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“Public libraries are the only data centers I support” and other observations out of the recent election

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The reality of a course-altering election and the challenges to reclaiming democracy continue to bounce around my brain a full week after the voters spoke.

The breadth and depth of the repudiation of the corruption and cynical nature of the Trump administration, today’s Republican party, the right-wing Supreme Court, and their corporate cheerleaders and enablers continues to unfold. Several aspects of what just happened particularly struck me in the immediate aftermath:

  • We have our metaphors backwards. They are the resistance. We are the mighty river breaking the dam.
  • Hatred of data centers and all they represent is deep and wide.
  • In the fight against authoritarian brutality, two of the most important weapons are kindness and decency.
  • Some of the world’s most corrupt people lost . . . and many didn’t see it coming.
  • While not perfect, apparently a majority of Americans—even a large majority—prefer diversity.

Let’s take a brief look at each one.

WE ARE THE MIGHTY RIVER, BREAKING FREE

Rushing water along the Flam Railway in Norway (photo by DJB)

Historian, writer, activist Rebecca Solnit began a recent essay in her newsletter with the following:

“It was a landslide, an earthquake, a tsunami, a watershed, an extinction-level event, they said of the colossal shift in the nation’s destiny as the result of Tuesday’s epic election. They’re all good metaphors drawn from nature.  I want to propose one more: it was a dam breaking, the dam that held back the will of the people, the people of the world’s most diverse country, the people who believed in their own rights and equality and in the rights and equality of others. In 2018, the prison abolitionist writer Michelle Alexander wrote an essay that made a huge impact on me, not least for its deft reversal of a metaphor. We are not the resistance, she said, they are. We are not the dam holding something back, they are. We are the mighty river and we will break free.”

Solnit wrapped up that essay by noting that

“We’ll be seeing good policies and the repeal of bad policies for years to come as a result of this election, have more voices countering the hate and disinformation from the right, see new ambition to face with creativity and compassion the climate crisis and other threats. And in a sense it will never be the same country again, so I could’ve said indefinitely…..“

THE REJECTION OF DATA CENTERS WAS OVERWHELMING

On a recent morning walk through my neighborhood I saw a car with a bumper sticker that spoke to the moment. It read:

“Public libraries are the only data centers I support”

Those nine words spoke volumes (no pun intended).

They reflect the public revolt against a tech industry that wants to steal our environmental resources as well as our intellectual property for personal gain. They show support for public services—libraries—that were built by our tax dollars for the benefit of the common good yet are increasingly being privatized and stripped for parts by corporations and their billionaire owners. They speak out against corrupt back room deals between politicians on the take and greedy corporations. They reflect concern that AI is being developed without guardrails and regulation in a way that could destroy jobs, communities, and lives.

So much said in just a few words.

As The Guardian led off a recent piece, “There were three big losers in Tuesday’s midterm elections in the US: Donald Trump, Elon Musk and datacenters.”

“Datacenters, the facilities full of semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence and a host of other online products, were on the ballot in elections in at least 40 jurisdictions across 10 states. Voters responded with a strong rebuke of the giant buildings, which have become a symbol of the tech industry and AI.”

In total, voters overwhelmingly supported forty-four ballot measures halting and/or restricting data centers in their community. Only one, in a North Dakota town of fewer than 1,000 people, was rejected.

Voters made it perfectly clear that they are tired of politicians who prioritize the very rich over the needs of the people.

DON’T MESS WITH MINNESOTA

It seems that every news outlet and pundit has a set of takeaways from the election.

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

I liked the ones from Brian Klaas of the Garden of Forking Paths newsletter entitled Six lessons from the blue tsunami. After making the point that “a lot of the victory comes down to a tried-and-true strategy for taking down authoritarian populists: focus on the corruption” . . . and that thankfully, this administration has engaged in cartoonish levels of corruption on which to focus, his second takeaway hit on what I suspect was one of the big tipping points: when the authoritarian experiment of Donald Trump and the Republican party began to fall apart.

