mile-long Ride Across INdiana (RAIN) organized bike ride, which I did one year back in the 2010s.

The second book I’ll review next week also happens to be the second in The Captive’s War series of sci-fi novels by James S.A. Corey, the nom de plume of the writing duo behind The Expanse novels.

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

We’re getting in the wayback machine and setting the dial to 1957 for the tune that gave us today’s review title. Put your cowboy hat on and get in a honky-tonk mood because the tune is George Jones’ classic country song Color of the Blues. The first time Jones recorded the song, in 1957, was for Mercury Records (he recorded it two more times as he changed recording labels. I guess he really liked the song).

The 1957 version features the fiddle intro that I always think of when I remember this tune. As a child I recall Jones’s songs often playing on the country music station that my dad’s radio was always tuned to in our house.

Jones may be most remembered for his marriage to and professional partnership with Tammy Wynette — she of Stand By Your Man fame. The couple married in 1969. Together they recorded seven albums of duets, and they were often referred to as the “President and First Lady” of country music (Wynette had a hit song called The First Lady in 1971). The two eventually separated, in part due to George’s alcoholism. Together and separately Jones and Wynette had several hit country tunes. She died in 1998, he passed away in 2013.

You can hear the 1957 version of Color of the Blues, here on YouTube.

Kory Stamper is a former associate editor for Merriam-Webster dictionaries and is the auther of Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries. For a time, she also was a presenter on Merriam-Webster’s online “Ask the Editor” videos. A true word-nerd full of “hard-earned vocabularic snark”, her writing in Word by Word was a pleasure to read. I gave it four stars on Goodreads back in 2018. Booklist called it a “spirited book about the science and art of making dictionaries. It is by turns amusing, frustrating, surprising, and above all, engrossing."

I’m happy to report that True Color is even more amusing, surprising and engrossing. In this book Stamper takes us on a deep dive into the definitions of color used in the Merriam-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. The Third, as she calls it, was published way back in 1961. During Stamper’s time there, Merriam-Webster began the work of revising the Third and it was then, she says, that her “love affair with color began”.

Kory Stamper, author, lexicographer and self-proclaimed word-nerd. True Color is her second book. (photo source: Penguin Random House Speaker’s Bureau web site: https://www.prhspeakers.com/meet-kory-stamper-lexicographer-author-word-word)

And so our journey begins. First, we take a deep dive into what exactly color is (how would you describe “green” to a blind person?). Then Stamper gives us a taste of the use of color words in the real world, where frustratingly different industries (dye, paint, fashion) use different words for the same color. And at last we arrive at the heart of the book where Stamper takes us through a history of the color definitions in Merriam-Webster dictionaries.

Lexicographers, it seems, are mostly overworked, detail-oriented folks. This is particularly true of those who work through the ranks to earn an editor’s title. In areas like color definitions, these editors reach out to acknowledged experts. In this case that would be another set of detail-oriented folks called color scientists. You might think stories featuring drudges characters like these, while they wrangle word definitions, would be boring. But in Stamper’s hands the quirky personalities shine, and their colorful stories come to life.

I flew through this book, and I think it will have wide appeal. Read it for your own inner word-nerd, and for the vocabularic snark, and care, that Stamper takes to reveal these fascinating stories of defining color.

RATING: Four and a half Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐🌠

OVERALL COMMENTS: Kory Stamper’s latest book is funny, entertaining and informative. Read it for your own inner word-nerd and the fascinating stories she reveals.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I received an advance reviewer’s copy of the ebook through NetGalley, and courtesy of the publisher Knopf. The book is available to the public starting today, March 31, 2026.

The other books on my nightstand over the last week:

ONE BOOK I’VE READ

I finished The Future Past by sh.chilli dreams that I mentioned last week. In my review on LibraryThing I called it an “unusual book” and said it “is lacking a coherent plot.” I also noted that LibraryThing and Everand both credit ChatGPT as editor, which may have something to do with the book’s shortcomings. Two Stars ⭐⭐

TWO BOOKS I’M CURRENTLY READING

I haven’t made any more progress on American Scoundrel, which as I mentioned last week has been on my To Read list for a long time. I will get back into it again this week.

I’ve just started The American Revolution and the Fate of the World by Richard Bell. The book was prominently displayed this past week on the desk of an American BBC video blogger whose US political coverage I like to follow (if you know you know). Anyway, that display reminded me that I had bought the book earlier this year and was eager to read it. At 360-ish pages of small print it might take a bit.

WHAT’S NEXT

Next week I’ll be reviewing The Subtle Art of Folding Space, the debut novel by the award winning sci-fi short story author John Chu. It’s blurbed to be a story of “generational trauma” wrapped up in a science fiction novel full of “unhinged physics” and “really good dim sum”. You can find a description of the book here.

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

Today’s review title takes us back again to the 1980s, this time for The Waterboys 1985 song The Whole of the Moon. Coming out toward the tail end of the New Wave era the song did not chart well at first. But over the late 80s it grew in popularity and has become one of the Scottish band’s most recognized tunes.

I remember this song playing in the bars and WLIR-influenced dance clubs of the Connecticut panhandle when I lived there in my 20s, back in the mid to late 1980s. (For those not familiar, WLIR was a Long Island-based radio station that played new wave and alternative songs well before other stations picked them up. They had a strong following among the subset of then young and urban professionals who didn’t see themselves as “yuppies”, which included me.)

The song is a tribute to those who inspire — those who are able and unafraid to take the leap the rest of us cannot. For me the song fits today’s book for just that reason. Ariosto profiles a number of brilliant folks in this book who are on the leading edge of humanity’s space ventures, doing things well beyond my more modest capabilities.

See the Waterboys perform the song on the official music video here on YouTube.

On February 15, 2024, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took off from Kennedy Space Center. On board was Odysseus, a moon lander built and operated by the American space exploration company Intuitive Machines (IM). When the lander successfully touched down near Malpert-A crater, 190 miles from the moon’s south pole, it became the first craft to soft land on the moon by a private company. It was also the first American spacecraft to land on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. Though it landed on an angled surface causing a 30-degree tilt of the lander, it remained functional and the mission was deemed a success.

Much of Open Space covers the current focus of space agencies around the world, and of the private space industry, on the importance of the moon. It is, once again, seen as a steppingstone to exploration of the rest of the solar system. The landing of Odysseus on the moon is the capstone of that portion of the book. It is, author David Ariosto says, a key part of an ongoing race to the moon between the US and China. He explores the current capabilities of the Chinese state run space program, and its main competitors. Those include NASA, of course, but his focus is on the host of private companies who today form the space exploration industry mostly based in the US.

