My monthly intention is to read a minimum of five books on a variety of topics from different genres. I’ll never catch up with Dan Pelzer, who read 3,599 books in his lifetime, but I generally have a plan for what I do read, which I lay out for MTC readers in these monthly updates. However, I also note that all plans are subject to change at the whims of the reader . . . and that happens often as it did this month. I go to the theatre and decide I want to return to the source book for reference. Or I get hooked on one murder mystery and decide I just have to have another (like taking that second cookie!)

Nonetheless, I hope that you’ll enjoy seeing what I did end up reading in July of 2025. As always, if you click on the title, you’ll go to the longer post on MORE TO COME. And don’t hold me to my plan for August (he says with a sly smile.)

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The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865—1915 (2021) by Jon Grinspan considers the economic and technological disruptions following the end of the Civil War and dives deeply into the aggressive tribal partisanship that grew to be a defining feature of that era. Extremely close national elections, frequent changes in control of Congress, stolen elections, a presidential impeachment, and widespread political violence were all common in those years. Fights on election day, including stabbings and shootings, were frequent. And yet voter turnout was off-the-charts, often reaching 75-80% of the eligible population. The upper classes felt that democracy was in crisis, looking on in horror as new immigrant groups from Europe and newly enfranchised Black Americans exercised their right to vote. The resulting story of what it cost to cool our republic has lessons both positive and negative for today’s period of political crisis.

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A Wrinkle in Time (1962) by Madeleine L’Engle is often described as a teenage or young adult novel, which does it a great disservice. From the opening scene it stretches the mind and expands the heart for readers of all ages. In the midst of a storm the teenaged Meg Murry; her small and brilliant brother Charles Wallace; and her beautiful mother—patiently waiting for her husband’s return after a long, mysterious absence—have come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack. Suddenly they are interrupted by the arrival of Mrs. Whatsit, a most disturbing stranger bundled up in clothes, wrapped in scarves of assorted colors, with a man’s felt hat perched on top of her head. It seems that Charles Wallace has met Mrs. Whatsit—and her two friends Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which—before. As she prepares to leave, she says, “Let me be on my way. Speaking of way, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract.” And the magical story about time travel in the fifth dimension—along with the power of imagination, friendship, and love—begins.

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Baltimore Blues (1997) by Laura Lippman introduces us to Tess Monaghan, an out-of-work newspaper reporter who needs to solve the mystery surrounding the death of a prominent attorney in order to exonerate her good friend Darryl “Rock” Paxton. Tess and Rock row together each morning and when he becomes concerned about falsehoods told by Ava, his fiancé, he offers to pay Tess to check it out. She needs a new job and so agrees to become a private investigator. Tess discovers that Ava and her boss Michael Abramowitz, an attorney everyone loves to hate, meet each day for “lunch” at a nearby hotel. Tess confronts Ava and the fiancé turns around and gives her side of the story to Rock. Abramowitz is found brutally murdered the next morning and the police, naturally, suspect Rock. There are twists and turns as Tess navigates the many confusing and compromised relationships, but by the second half of this debut mystery novel Lippman has hit her stride and we move quickly through the pages to a very surprising conclusion.

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Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes (2025) by Leah Litman describes in fresh and accessible language how the combination of the court’s power and a poor understanding of its work by the public makes it a dangerous entity in today’s America. While lower courts concluded that “the Fourteenth Amendment barred Trump from holding office under the provision that disqualifies people who, after having taken an oath to the United States, ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same’” all of the Supreme Court’s January 6-related interventions “cleared the way for Trump to run for president again and to ultimately be reelected.” If we aren’t paying attention or we think we misunderstood the decision because it couldn’t possibly be that ridiculous, then the Court can get away with what is obviously ridiculous. We cannot, Litman reminds us, let one (really bad) Court kill our democracy. She ends this astute assessment of our condition with: “They’ve stolen a Court and they are practically daring anyone to challenge them. It’s time to call their bluff.”

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It’s Not Even Past (2025) by Anna Scotti is a brilliantly conceived set of murder mysteries involving the librarian originally known as Lori Yarborough. Lori moves through several aliases, multiple locations across the U.S., and a variety of rather menial jobs in order to stay a step ahead of her ruthless ex and his cartel henchmen. In each place our protagonist has an uncanny ability to find herself in the midst of trouble and murder; her ingenuity in solving those crimes inevitably forces her to move on, often to a new city with a new WITSEC-provided identity. Nine of the eleven chapters were originally published as short stories in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Those original stories are book-ended with two new pieces, the first to help set up Lori/Cam’s saga and then the final one which adds a coda to this part of her life after the years have so fundamentally changed this once naive librarian.

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

• The Postcard by Anne Berest
• Paris: A Short History by Jeremy Black
• I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine by Daniel J. Levitin
• Civic Architecture Across America: Extraordinary Views by Thomas R. Schiff
• Pietr the Latvian by Georges Simenon

Keep reading!

More to come . . .

DJB

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NOTE: Click to see the books I read in June of 2025 and to see the books I read in 2024. Also check out Ten tips for reading five books a month.

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Photo by S O C I A L . C U T on Unsplash