“Donald Trump picked the wrong state to mess with. Never invade the home of a communitarian winter people with fascist thugs unless you’re ready to get beaten by the gritty determination of neighborliness.

When I was there in January, I saw a community transformed in defense of fellow human beings who simply lived next door. Grandparents were driving around blowing whistles at masked-up government thugs; single parents who knew their white kids would be safe took time out from their busy schedules to deliver groceries to parents who were trapped in their own homes, living in fear that their own children would be abducted.

In the fight against authoritarian brutality, two of the most potent weapons proved to be kindness and decency.”

THE COMEUPPANCE CAUCUS

Photo by Liam Nguyen on Unsplash

As the rule of law was being dismantled by Republicans in the administration, the Supreme Court, Congress, and at the state and local level, a lot (and I mean A LOT) of politicians and political actors jumped on the grifting gravy train. November 3rd was a stinging rebuke to their grabs for power, our money, and our democracy.

The midterms most deserving losers by Tom Schaller at Public Notice highlights some of the most “epic, overdue, even karmic-level defeats.” All eight categories in Schaller’s piece are worth your time (and yes, he includes Elon, Lauren Boebert, and Vivek Ramaswamy), but a couple of my favorites include:

The Gerrymanderers

“Much of the post-election attention this week has focused on House Republican defeats in the mid-decade redistricted states of Texas and Florida, especially in Latino-heavy districts. Governors Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis deserve the lickings they took Tuesday night.

But North Carolina merits special attention as the Republican Party’s ‘dummymandering doomsday’ state.”

Every. Single. Texas. Republican.

“Lone Star Republicans got slaughtered Tuesday. They lost every statewide contest, starting with James Talarico’s 12-point drubbing of Paxton in the US Senate race and Gina Hinojosa’s 7-point defeat of Abbott to win the governorship. Democrats also swept all six other statewide offices, captured all four state Supreme Court seats, and flipped the state House majority from red to blue.

Those major races obscure a small but important county-level result. In suburban Tarrant County outside Dallas, Republican judge Tim O’Hare sought reelection. Despite public objections from the local NAACP, O’Hare and the Republican-controlled county commission shut down 92 county polling locations weeks before the election, including 21 located in precincts that not coincidentally contained at least 75 percent non-white voters.

Tarrant voters stripped wannabe vote suppressor O’Hare of his robe. In a fitting irony, they replaced him with an African American woman, Alisa Simmons, who beat O’Hare by 13 points. Case dismissed.”

APPARENTLY AMERICANS LIKE DIVERSITY

Peterr, a Lutheran pastor, posted A Christian, a Muslim, and a Jew Enter the Senate on the Empty Wheel website. He notes that the title “sounds like the cheesy opening to a joke,” but after election night, “it’s also a serious cry of joy.”

“I’ve been struck by the changes in the way religion was part of the midterm campaigns—specifically, how religious language became part of the discourse on the Democratic side. What really made this all jump out was the impact of the last week of the campaign with James Talarico, Abdul El-Sayed, and Jon Ossoff all winning, with religion a significant part of their campaign approaches.”

They come from different faith traditions, but what they share is the difference illustrated in this illustration.

I’ve written a great deal about religious freedom and religious liberty in the past, so I don’t need to delve deeper. But my key takeaway on so many fronts—from the religious diversity; to the election of so many people of color and indigenous Americans across the country; to the gains of LGBTQ+ candidates and more, is that Americans as a whole don’t fear diversity the way that right wing Republicans want to imagine we do. Looking at the class of newly elected Representatives and Senators going to “freshman orientation” at the U.S. Capitol this week, I’d say this group looks a lot like America.

Freshman orientation at the U.S. Capitol

And we also have a generational change which is refreshing. Rob Sand, the Governor-elect of Iowa, was once a model. His social media team posted this note and picture below.

One of the comments underneath this post read:

“Republicans ran ‘attack ads’ that started with ‘Rob Sand was a European model!’

My 24 year old daughter was like ‘is that supposed to hurt him?’”

