Each month my goal is to read a minimum of five books on a variety of topics and from different genres. Here are the books I read in September 2023. If you click on the title, you’ll go to the longer post on More to Come. Enjoy.

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Life on the Mississippi: An Epic American Adventure (2022) by Rinker Buck tells of the author’s 2016 quest to take a flatboat from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, recreating the approximate route traveled by a young Abraham Lincoln and millions of other Americans of that day. When Americans think of pioneers, settlers in wagon trains heading west usually come to mind. Yet the role of the flatboat in our country’s evolution is far more significant than most realize. Buck undertakes this adventure to set the history straight, but in the process, he learns a great deal about himself, our country, and human nature.

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The Tao of the Backup Catcher: Playing Baseball for the Love of the Game (2023) by Tim Brown and Erik Kratz is “a story about a part of the game that hasn’t drifted into a math contest.” A catcher at Eastern Mennonite University, Kratz is discovered by a scout who sees something that suggests he has what it takes to get to the majors. Perhaps not to be a star, but to be the guy who is always there when the star catcher needs a day off from bending down behind home plate, catching 100-mph missiles, and taking foul balls off the left kneecap. This is a story about Kratz and his nearly two-decade journey through pro ball. But more importantly, it is a story about the servant leadership of backup catchers who spend a career watching, listening, pondering, and ultimately setting aside their ego to make the team — and game — better.

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Whose Body? (1923) by Dorothy L. Sayers is a delightful period puzzle that turns deadly serious for Lord Peter Wimsey as he works to find the answer to two mysteries. As the book opens he receives a call from his mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, asking for his assistance in helping clear her architect of suspicion of murder. It seems that overnight a body, clad only with a pair of fashionable pince-nez, has appeared in his bathtub. At the same time, a famous London financier vanishes from his bedroom across town, leaving no trace. The body in the bathtub is not that of the financier, so whose body is it? The police do not suspect that the two cases are connected, but Lord Peter has his doubts.

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The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly (2022) by Margareta Magnusson is a humorous look at how to live and age gracefully well into your final third of life. The first chapter is an exhortation to have a gin and tonic with a friend but there are also suggestions to embrace new technology and spend more time with young people. Magnusson was introduced to the world through her bestseller The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning (or the clearing out your unnecessary belongings so others don’t have to do it for you). This follow-up work — which is a short 140 pages because “old people don’t want to read 400 pages” — is a witty yet useful take on how to approach life when more of it is behind you than ahead. Yet it is appropriate for all ages, including those who may not yet feel old, as her advice is simple and pragmatic.

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Biological Diversity: The Oldest Human Heritage (1999) by Edward O. Wilson is a short work designed to introduce readers to the topic of biodiversity. We don’t have much time to waste if we want to reverse the trends of loss as human-induced changes to the habitat come with “such a velocity that it is too great for life to handle” and we simply do not know all the consequences of that loss. “Simple prudence,” Wilson suggests, “dictates that no species, however humble, should ever be allowed to go extinct if it is within the power of humanity to save it.”  Wilson — by that time a highly decorated and somewhat controversial natural scientist who had already won one Pulitzer Prize for his book On Human Nature and was soon to receive a second for The Ants — wrote this work to educate young people about the importance of biodiversity, the threats to it, and our response.

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What’s on the nightstand for October (subject to change at the whims of the reader):

• Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments by Joe Posnanski
• The Young Man by Annie Ernaux
• How to Resist Amazon and Why by Danny Caine
• Your City is Sick by Jeff Siegler
• Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

Keep reading!

More to come…

DJB

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NOTE: Click to see the books I read in August of 2023 and to see the books I read in 2022. Also check out Ten tips for reading five books a month.

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The Weekly Reader links to the works of other writers I’ve enjoyed. I hope you find something that makes you laugh, think, or cry. 

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Photograph of the George Peabody Library, Baltimore from the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.