“Open Space” is the second book for journalist and author David Ariosto (photo source: author’s web site: https://www.davidariosto.com/about-5-1)

Ariosto then looks at what might be next after conquering the moon. He explores current thinking (and capabilities) for journeying to Mars, and then potentially on into interstellar space. Most of what he reviews is current science and technology and makes for interesting reading. The most “out there” is his coverage of the potential (and its currently ALL potential) for a Star Trek inspired “warp drive”.

The book is well researched and well laid out. For a science geek it’s a fascinating read. For anyone interested in the space industry it’s a worthwhile read, with the caveat that Ariosto’s deep dives may be a little too deep for casual readers. I was surprised, given the timing of its arrival, that there is comparatively little here about the Artemis program.

Read it for the deep dive into the current state of the space race, and the ongoing achievements that don’t get the headlines they deserve.

RATING: Three Stars ⭐⭐⭐

OVERALL COMMENTS: A journalist’s deep dive into the current state of the space race and ongoing space exploration that we seldom see in the headlines.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I received an advance reviewer’s copy of the ebook through NetGalley, and courtesy of the publisher Knopf. The book is available to the public starting today, March 24, 2026.

The other books on my nightstand over the last week:

ONE BOOK I’VE READ

Not the Usual Suspects was a gift from a friend. Subtitled Beyond the Batterer: Abusive Power in Politics, it’s written by Michigan-based author Pamela Jayne. She has spent over 10 years working with domestic abuse victims and batterers and focuses her understanding of batterers on power hungry politicians. Trump is definitely in her sights, and as she lays out her case, you’ll find yourself nodding at the number of similar behaviors that Trump, and his coterie of money and power mad hangers-on, have with domestic abusers. Independently published and a quick read. Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

TWO BOOKS I’M CURRENTLY READING

The Future Past by sh.chilli dreams (yes, that’s how they call themselves) is an independently published book that I won through a giveaway on LibraryThing. It promises to be a blend of ”romance, loss and time-bending sci-fi”. I’m fifty pages and so far it’s mostly romance. I am liking the writing style even as I don’t think I’ve hit the heart of the book yet.

Finally, American Scoundrel has been on my To Read list for a long time. I’ve picked it up and read bits at least twice before. I’ve picked it up again and am now about a third of the way through. The cover blurb calls this a true story of “murder, love and politics in Civil War America”. Hoping to finish in the next couple of weeks (in between other books).

WHAT’S NEXT

Next week I’ll be reviewing True Color by Kory Stamper. It promises to be an entertaining read from one of America’s favorite lexicographers. You can find a description of the book here.

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

Today’s review title comes from the 1989 song Birdhouse in Your Soul, the alternative rock hit from the band They Might Be Giants. The song hit #3 on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart, and #6 on the UK Singles chart. It was the band’s biggest hit in both countries.

The song may be the only one you’ll ever hear written from the viewpoint of the nightlight in your bedroom. A catchy, danceable tune with quirky lyrics it was the kind of song you either loved or hated from the first listen. The music video for the song was just as quirky as the lyrics, as you can see in this YouTube video.

The nightlight of the song, in the shape of a blue canary, invites us to build it a birdhouse in our soul - to take it as a friend and care for it (quirky, remember). But it fits today’s book because birds, as the author shows, have not always received the love, or care of humans.

On September 1, 1914 Martha, the last living carrier pigeon, died in a cage at the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens. She was the last of her kind. At one time carrier pigeons flew in flocks so large they could block out the sun for hours as they passed overhead. In 1814 a roost of pigeons was reported near Shelbyville, Kentucky that was several miles wide and forty miles long. Carrier pigeons numbered in the billions.

So how is it that carrier pigeons, once so numerous, became extinct? In one word - humans. We considered pigeons nuisance birds and hunted them ruthlessly. That large roost near Shelbyville, once discovered, was hunted day and night.

When the carrier pigeons died out, many eyes were opened to the other bird species well on their way to extinction. Canada geese were one species that had been all but eliminated in the wild.

The author begins The Feather Wars at the Seney National Wildlife Refuge in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It was there, in 1936 that a group of Canada geese was penned, carefully cared for over a breeding season, and reintroduced to the wild. Over decades a migratory breeding population was fully established at Seney, part of the revival of this bird species.

Journalist and Journalism Professor James H. McCommons (photo source: author’s web site: https://www.jamesmccommons.com/biography)

The book takes us from the end of the Civil War through the Great Depression, and beyond, to tell the story of how Americans went from wholesale bird slaughter to dedicated bird conservation. Each of the book’s chapters highlights individuals who had a prominent role in one or the other. There are plenty of colorful characters and interesting stories along the way.

One of the colorful characters is Edward Avery McIlhenney, who is most famous for putting Tabasco Sauce on American kitchen tables. But he also funded and established bird refuges along the Louisiana coast and he played a large role in saving the snowy egret from extinction. After establishing the refuges, he then bought property in the midst of them and proposed building a large, exclusive “hunt club” for the primary purpose of shooting birds the refuges were sheltering. McIlhenney, the author says, encompassed all the contradictions of bird preservation and hunting. The two continue to be intertwined today, with fees from hunting licenses funding many preservation projects.

I really enjoyed this book. Viewing American history through this prism - through our treatment of the creatures around us - is telling. But I suspect a book about bird hunting and preservation is not for everyone. That’s a shame because it’s well told and full of interesting stories.

Read it for the colorful characters, and for the telling view into American history.

RATING: Three and a Half Stars ⭐⭐🌠

OVERALL COMMENTS: How America’s nineteenth century war on birds turned into 20th century bird preservation. Full of colorful characters, it’s an insightful view into American history.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I received an advance reviewer’s copy of the ebook through NetGalley, and courtesy of the publisher St. Martin’s Press. The book is available to the public starting today, March 17, 2026.

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

Today’s review title comes from the 1980 song Time Out of Mind, from the artsy, jazzy rock band Steely Dan. This was the last hit song for the band before Walter Becker and Donald Fagen split up. The song has been described by some as an ode to heroin, and Becker was addicted at the time - part of the reason for the breakup. But the lyrics are otherworldly, allowing the listener to form their own interpretation, while the tune is upbeat and danceable.