Much of the authoritarian overreach by the Republican party—and especially the fight against diversity—was made possible by the worst chief justice of all time.

“The nation has faced, many times, a conservative Court aligned with bigotry and big business. But the nation has not previously faced a conservative Court aligned with helping the president become a king. The Roberts Court will go down in history as an exceptional Court, though probably not quite in the way John Roberts expects.”

One only has to listen to the victory speeches from Senators-elect Adam Hamilton and James Talarico, Senator Jon Ossoff, Georgia Governor-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms, and Iowa Governor-elect Rob Sand to know that we have experienced one ending and are in the midst of a new beginning.

Photo by Alfred Schrock on Unsplash

In the book The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on World of Change, referenced by Rebecca Solnit in the essay I quote at the top, she writes,

“The beginning comes after the end. A chrysalis is the beginning of a butterfly, but in that chrysalis is no elegant transition. The caterpillar falls apart—it turns to goo, and something profoundly different reconstitutes from it, guided by the hitherto dormant imaginal cells. In that slurry, the dissolving caterpillar’s immune system perceives the imaginal cells as alien and attacks them. But they survive, multiply, and set in motion the instructions to become a butterfly. A many-legged crawler becomes a six-legged winged creature, an animal that devours leaves becomes one that sips nectar from flowers . . . A butterfly is the end of a caterpillar. The beginning—the next era—comes after the end of the last one, and in between comes a lot of falling apart.”

The right has been fighting tooth and nail against the change of equality and interconnectedness. Often we don’t see that the beginning has come until the end pops up and strikes us in the face. But even as we celebrate, remember:

Nothing is perfect. Nothing is finished. Nothing lasts forever.

Work hard for justice and democracy as the fight never ends.

More to come . . .

DJB

Public library photo by Chris Robert on Unsplash

From the bookshelf: October 2026

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Five books at a minimum. Every month. A variety of topics from different genres. Here is the list from October 2026.

The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music (2026) by Colin Asher examines how the police, courts and penitentiaries have shaped the nation’s musical culture through profiles of five artists: Lead Belly, Elmo Hope, Johnny Cash, Ike White and Tupac Shakur. Asher’s work is as unconventional as it is unexpected. The author isn’t trying to write a definitive history of American prison music but instead focuses on five albums and the lives of the musicians who made them. Asher asserts that each has something distinct to say about the ways that policing and incarceration have shaped our musical culture. As the only white man among the subjects, Johnny Cash was treated differently. Asher considers what Black artists might have achieved if granted the level of compassion and forgiveness Cash received. “The obverse is worth considering, too—the great cultural loss the world would have suffered if Johnny had been treated the way his Black peers were.”

The Bridges of Washington, D.C.: A History & Guide (2026) by Bob Dover is a treat for lovers of the city, architecture and engineering aficionados, history buffs, and just about any resident who spends time on the streets, in the parks, and crossing the rivers and creeks that make up the capital city’s unique landscape. Dover is a geologist with decades of experience studying the role geology and topography play in influencing human settlement patterns, architecture, and historic events. This perspective is evident from the book’s earliest chapters, when Dover reminds the reader that Washington, which sits on the Fall Line, straddles the boundary between two distinct geological regions: “the crystalline bedrock of the Appalachian Piedmont and the soft, unconsolidated sediments of the Coastal Plain.” This location with two different physical settings for bridges, provides many opportunities where connections across rivers, streams, and marshland are needed.

The Girl of His Dreams (2017) by Donna Leon is her seventeenth novel featuring Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti. The story begins when a friend of Brunetti’s brother, a priest recently returned from years of missionary work in Africa, calls on the Commissario following a family funeral. It seems that he is concerned that an acquaintance is being taken advantage of by an American-style Protestant sect seeking only his money. Of course, there is always the chance that the priest may not appreciate the competition. This investigation is put on hold, however, with the discovery one cold and rainy morning of the body of a young girl found drowned in a canal. Brunetti and Inspector Vianello are pulled into life in a gypsy camp as they work to identify the girl’s parents and answer troubling questions about her brief life and how she came to end up in one of the city’s waterways. Leon has the reader considering the treatment of nomads and refugees as well as different applications of the law with various groups.

The Bullet That Missed (2023) by Richard Osman is the third installment of the five book Thursday Murder Club series. Once again we return to Coopers Chase, a high-end peaceful British retirement village on the grounds of a former convent. The four residents turned septuagenarian sleuths meet weekly to discuss unsolved crimes from old police files. They are now looking at a ten-year-old cold case which leads them to a local news legend and a murder with no body and no answers. The case turns hot when former spy Elizabeth Best and her husband Stephen are kidnapped and she is given a mission—kill or be killed. We also have returning foes, including a local drug dealer who likes to play games with the police and is now in a prison cell complete with espresso machine. Because this is the Thursday Murder Club, an upmarket spa and a penthouse with a floating swimming pool set high above the streets of London also figure into the mix.

A Most Agreeable Murder: A Novel (2023) by Julia Seales is the debut for a writer who seeks to be Jane Austen with a modern twist (of the knife). Swampshire, where this tale is set, is the easily identifiable small English township. Beatrice Steele—our feisty and passionate heroine—lives a perfectly agreeable life. But Beatrice harbors a secret: “She is obsessed with murder. Not the act of committing it, but the act of solving it. . . . If anyone in her etiquette-obsessed community found out, she’d be deemed a morbid creep and banished from respectable society forever.” She gets her chance, however, when the very eligible bachelor Edmund Croaksworth shows up at the annual autumnal ball in the middle of one of Swampshire’s interminable hail storms, dances a bit, plays some cards, has a drink, and falls over dead from poisoning. Beatrice and Croaksworth’s traveling companion, Inspector Drake, form a highly unlikely partnership to get to the bottom of the mystery and find the murderer from among the hosts and guests who have been locked in the old manor house to wait out the storm.

The Shadow Puppet (1932) by Georges Simenon is the twelfth installment in the legendary Inspector Maigret series. A businessman has been shot dead in his office and the monthly payroll taken from his safe. While walking on the dimly lit Place des Vosges, Maigret hears the sound of a woman in distress. But this is deceiving, as she is giving birth in a room above. However, as the lights of the apartments across the courtyard flicker, Maigret sees shadowy figures at the windows. He soon comes to understand that behind one of those windows is the dead man and his empty safe. His job is to discover who, behind those other windows, may know of—or have committed—the murder.

Bruno, Chief of Police: A Novel (2008) by Martin Walker is the reader’s introduction to “Benoit Courrèges, chief of police for the small commune of St. Denis and its 2,900 souls.” Universally known as Bruno, the sole policeman in this French village is single; a veteran of the war in Bosnia; the beloved coach of the youth tennis team; gourmet cook; and a defender of the old ways of gardening. Life is no more complicated than protecting his neighbors and friends from the “nuisances of Brussels” with their food inspectors and petty rules. Uncomplicated until an elderly resident—a WWII war hero who had migrated decades earlier from Algeria and was the father and grandfather to a local family of French citizens—is found brutally murdered in his isolated farmhouse, with a swastika carved in his chest.

WHAT’S ON THE NIGHTSTAND FOR NOVEMBER (Subject to change at the whims of the reader)

Keep reading!

More to come . . .

DJB

NOTE: Click to see the books I read in September of 2026 and to see the books I read in 2025.

Photo by Hilmarie Figueroa on Unsplash

Sampling the inimitable cuisine and culture of Lombardy: Part 2, The Italian Lakes edition

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During two recent weeks of both personal time and travel with National Trust Tours in Milan and Lake Como we sampled a variety of delectable foods, visited a number of remarkable historic sites, walked the old streets of thriving communities, and engaged with welcoming locals and curious visitors from around the world.

Part 2 highlights our week in Como.

After spending personal time in Milan, the capital of the Lombardy region (as captured in Part 1 of this review), Candice and I joined fellow travelers in Como for our National Trust Tours excursion to the Italian Lakes and Lombardy.

The Italian Lake District of northern Italy has captivated visitors for centuries.