Becker and Fagen did reunite and tour as Steely Dan. Here they are, on this YouTube video from 2003, performing the song in concert at the legendary Pine Knob amphitheater in Michigan. Becker passed away in 2017 at the age of 67.

Whether it describes a heroin trip or some otherworldly experience, the song is a perfect fit for today’s book, which can best be described as a mind trip, and in which the author puts his own spin on the phrase “time out of mind”.

At what point in time does a memory exist? That’s the question posed by the psychologist Dr. Gordon Raine to his patient Edyn in Afterglow. This new novella is the first book from indie author Troy Kotanides, who calls it a “psychological fiction novel”.

Edyn finds himself in the Pacific Northwest in the 1990s, suffering from a form of amnesia. He can’t remember anything that happened to him before the past year. The farthest back he can recall, his first memory, is seeking refuge in a warehouse near the docks in a sleepy coastal town. Taken in by the dock manager, who accepts Edyn’s story of lost memory, he establishes a life for himself while being haunted by visions.

So, he turns to Dr. Raine for help in recapturing his past, while not completely trusting him with every detail of his visions. His primary vision is of a woman speaking to him high on a hilltop. Who she is and what she is saying is very hazy at first.

We follow along as Edyn, with some nudging from Raine, begins to unpeel the layers of memory to take himself back to his past. But not everything is at it seems.

As the book unfolds events in Edyn’s daily life are interspersed with visions and aural experiences. He remembers more and more about the hilltop scene, and the author interjects with snippets of what the woman said to Edyn. The snippets start with only the final part of what she said, and as they repeat they expand further back until the whole of what she said is revealed.

Indie author and first-time novelist Troy Kotanides (photo source: Author’s LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/troy-kotanides-b99641110/)

The expanding snippets were the cleverest bit of plotting from this first-time author. It clearly showed the progress Edyn was making peeling back the layers of his memory. The doctor felt like the weakest plot device. Every suggestion the doctor made was followed by Edyn’s visions revealing what the doctor felt Edyn needed to experience next.

Edyn’s visions begin to grow larger and longer. He goes through many experiences in what seems to be an alternate reality. He follows paths surrounded by darkness with only a pulsating swirl of light to guide him. He enters dark rooms where bright screens display haunting images. He sees visions of vine-covered structures transforming into decaying cities.

Finally, as we near the end, a whole new understanding of what Edyn is experiencing comes into view. With that the book takes an unexpected turn toward a cautionary conclusion.

The author stresses the psychological nature of the book, but a “psychedelic fiction novel” may be a more apt description. The book reads like I would expect an acid trip might feel, especially the visions Edyn experiences. Though having no experience with acid I cannot say for certain.

There is a certain 1960s experimental writing feel to the events unfolding in the book. Yet the style of writing reminded me more of late-1950’s pulp science fiction, having the kind of old-fashioned formal wording you might find in an old short short story, perhaps one called “Mission to the Inner Realm”. I have a feeling there are hidden meanings to the names in the story, and references in Edyn’s visions that I did not get. Suffice it to say parts of this book didn’t “click with me”.

It’s a short book. Read it for the psychedelic vibe, and for the cautionary ending.

RATING: Two and a Half Stars ⭐⭐🌠

OVERALL COMMENTS: A new novella from a first-time, indie author. A psychological, psychedelic adventure with an unexpected and cautionary ending.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I received an advance reviewer’s copy of the ebook through NetGalley, and courtesy of the indie publisher Glass Spider Publishing. The book is available to the public starting today, March 10, 2026.

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

Today’s review title comes from the infectious 1979 Queen song Don’t Stop Me Now, a rocking paean to having a good time. The song exudes happiness, confidence and energy like no other. It was not an immediate hit but has grown in popularity over time as it has featured in numerous ads, TV shows and movies. It now ranks as one of Queen’s most beloved tunes. In September of 2024 the European “Grand Jam” took up the song, performed by 1,000 musicians in this YouTube video.

For me this performance expresses the theme of today’s book, as the team of musicians, motivated by their love of the song (as opposed to money), set out to make something good. Besides, it’s also just happy and fun, feelings that are in somewhat short supply right now.

Michael Lewis teams up with seven other authors in Who is Government? The book is a set of stories about the good work done by dedicated individuals within our Federal government.

Lewis has two other books that mine the rich vein of stories presented by the wide-ranging work done by our government. Published in 2018, The Fifth Risk is built on stories originally written for Vanity Fair. That book focused on examples of outstanding work done inside the Federal bureaucracies. Kirkus Reviews called it “a searing indictment of… Trump’s disastrous administration.”

If that book made you feel good about the work of federal employees, the follow up book The Premonition made you feel the opposite. Published in 2022, it tells the story of a group of brilliant scientists known as the Wolverines. They try to help the country through the COVID crisis but are caught within a broken public health system. In my review of that book I said it “reads like a thriller” and “had me hooked from the start.”

In Who is Government?, Lewis recruits seven other authors who return to the promise of The Fifth Risk. The book contains feel-good narratives, all but one of which first appeared as 2024 feature stories in The Washington Post. The focus here is on stories of exceptional work done by dedicated individuals who rise to meet unmet needs or answer a call to serve.

Michael Lewis is the author of several best-selling nonfiction books including Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Big Short and The Fifth Risk (photo source: the author’s website: https://www.michaellewiswrites.com)

Of the eight stories my favorites were the first two. The first covers Christopher Marks' years-long effort to identify causes for roof collapses in coal mines. His efforts to not only find causes but also ways to stop collapses finally paid off in 2016. That was the first year in which no deaths were recorded due to coal mine roof collapses.

The second story focuses on Ronald Walters of the VA’s National Cemetery Administration. It’s the story of his dogged focus on customer service for our fallen heroes and their families. Walters and his employees show selfless service in pursuit of that goal. Under his leadership the National Cemetery Administration has topped the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index seven times. Most recently they did it with a score of 97 - the highest any organization of any kind has ever achieved.

That second story sums up the message of the book. Public servants are not the shiftless caricature we've been told. Public service is not populated by underachievers who would never make it in the private sector. Clock punching loafers, looking forward to retirement. Instead, there are real stories to be told of high achievers, whose quiet dedication can and sometimes does achieve excellence.

Read it for the interesting stories, and for a feel-good dose of reality in these post-DOGE times.