The two main lakes, Como and Maggiore, are deep blue glacial lakes. With a maximum depth of almost 1,400 feet, Como is the deepest lake in Italy and one of the deepest in Europe. Surrounding the lakes are coastal villages and Alpine peaks. (We were about 15 miles from the Swiss boarder.)

We were headquartered at the Palace Hotel that sits on the shores of Lake Como, a central place for our walking, boat, and bus tours.

Candice and I took two main boat excursions during the week where we saw beautiful Renaissance and Gothic architecture, spent time in Bellagio, joined a fascinating half-day tour of Como’s historic silk industry, and toured the enchanting Villa del Balbianello, a property of FAI (the Italian National Trust). And, of course, we ate delicious Italian cuisine.

This photo essay walks you through these seven days in Como and the Italian Lake District.

STREETSCAPES OF COMO

Volta Square in Como

In addition to a guided tour of the city of Como, there were many days when we walked through parts of the old city to visit a restaurant or simply to further our individual explorations. From the Gothic Duomo . . .

. . . to the 12th century gate tower and walls . . .

from Volta Square (named for the inventor of the battery) to the 13th century town hall, there was always something of interest around the corner.

One day during the trip we also learned more about Como’s historic silk industry, with a tour to the silk museum followed by a visit to the modern Kokun silk factory where fabrics known to designers and the fashion-conscious the world over are created and woven.

LAKE MAGGIORE AND ISOLA BELLA

Garden entrance at Palazzo Borromeo

A true highlight of the week was the 17th century Palazzo Borromeo on Isola Bella. The baroque palace with its astounding collection of art and antiques was a treat on a rainy morning.

Palazzo Borromeo (credit: official website . . . it was pouring down rain when we arrived and we weren’t going to see a view like this)

“The Salone Nuovo, the largest room in the Palazzo, is a luminous and stately space whose pale blue walls are accented with gilded stucco details, creating a sense of celestial elegance. Modeled on the church of San Lorenzo in Milan, the room is crowned by a domed ceiling bearing the Borromeo family motto, Humilitas. Four marble brackets, decorated with intricate inlays and supported by the main pillars, display family emblems: a seated camel (patience), a unicorn (devotion), a horse’s bit (strength), and a cedar tree (representing the Isole Borromee).”

Palazzo website
Salone Nuovo

“The water-level grottos captivate with their creativity and originality. Designed to enchant visitors, they also offer a cool retreat during the summer months. Step into a marine-inspired world where walls, ceilings, and floors are adorned with pebbles, shells, marble, and fragments of volcanic rock. In these six grottos, every detail is meticulously arranged to form intricate patterns and decorative motifs. Along the way, you’ll encounter busts of heroes and deities, as well as display cases holding urns, vases, porcelain, and other treasures. From outside, the gentle lapping of the lake provides a soothing soundtrack.”

Palazzo website

Thankfully the skies cleared just in time for a tour of the lush gardens full of flowers, statuary, and white peacocks.

VILLA DEL BALBIANELLO AND BELLAGIO

Another day featured a boat tour on Lake Como. We began with an hour’s ride viewing the villas, hotels, and coastal towns along the way.

Our first stop was Villa del Balbianello, a site of FAI, the Italian National Trust. It is a magnificent property—a treasure chest of memories and explorations—that I first visited with the International National Trusts Organisation (INTO) Executive Committee ten years ago. It remains a jewel in FAI’s crown.

Photo of Villa del Balbianello by Elizabeth Cullen on Unsplash
Garden view from Villa del Balbianello
Garden view from Villa del Balbianello in 2016 by DJB

That was followed by time in Bellagio, often described as the most beautiful town in Italy. It features a promenade, cobblestone streets, picturesque alleyways, and a variety of building styles.

Bellagio (photo by T. Selin Erkan on Unsplash)

On our final day of travel we gathered at Villa del Balbianello for a NTT group photo.

Our National Trust Tours travelers

CUISINE, AS ALWAYS

Feel Como (credit: Explore Lake Como)

There were opportunities for both group meals and private dining during this tour. We took advantage of the latter to visit two Michelin rated restaurants in Como: Dieci Nodi Bistrot (seafood inspired by the Italian Coastal tradition) . . .

. . . and Feel Como (a small six table dining experience of locally sourced seasonal dishes). Our good friend from our years in Staunton, Virginia—Bizzy Lane—joined us on the tour and at both of these dinners. What a treat on multiple fronts!

As you can see from the photos, it was a wonderful experience. Please join us on a future National Trust Tours trip.* You’ll love it!

More to come . . .

DJB

Note: To check out the post focused on our time in Milan, see: Sampling the inimitable cuisine and culture of Lombardy: Part 1, The Milan edition

Upcoming 2027 National Trust Tours trips where I’ll be lecturing are:

All photos by DJB except where noted

Sick and tired of being sick and tired

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Americans of all political stripes, in all regions of the country, rose up last Tuesday with a voice “too big to rig” to reject rampant corruption, smug oligarchy, the politics of fear, racial hatred, immigrant bashing, Christian nationalism, and a failed ideology that said some people are better than others. It was a glorious thing to behold.

As I was watching the election returns come in on Tuesday evening, my historian’s mind kept returning to Fannie Lou Hamer. Pauli Murray. Barbara Jordan. Stacey Abrams. These Black women, leaders during different eras of the movement for equal rights for all Americans, put in the long, hard, often unnoticed and usually underappreciated work to ensure that everyone has a voice in the future of America.

And “I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom” is as good a description as any of how many of us felt as the returns came in.

I thought of these Black women—Hamer, Murray, Jordan, and Abrams—when Governor-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms was elected to become the first Black woman to serve as governor in U.S. history. She joined seven other Black women in Georgia who won major races on Tuesday night.

Of Georgia’s eight executive offices, seven of them will now be held by Black women. Just let that sink in.

It, of course, didn’t stop there. As Heather Cox Richardson recorded in her Letters from an American newsletter this morning:

“The topline races don’t tell the whole story. Voters elected Democrats up and down the ballot. In Texas, the most prominent example of this phenomenon, Democratic senatorial candidate James Talarico won by about 12 points. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa won by 7 points. Voters flipped two congressional seats in districts Trump won by at least 14 points in 2024. Voters elected a Democratic attorney general and four Democratic supreme court justices, and they flipped control of the lower chamber of the legislature.

“Many of the races across the country were not close. Some races flipped by double digits from the margins of 2024. Some flips were as high as 20, 30, or even 40 percent. Observers called the results ‘seismic’ and ‘jaw-dropping,’ not just a blue wave but a ‘tsunami.’ . . .

“In New Hampshire, voters elected Chris Pappas to be the Senate’s first openly gay member. In Texas, voters elected Gina Hinojosa to be the state’s first Latina governor and the state’s first Democratic governor in more than 30 years. In New Mexico, voters elected former Interior secretary Deb Haaland to be the nation’s first female Indigenous governor. Voters in Minnesota sent Ojibwe Peggy Flanagan to the Senate. In Michigan, voters elected Abdul El-Sayed, the nation’s first Muslim senator. Voters in Ohio sent Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker, to the House of Representatives and returned Sherrod Brown, known for his defense of unions, to the Senate.”

Simon Rosenberg pointed out Steve Rattner’s tweet that three-quarters of Americans will have a Democratic governor next year. Rosenberg ruminates on just “how much power Democrats have been given by the American people all across the country through this historic, transformative election.”

And there is a chance for more. Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom is ahead of the Republican incumbent in Mississippi in a race that may come down to a few hundred votes. If he wins, Colom will be the first Black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction. He’s already won the award for best political ad of the campaign.

WE STAND ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS

The seismic change we saw throughout the South, and indeed across the nation, doesn’t happen without Fannie Lou Hamer, the 20th and last child of sharecroppers in Mississippi. Her bio is full of leadership roles and “firsts” including co-founder of the National Women’s Political Caucus, an organization created to recruit, train, and support women of all races who wish to seek election to government office. We’re going to have more than 100 women in the new Congress in 2027.