The seven other authors in this anthology are: Casey Cep, Dave Eggers, John Lanchester, Geraldine Brooks, Sarah Vowell and W. Kamau Bell.

RATING: Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

OVERALL COMMENTS: Eight unexpected and inspiring stories about the essential work being done by exemplary federal employees. An excellent follow up to Lewis’s The Fifth Risk.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I purchased a hardcover copy of the book at Barnes and Noble on a recent trip to Missouri.

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

Today’s review title comes from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 1989 hit tune I Won’t Back Down. The song went to #1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart. You can hear the tune and see Tom Petty sing on the official music video on YouTube. The video features George Harrison on guitar, Jeff Lynne on bass and Ringo Starr on drums. Harrison and Lynne did perform on the album, but the drumming was by Phil Jones, who often performed with Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Matt Kaplan has been a science correspondent for The Economist for twenty years. Before that, as he tells us in the Introduction to his new book I Told You So, he studied paleontology. He even participated in fossil digs with the University of California, while pursuing a PhD. But he chose to leave the field and pursue science journalism after he was awarded a Knight Fellowship at MIT in that field and left the PhD unfinished.

As a result, Kaplan is well steeped in science, the scientific method, and writing. This book feels like it was a passion project for him, and in a good way. It feels as if it must be the culmination of all his interests, coalescing onto the page.

The topic here is scientists who had a hard time proving to their colleagues that they are right. Scientists who were “ridiculed, exiled and imprisoned for being right”, as the subtitle explains.

I love books that explain science to the layman, or that trace the history of a specific avenue of scientific discovery. This book is a bit different. It’s a critique of the practice of science by scientists who are all too human.

Like the rest of us they are prone to power trips and office politics. The incentives that guide them don't always favor good science or new discoveries. And as the book lays out, this is a tale as old as science.

Author Matt Kaplan (photo source: the author’s website: https://www.somuchsciencesolittletime.com/about)

Kaplan organizes this book in an unexpected way. Rather than tackling cases one by one in a historical framework, he intertwines the stories. Between his stories he often takes us to the present day. He relates conversations with scientists who feel the same pressures as their forebears. He reveals stories from active scientists who have overcome the same hurdles as scientists in his stories set a hundred or more years in the past.

By structuring the book this way Kaplan emphasizes the continuity of the problem. And it’s a problem that, as some of the stories show, can have a cost in lost human lives.

The scientific method is fact-based, based on trial and error, and based on amassing evidence to support a conclusion - a scientific theory. If later someone else uncovers evidence that disputes your conclusion, as a scientist you are meant to be open to that. Scientists should follow the truth, wherever it leads.

But scientists are also trying to build careers. They are competing for funding for their research. They are looking to build prestige by publishing papers, and having their papers cited by their peers. If their research is contradicted by some young upstart scientist, well then you can't expect them to just accept it. Right?

Alas, when careers and money are at stake sometimes people don't always do what they should do.

Which begs the question of what can be done about it? In his final chapter Kaplan provides his take on that. He describes some things that are currently being tried. Like a good scientist, he also offers a different view from another scientist.

Read it for the interesting stories, and to learn a bit about the challenges of doing science right.

RATING: Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

OVERALL COMMENTS: Science is hard work, and breakthroughs can meet with resistance. This is a well-researched, thoughtfully done book on the topic by an experienced author of science for the nonexpert. I was hooked by it almost from the start.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I received an advance review copy of this book through NetGalley and courtesy of the publisher, St. Martin’s Press. The book is available to the public starting today.

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

Today’s review title comes from Cyndi Lauper’s first #1 hit, the 1984 release Time After Time. You can hear the tune and see the perfectly 1980s Lauper-esque 5-minute love story of the official music video on YouTube.

When I read the first "Madders of Time" book, called Hive, I praised the author’s skill at character building. (You can find my review of that book here.) As a reader you get a strong sense of these characters. This is a series of books built around the author’s interest in multiverses and time travel. Those concepts that can be difficult to grasp, so having characters you can root for is a must.

I also expressed my frustration at the cliffhanger ending. That was almost a year ago, but this week I picked up the sequel and learned what happened next.

Book 2, called Jump, is full of action as the world around these characters is verging on apocalypse. The main characters, Diego and Isabel built a relationship in the first book. But were forcibly separated at the end, and spend much of Jump finding their way back to one another.

Other returning characters are Dave, Isabel’s first husband and an end-of-capitalism evil tech titan, scientist Matthew Hudson, his daughter Cassandra, and more. They are joined by some new characters. Phil, a traumatized scientist who had worked on the first time travel project joins the good guys. Evil tech-bro Dave is joined by Yuki, his Japanese counterpart. Yuki proves to be much more capable of carrying out some of Dave’s more nefarious plans.

Still the only likeness publicly available of author D. L. Orton. (Photo source: the author’s website: https://dlorton.com/author/)

We also meet the Artificial Intelligence called Guardian. This AI will eventually be known as Madders, as it is influenced by Matthew Hudson. Madders, who uses “peeper” technology to see across timelines, is the ostensible author of the book.

Madders begins each chapter with a summary of the further deterioration of the world, and an assessment of how closely events are adhering to the original timeline. Each chapter is then told in the first person, from the viewpoint of the character Madders is peeping on.

Diego and Isabel’s journey back to each other is the heart of this book. As the story progresses it becomes increasingly clear that Diego holds the key to averting the looming end of humanity. That point is driven home by a couple of other characters, time traveling alternate versions of Diego who appeared in the first book but play a much larger role here.

This book ends on a cliffhanger just like the first one. However, in my opinion, it’s a much more natural place for the book to end, as it helps to emphasize the centrality of the relationship of Diego and Isobel. The series gets all its atmospherics from the time travel and the multiverse and the futuristic bot tech. It plays the capitalism-gone-too-far card for its bad guys. But at its heart it’s a love story.

I can’t wait to see what Book 3 will bring.

RATING: Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

OVERALL COMMENTS: Book 2 of this multiverse time-travelling series puts Diego and Isobel’s love to the test as they must struggle to find their way back to each other.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I received a review copy of this book as part of the online book tour by from TheWriteReads.

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

Today’s review title comes from David Bowie’s 1971 song Changes. You can hear the tune and see the official lyric video on YouTube.

Picture this - its 1971 and the military services “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy is fifteen years in the future. It is officially illegal to be gay while serving in any of the military branches, and in much of America for that matter, even though the Stonewall “riot” is two years in the past.

You are an insecure, gay 19-year-old whose best friend Dale — who is straight and comes from a military family — has just told you he is joining the Marines and heading off to boot camp for the entire summer. But all you hear is “summer” and “camp” and you impetuously decide to sign up with him.

So begins Greg Cope White’s 2016 book The Pink Marine. It’s the quintessential coming-of-age tale, but with a “closeted teenager at boot camp” twist. A gentle humor carries the book and likely masks the terror of being found gay that Cope must have felt while going through training at Parris Island. The result is a great read with appeal to anyone who remembers what it was like to be a timid kid unsure of how you’d ever fit into this world.

Author Greg Cope White poses with actor Miles Heizer, who played the lead character Camaron Cope in the Netflix miniseries “Boots”, based on “The Pink Marine”. (Photo source: Article on the website Gay.It - https://www.gay.it/the-pink-marine-boots-storia-vera-marine-gay-greg-cope-white-libro-serie-tv)

What Cope does have is obstinance, and an overwhelming desire not to let his best friend down. His first challenge is putting on some weight - he learns at the Marine recruiter’s office that he is fourteen pounds below the minimum weight to enter the Marines. With Dale’s help he crosses this first hurdle in the eight days before Dale goes to boot camp, ensuring they can both go together on the “buddy system”, which will keep them together through boot camp.

The rest of the book is a boots-on-the-ground memoir of Cope’s 13 weeklong basic training experience. As the weeks go by and the difficult challenges of boot camp somehow get met, Cope’s confidence begins to build. He starts to realize that he will come out of boot camp an entirely different person than he was when he went in. But still gay, of course, and unfortunately still having to remain closeted.

If you’ve seen last fall’s Netflix miniseries Boots, based on Cope’s book, then many of the scenes here will be familiar to you. But I would say the Netflix version, which I have seen, is a “loose” adaptation, and one that changes some significant parts of the story line. I found the book to have a more authentic feel, and to better reflect the times of the early 1970s, when men were men, and no one would ever think that a gay man could make it as a Marine.

RATING: Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

OVERALL COMMENTS: A gentle humor carries this quintessential coming-of-age tale with a “closeted teenager at boot camp” twist.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I read this book on my ereader through Kobo Plus.

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

[For the past several reviews I’ve picked a song lyric as the title of my review post. It’s been fun looking for songs that reflect the book I’ve read, and I hope it gives you the review reader a bit of fun too, and a catchy tune to take with you through your day.]

How many songs can you think of that are about detectives? Two come to my mind.

First, there’s Elvis Costello’s Watching the Detectives, his late 1970s tune (and his first to chart in the UK. He has said the song was inspired by American detective TV shows and an all-nighter listening to the Clash’s first album.

Second, we’ve got Private Investigations the 1982 hit by Dire Straits. Mark Knopfler, lead singer and lyricist for the band, has not been too forthcoming about the song’s inspiration, but it’s often seen as an homage to the works of author Raymond Chandler and his fictional detective Philip Marlowe. While the lyrics are open to interpretation, the music video has elements that look close to a detective story, though they aren’t the homage to old-time detective movies the way Costello’s video was.

Those are the only two I can think of. Sure, there may be other pop songs that have detective-ish themes (Private Eyes by Hall & Oates for example), but none I can think of that so directly tie into the detective stories found in books.

So today’s title comes from the lyrics of the Dire Straits tune, my favorite of the two. You can hear the tune and see the official music video (what a flashback to the 80s!) on this YouTube video.

The Reinvented Detective is a collection of short detective stories set in science fiction or fantasy worlds. There are 22 works in the collection, arranged in sections called “Reports”, “Artifacts”, and “Judgements”. Each of the three sections starts with a poem, leaving 19 detective stories in the book.

Science fiction short stories collections have a long history. Many of the most famous twentieth-century sci-fi writers got their start writing short stories for pulp magazines like Astounding Stories, Other Worlds or The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Robert Heinlein, Issac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke all got their start writing short stories for these and other pulp magazines. Later these short stories would be gathered up and published in book form for a new generation of readers (folks born in the 1960s or later, like me.)

Cat Rambo, one of the editors of The Reinvented Detective was co-editor from 2007 to 2011 of Fantasy Magazine, an online successor to those early pulp magazines. She also writes fantasy herself, as does Jennifer Brozek, the other editor of today’s book.

Eidtor Jennifer Brozek is also an award-winning author, and media tie-in writer. She has been a full-time freelance author and editor for over seventeen years. (Photo source: the author’s webpage: https://jenniferbrozek.com/)

Cat Rambo is a sci-fi and fantasy writer. Their work includes short stories, novelettes and collaborations. Cat won the Nebula Award for the 2013 work "Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain" (Photo source: the author’s webpage: https://www.catrambo.com/)

Rambo and Brozek set out to collect detective stories from 23 mostly science fiction and fantasy authors (a few stories are co-authored, thus more authors than stories). Most, if not all, of the stories were purpose-written for this collection. Writing detective stories is not necessarily in these authors’ wheelhouses, though in the short author bios at the end of the collection at least one confessed to a lifelong love of cozy mysteries.

As with any collection of stories, you are going to like some more than others. Personal favorites for me included The Gardner’s Mystery: Notes from a Journal, Overclocked Holmes and In the Shadow of the Great Days. The first, by Lisa Morton, is the story set in a bio-engineered caste society, where a “Level 4” gardener, plays detective against her caste. The second, co-authored by Sarah Day and Tim Pratt, tells the story of an Holmesian AI detective who meets her Moriarty in another AI. The third story, by Harry Turtledove, is set in a future dystopian Boston where the mystery is just one aspect of a multi-layered story.

And Go Ask A.L.I.C.E. was a lot of fun too. By Lydia Morehouse, it’s the story of what happens after a run-in between a cop and a “real girl” streetwalker in a time where in-person sex work is restricted to robots.

I’d happily read book length stories based on the characters and settings of these four. Others are perfect as short stories. Some tried to capture a noir detective vibe, others went for the big city cop story, others took their own direction, but all blended sci-fi with some sort of mystery story. I have to say I found them all enjoyable.

The great thing about short story collections is you can read one story, go off and live your life, then come back and read another and not worry that you’ve lost the thread of the book. Perfect for winter nights in front of the fire interrupted by episodes of Star Fleet Academy or A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, or the English detective show (on PBS of course) Bookish.