Hamer’s epitaph famously reads, “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Tuesday, Americans had that same sentiment in mind as they voted out the scoundrels.

The times they are a-changing.

The seismic change doesn’t happen without Pauli Murray, African American member of the LGBTQ community, Civil Rights and Women’s Rights activist, the lawyer responsible for producing what Justice Thurgood Marshall called “the Bible of Civil Rights law,” a poet and writer, the first female African American Episcopal priest, and an Episcopal saint. Her legal writing famously inspired Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

The seismic change doesn’t happen without Barbara Jordan, the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction, the first southern black female elected to the United States House of Representatives, a key member of the House Committee investigating Watergate, and the first African-American woman to deliver the keynote address at a Democratic National Convention. The great Molly Ivins wrote of Jordan,

“Her role as a role model may have been her most important. One little black girl used to walk by Jordan’s home every day on her way to school and think, ‘Barbara Jordan grew up right here, too.’ Today Ruth Simmons is president of Smith College.” (Written before Ruth Simmons became the president of Brown University.)

The seismic change doesn’t happen without Stacey Abrams, who ran for Governor of Georgia herself in 2018 and—even more importantly—put together a movement to turn red states into blue. The founder of Fair Fight Action, Abrams turned Georgia into a competitive state based on democratic principles, dreams, and good, old-fashioned hard work. In How to Turn Your Red State Blue, she made the case in 2021 that Georgia, Virginia, and Arizona are leaders in what can happen across the Sun Belt.

“Georgians deserved better, so we devised and began executing a 10-year plan to transform Georgia into a battleground state….Years of planning, testing, innovating, sustained investment and organizing yielded the record-breaking results we knew they could and should.”

There were and are so many more individuals and organizations—both past and present—who worked to make Tuesday’s change possible. In the Latino community, groups such as LULAC have been working for change for almost a century.

Asked if the Democrats would focus on costs or corruption, Senator Rafael Warnock of Georgia told CNN that the Democrats could “walk and chew gum at the same time.” Great answer. Don’t let the corporate media or Republicans frame the task that needs to be accomplished.

The corporate media will try and explain away this change. David Brooks will pretend that he’s never been part of the problem. Even so-called progressive voices will suggest the task before us is too large and we must go slow. But with 90 percent of voters listing corruption as their top concern, it is time for Democrats to be “ruthless”—to use former VP Kamala Harris’ term—in using the power they have to fight those who want to cling to the old system. Fair, yes, but with focus and determination.

Let’s wrap this up with a song that describes the feeling many had after Tuesday night. Mavis Staples and Aretha Franklin bring together two of the greatest and most powerful Soul and Rhythm & Blues voices not just of their generation, but of all time, to sing the gospel tune Oh Happy Day. Gospel has always been a key part of the freedom movement’s soundtrack. And for fun, check out the interplay between these two amazing talents at about the 1:50 segment and then again at 4:00. Good gawd!

Americans can do this hard thing . . . especially since we’re sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Now we all must roll up our sleeves and continue the work.

More to come . . .

DJB

UPDATE #1: I could probably link to dozens of great pieces on Tuesday’s results, but I’ll try and keep it down to a few. Marcy Wheeler at Empty Wheel had a great piece on Hakeem Jeffries and the role of the Speaker of the House entitled On Congress. I found it very fair and insightful.

UPDATE #2: The scale and scope of the election is still being discovered. This piece on Daily Kos has an interesting take with the 9 most stunning outcomes from the blue tsunami. A couple of examples as a teaser:

  • James Talarico had won the Texas Senate race before Election Day arrived. (He had more early votes than Paxton received in the entire election).
  • Every House district that Trump won by 11 percentage points or less in 2024 flipped to Democrats.
  • A Black Democrat won a county in Mississippi named after the founder of the Ku Klux Klan.