RATING: Three Stars ⭐⭐⭐

RATING COMMENTS: A collection of detective stories from 23 sci-fi and fantasy writers. Like any collection you’ll have your favorites but I found them all enjoyable.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I read a reviewer’s ebook copy provided through Edelweiss by the publisher Caezik SF &Fantasy.

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

[For the past several reviews I’ve picked a song lyric as the title of my review post. It’s been fun looking for songs that reflect the book I’ve read, and I hope it gives you the reader a bit of fun too, and a catchy tune to take with you through your day.]

Today’s book tells the story of Abraham, a Black Seminole and his role in the Seminole Wars. Many Black Seminoles were originally enslaved to the Creek nation but escaped south to Florida where they were accepted by the indigenous people of the area.

Those people were a mix of Creek, Chickasaw, Tallahassee and Miccosukee tribe members, a number of whom were banished from their original tribes or had migrated south to Florida for their own reasons. All these people together, indigenous and Black came to be called Seminoles.

Abraham was a leader of the Black Seminoles fighting (and negotiating) with the US Army during the American government’s attempted removal of the Seminoles from Florida to Indian Territory.

Fight the Power, the rap song that today’s review title comes from, was created by Public Enemy in 1989 at the request of Spike Lee, for his film Do the Right Thing. Lee was looking for an anthemic song for his film about racial tension in a Brooklyn neighborhood. Inspired by the 1975 Isley Brothers song of the same name, Public Enemy’s rap tune contains numerous samples, typical of a Public Enemy tune.

The theme of the song - the need to fight the illegitimate use of power, and the fact that it’s sung by Black rappers, provides a fitting connection to Abraham from today’s book. You can hear the original release from the film soundtrack on this YouTube video.

The subtitle of today’s book makes reference to “America’s Forgotten War”, America’s attempt, beginning in 1835, to remove the Seminoles from the land they occupied in Florida to what was then called the Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma. The war with the Seminoles is often seen as three separate wars, each of which happened for three different reasons.

The first war was an attempt by the US Army to recapture escaped slaves living among the Seminoles. While largely unsuccessful in capturing slaves this war did result in Spain ceding the territory of Florida to the US.

The second Seminole war focused on removal of the Seminoles in total - including their Black neighbors. The effort lasted seven years and cost the US government between 40 and $60 million (between $1.5 and $2 billion of today’s dollars). This war resulted in the negotiated removal of a significant number of Seminoles (over 3,500), but a band of mostly Miccosukee people did not agree and eluded US forces by hiding in the swamps of the Everglades.

The third Seminole war was a set of skirmishes between the US Army forces and the remnants of the Seminoles. It was the final attempt by the US to force those who remained to move west. In the end, all but about 200 indigenous people agreed to relocate.

Along with “The Free and the Dead”, Jamie Holmes has authored “12 Seconds of Silence”, and “Nonsense”. (Photo credit: Delio Bartolucci Boyle, Photo source: the author’s webpage: https://www.jamieholmesbooks.com/about)

Holmes’ book The Free and the Dead focuses mainly on the second Seminole War and the role of Abraham, a free Black American whose importance in the conflict has been overlooked by history, while the warrior Osceola’s role in the conflict was widely heralded at the time and has overshadowed Abraham.

Abraham was an interpreter and Sense Bearer (akin to prime minister) for Micanopy, the overall leader of the Seminoles. Abraham himself was also considered the chief of the Black Seminoles.

While the Black Seminoles were nominally slaves, especially to the outside world, the indigenous Seminoles treated them better than white Americans treated indentured servants. They were recognized as friends and neighbors. Children of Black Seminoles were not considered enslaved at birth but were recognized as free among their Seminole neighbors.

After months of fighting, in March of 1836, Micanopy and Abraham agreed that the Seminoles should lay down arms and go west. Others, including Osceola and the wily Miccosukee chief Abiaka were not so sure. While Abraham and Micanopy led the negotiations with the Army, Abiaka and his rebels, including Osceola, continued the fight as they hid deeper and deeper in the swamplands to thwart the attempts of the Army to take them.

Osceola was eventually captured and later died while imprisoned, but Abiaka continued to hold out. Skirmishes with the remaining Seminoles continued until 1842.

Holmes has clearly done a lot of research and gives a pretty thorough account of events on the ground in the second Seminole War. You get a strong sense of the frustration of the US Army, which lost 1,500 men, and the spirit of the Seminoles.

Frustratingly, I found the book lacking in context. Holmes doesn’t take those events and draw any larger meaning from them. It’s easy to get lost in the “this happened, then this happened” events. I would hazard a guess that the author got too close to the story and to his research materials and perhaps didn’t realize most of his readers would not be so in tune.

I do have to say though that he does clearly articulate, and document his case, that Osceola’s role was much less than it was portrayed in the press of the time, when many American civilians considered him a heroic Indian warrior. Abraham’s role on the other hand was larger and less appreciated at the time, at least outside of the Army people he dealt with, largely due to racism.

In the end I found this an interesting look at a chapter of American history that does not get much talked about today. It would be an excellent book for those with an interest in Florida or in the Indian Removal Act and how it was implemented by President Andrew Jackson. It is most interesting for its portrayal of the difference in treatment of Blacks by the US South and by the Seminoles, whose notions of slavery were very different.

RATING: Three Stars ⭐⭐⭐

RATING COMMENTS: A well-researched account of the second Seminole War and the role of the Black Seminole Abraham in it. The book is most interesting for its portrayal of the difference in treatment of Blacks by the US South and by the Seminoles, whose notions of slavery were very different.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I read an advanced reviewer’s ebook copy of this book provided through NetGalley by the publisher Atria Books. The Free and the Dead is available to the public today, February 3rd.

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

[For the past several reviews I’ve picked a song lyric as the title of my review post. It’s been fun looking for songs that reflect the book I’ve read, and I hope it gives you the reader a bit of fun too, and a catchy tune to take with you through your day.]

Today’s book takes the ideals of the American Revolution as it’s starting point, showing how those ideals have grown and changed, and faced setbacks over time, from the ratification of the Constitution all the way up to the Civil War. What comes across in many of the episodes in this book is how much that evolution relies on the words of the Declaration of Independence.

In 1970 the musical group Fifth Dimension came out with their Portrait album, which included the biggest hit of the group’s history One Less Bell to Answer. That song featured Marilyn McCoo as lead singer, and changed the direction of the group, and positioned her for future success on her own.

Also on that album is the only song I know of that set the words of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence to music, and it’s actually, surprisingly perhaps, better than you might expect. The song is The Declaration, and from its lyrics comes the title for today’s review.

I know I’m cheating a little bit here by picking a song lyric that’s also a line from the Declaration of Independence, but I just couldn’t resist. If you’ve never heard this song from the Fifth Dimension, take a listen to this YouTube video, and prepare yourself for some early 1970’s pop music.

Many Americans view the Constitution as the culmination of the American Revolution - a free nation laying down the rules of the government (and with the subsequent adoption of the Bill of Rights the rights of the governed) after gaining its freedom from the British.

And while that’s true, we as a people take more inspiration from the document that lays out the case for Revolution at its birth - the Declaration of Independence. With the soaring language of its preamble, the Declaration declares the “self-evident” truth that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The preamble to the Declaration lays out the promise, while the Constitution tries to box in the reality.

Thomas Richards Jr’s new book The Unfinished Business of 1776 takes a look at the promises of the Revolution and how Americans have interpreted it and expanded on that promise over time. The book looks at nine different events in the nation’s history and how they were shaped by the dreams of the Revolution and evolved the American reality as our nation grew.

Author and historian Thomas Richards Jr. (Photo source: the author’s Academia webpage: https://temple.academia.edu/ThomasRichardsJr)

Those events range from the ratification of the Constitution and the fight over whether there should be a Bill of Rights, to the Whiskey Rebellion, an early fight for Women’s Right to Vote, an early thwarted slave rebellion, the election of Andrew Jackson and the start of the two-party system, and on up to the Civil War, which Richards calls “the Second American Revolution”.

Some of these moments in our history are well documented, with entire books written about them. Others, like the Relief War in Kentucky and the fate of a splinter group of Mormons who settled in Texas rather than Utah, are less well known.

Richards says that he highlighted these events as they each help to explore a particular promise of the Revolution, as well as for their geographic, chronological and demographic diversity. As such, they do cohere into a telling portrait of our country’s history and the evolution of the promises of the Revolution. Some promises advance, some rights are gained, while others fall away.

Richards takes what could be a dry subject and turns it into a collection of interesting stories. I liked this book more than I thought I would - it’s a great read for our country’s semiquincentennial year (if that’s not a term you’ve heard before you will soon - it just means our 250th year).

RATING: Three and a Half Stars ⭐⭐⭐🌠

RATING COMMENTS: This collection of nine moments in our nation’s history sheds a light on the evolution of the promises of the American Revolution.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I read an advanced reviewer’s ebook copy of this book provided through Edelweiss by the publisher New Press.

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

[For the past several reviews I’ve picked a song lyric as the title of my review post. It’s been fun looking for songs that reflect the book I’ve read, and I hope it gives you the reader a bit of fun too, and a catchy tune to take with you through your day.]

Secrets are a big factor in the plot of today’s book, which revolves around the heroine of Colm Tóibín’s 2009 novel Brooklyn, a story that went on to become a movie of the same name. In the new book Eilis Lacey learns of a secret that sends her back to Ireland, where she (and those around her) keeps many secrets as she sparks an old flame.

The title for today’s review comes from the 1995 song Secret Garden by Bruce Springsteen. The song is sung from a man’s point of view and highlights the risks of falling for a woman who keeps secrets. Springsteen warns that the woman’s “secret garden” may have everything a man wants and needs, but she’ll always keep it “a million miles away.” The gentle pace of the song along with its lyrical impact is a perfect fit for today’s book.

Secret Garden was featured in the hit 1996 movie Jerry Maguire which caused the tune to chart for a second time in two years, climbing to number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100. This YouTube video of the song features scenes from the movie.

Eilis (pronounced “Aye-lish”) Lacey was the main character in Colm Tóibín’s 2009 novel Brooklyn. A young Irish immigrant to New York in the 1950s, Lacey fell in love and married Tony Fiorello. The book (and the movie made from it) detail events in young Eilis’ life - her arrival in America, her return to Ireland, and the men she loved on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Long Island takes place twenty years after the events in Brooklyn. Eilis and Tony have two children and are settled in an “enclave” on Long Island surrounded by extended family, the homes of Tony’s parents and those of his two brothers and their wives.

Tony works as a plumber. Daughter Rosella is finishing high school bound for college in the fall while her younger brother Larry is bright but not as scholastically motivated as his sister. Eilis works taking care of the books at a local garage.

Into this 1970s suburban American story steps an Irishman - a neighbor - appearing at Eilis’ front door with news. His wife has hired Tony to do plumbing at their house. Now she is pregnant. He’s not the father, Tony is. The Irishman says, in no uncertain terms, that he will not have the baby in his house, and once it’s born, he will deliver it to her doorstep.

And so begins the sequel. With one secret revealed the plot slowly unwinds as more secrets, by more characters, shape the narrative.

Author, playwright and journalist Colm Tóibín was born in Enniscorthy, Ireland in 1955. (Photo source: the author’s website: https://colmtoibin.com/)

Tóibín is an excellent writer. His prose is direct and succinct. He tells you what you need to know, and not more. Yet he includes enough detail to fill in the blanks, and to build the mental picture of events in your mind. And not just of events, but of relationships and personalities. You get a clear sense of the personalities of Eilis and Tony, their two kids, his parents, his brothers, and their wives, all flowing naturally out of events as the story progresses.

Eilis makes it clear to Tony that she will not have the baby in her house either. Much is said, but more is unsaid between the two. Secrets and silences begin to assert themselves in this story. The news from the Irishman leads Eilis to decide it is time to go back to Enniscorthy, her hometown in Ireland, in time for her mother’s 80th birthday. The kids will follow later. She is again clear that the baby cannot be in the house, nor in Tony’s mother’s house, when she returns.

Back in Ireland she of course runs into her old friend Nancy and eventually her old flame Jim. It’s a small town so it would seem inevitable. Neither Nancy nor Jim tell her they are now seeing each other. A tangled web ensues.

Again I have to say that Tóibín is an excellent writer. All of this tangle builds slowly, without much actual drama. There isn’t much in the way of displays of emotion - between Tony and Eilis, or Eilis and Jim, or Jim and Nancy. In each relationship this event happens, then this next event happens. What it means to the characters is revealed when Toibin takes us into their thoughts, which they don’t share with each other. Assumptions get made. Secrets and silences build.

While I marveled at Tóibín’s ability to propel the story forward without it becoming maudlin or sentimental, the sheer number of secrets it took to do so became a frustration. And it’s every character in the story - they are each shown to be keeping secrets from one or more other characters.

So, secret-keeping is apparently part of the point Tóibín wants to get across, but there’s just too much for me to suspend disbelief. Look, I know that folks of my parent’s generation didn’t speak their minds in the way we do today but COME ON ALREADY.

That was one frustration as I neared the end of the book. The other was the end itself. Tóibín takes us to the edge of the metaphorical cliff, but we don’t go over. There isn’t an end really, even a cliffhanger. The story stops rather than ends.

To sum it all up: Beautiful prose. Great character building. Wonderfully painted word pictures of 1970s Long Island and small-town Ireland. Frustrating number of secrets between the characters. Unsatisfactory ending. A love/hate relationship between me and this story.

RATING: Two and a Half Stars ⭐⭐🌠

RATING COMMENTS: I loved Tóibín’s sparse and evocative writing but frustrated at the characters inability to NOT keep secrets, and at the unsatisfactory ending.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I listened to the audiobook which I checked out from my local library through the Libby app.

The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

[For the past several reviews I’ve picked a song lyric as the title of my review post. It’s been fun looking for songs that reflect the book I’ve read, and I hope it gives you the reader a bit of fun too, and a catchy tune to take with you through your day.]

There wasn’t really any doubt in my mind what song lyrics I should look to for today’s review title. David George, who today’s book is about, leads his Black congregation from enslavement in Revolutionary America all the way to freedom in Sierra Leone, a Rastafarian tale before Ras Tafari was born. The song for today is Exodus, sung by Bob Marley and the Wailers. Listen to the song here and be forewarned - it will play in your head all day.

As I’m sure you know, Bob Marley was a leader in the 1970s in popularizing Reggae, the Jamaican musical form, of which Exodus is an example. Marley was also a Rastafarian, and Marley’s popularity as a singer gave new visibility to the practice of Rastafarianism. The term applies to a Jamaican religious and political movement that blends Protestant Christian and traditional African beliefs. A founding belief of Rastafarians is that Blacks in the Americas are a people in exile who are awaiting their deliverance and return to Zion, the Rasta name for Ethiopia.

Rastafarianism began in the 1930s and takes its name from the notion that the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie I, who was crowned in 1930, is the second coming of Christ, returned to redeem all Black people. The movement takes its name from the emperor’s pre-coronation name Ras (meaning roughly “Duke” or “Prince”) Tafari (his given name at birth).

While Rastafarianism arrived in the Americas over 100 years after the end of David George’s life in 1810, the journey his life took is perfectly captured in Marley’s song. For his Revolution-era Baptist congregants he was truly “another brother Moses.”

Gregory O’Malley, the author of The Escapes of David George is a professor of history who specializes in slavery and the slave trade in colonial British America and the Caribbean, He weaves a compelling book out of the slim story of the life of David George. That story was told by George himself to a group of London ministers, who then transcribed and published it in 1793. At only eleven pages, it is, the author says, the earliest known firsthand account of a person who had escaped slavery in North America.

It’s a testament to O’Malley’s knowledge and research that he can start from that slim eleven-page story and construct as full and compelling of an account of the life and times of David George as he does. I found this book fascinating and enlightening.

It may not be common knowledge today but at the time of the American Revolution slavery was legal throughout Britain and all of its colonies. Which means that throughout North America from British Canada all the way down south to the British colony in Georgia slavery was practiced. There were no “free states” for an escaped slave to run to. There were no railroads, of course, let alone an Underground Railroad. Slaves had nowhere to run in the colonies.

Beyond that, at the time of the Revolution the thirteen colonies did not in general have white settlement extending as far beyond the coast as their state borders go today. Much of the inland geography was held by indigenous nations, and an enslaved person on their own in an Indian nation’s territory was not assured of freedom. Many tribes had agreements with the colonies to return escaped slaves for a bounty.

Author, and history professor Gregory O’Malley specializes in the history of slavery and the slave trade in colonial British America and the Caribbean. (Photo source: Macmillan Publishers, photo credit Natasha Leverett (PortraitsByTashi.com)

In short, an escaped slave in Revolutionary times would do well to go south and west to the interior of the lesser populated colonies like the Carolinas, aiming for the territory between the major white settlements and the indigenous nations, for the best chance at not being captured and sent back to enslavement.

That is exactly what David George did when he escaped the Chappell (pronounced “chapel”) plantation in Virginia, running from his master who he called “a very bad man to the Negroes.” From there he faced a future that involved periods of relative freedom hiding in plain sight, re-enslavement, and more than one escape. All of these adventures led up to his finding a wife, starting a family, and becoming a minister, all while re-enslaved — highly unusual activities for a slave — but made possible because of the lax attitude and unique role his then master had as a go-between of the Creek nation and the British. When the Revolution broke out George risked flight to the British Army with his congregation. The Redcoats publicly offered the promise of freedom to all slaves held by American rebels. Taking advantage of that offer ultimately led to George and his follower’s final home in the “experimental” anti-slavery colony of Sierra Leone in Africa, established by the British in 1787.

O’Malley uses George’s movement through multiple British colonies to examine the attitudes toward and realities of slavery in the British colonies and Revolutionary America. Toward the end of the book, he pays special attention to how our country’s Founding Fathers, many of whom were slave owners themselves, felt toward the institution of slavery. His thoughts here were most interesting, if not necessarily breaking any new ground. To sum it up in a few words, the rationale he surmises they would have used to defend owning slaves falls into the category of “blaming the victim”.

O’Malley also encourages us to think of David George as a “Founding Father” himself, if not of our nation than for our nation’s ideals as stated in the Declaration of Independence. It’s an odd designation and not one I would have chosen, but I do agree with the sentiment behind it. David George was uniquely dedicated to freedom for himself and those around him in a time of great upheaval and rapid change in America. That is certainly a commitment we can all aspire to in today’s unsettled times.

RATING: Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

RATING COMMENTS: The compelling true story of a slave during the American Revolution, whose commitment to freedom transformed his life and those of his family and congregation.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I read an advanced reviewer’s ebook copy provided by NetGalley and the publisher, St Martin’s Press. The book will go on sale on February 3rd, 2026, and will be available in hardcover and ebook versions. You can pre-purchase from the publisher and major retailers here.