UPDATE #3: I’ll make this post from Marcy Wheeler (again . . . she’s really smart!) the final one. Her basic point is that states are the laboratory of reform, and with the Democrats having won so big in so many states, that’s where a lot of good work needs to be concentrated over the next two years.

To fix the mess at the federal level, “Dems need to win the presidency. We still cannot reverse what Trump has done until we regain the presidency.”

“And that is why it is so important to think of a fix to Trump from the bottom up. Not only do Dems have the opportunity to teach people that government can do good — that government can offer relief to the very real economic challenges people are facing.

But with every swing state (and the new swing state of Texas!!) in Democratic hands, they have the ability to make democratic reforms at the state level, starting by reversing decades of voter suppression. We have the numbers to eliminate the Electoral College, to reverse that antidemocratic legacy that stole two democratic presidencies and installed at least three of the terrible Supreme Court Justices who keep destroying democracy. Ending the Electoral College will make even Republicans have to care about cities again, which will moderate some of their racism. We might even have the ability to eliminate gerrymandering at a nationwide level.”

It is a long but great article. Highly recommended.

Photo by William Veitch on Unsplash

So much human frailty

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Reading Nancy Lemann’s “The Ritz of the Bayou”—her coverage of the 1980s corruption trial of Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards—proved to be an inspired choice in the last days of a chaotic midterm election season.

I am putting the final touches on this post while watching the early returns from Tuesday’s midterm elections. In Sunday’s print edition, the New York Times editorial board asked “Has America Finally Had Enough of Trump?” The flagrant and self-serving corruption, the moral collapse of key elements of our government, the incessant lying. It never stops with this guy, his crime family, and his enablers.

The voters I am pleased to say made their thoughts very clear.

Ours is not a new problem, just one of unprecedented scale. Today’s conman may be more prominent and more nefarious than most but political corruption is as old as the nation.

Louisiana—where the two great enemies are “boredom and lack of style”—has its own special breed of corruption. Take the lofty architecture of the capitol, for instance, which “describes a megalomaniac grandeur not seen in most state legislatures. It is indeed the work of a megalomaniac, Huey Long.”

Then there is the story of the Pope who was scheduled to come to New Orleans.

“A local columnist joked that in the morning the Pope would hear the Governor’s confession; then he would go to a luncheon. Then he would hear the Governor’s confession; then he would go to dinner. Then he would hear the Governor’s confession; etc. No matter how long he listened, he could not hear the Governor’s whole confession, as it would take too long.”

It was my good fortune at this time of national turmoil to be reading an account of the 1985 racketeering, fraud, and bribery trial of Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards. The cultural critic James Wolcott described the book’s author—a Louisiana native—as “a mixologist of mood and ardor” who produced her only major piece of non-fiction with this work. In the process this lovely, witty, nutty voice showed herself to be “an unrivaled, unlicensed detective in the art of ‘reading the room,’ the roving mistress of vibes.”

The Ritz of the Bayou: The New Orleans Adventures of a Young Novelist Covering the Trials of the Governor of Louisiana, with digressions on smoldering nightclubs, jazz-crazed bars, and other aspects of life in the tropic zone (1987; 40th anniversary edition republished in 2026) by Nancy Lemann began life as a long-form article commissioned by Vanity Fair‘s legendary editor Tina Brown. When Brown killed the piece in part because it contained little or no actual reporting on “the facts of the case,” Lemann and Knopf editor Gordon Lish saved it from oblivion by reworking the article into a book. A book that Lish knew “had no prayer of commercial success.” Yet the writing—oh that meandering, perceptive, atmospheric writing—was too good to let die. And now, 40 years later, Hub City Press has re-published this work about, nominally, a trial of political corruption, and released it into our own era of politics gone much too far off the rails. It was the balm I needed to read this week.

Lemann sets the stage by introducing the reader to Baton Rouge in 1985. The bullet holes from the assassination of Huey Long are in the walls outside the office of the Speaker of the House in that capitol built on hubris. It is a strange place to come seeking the truth.

“The truth, in the end, I think, is not always to be found in a courtroom, but a great deal of human frailty is. There is a lot of human frailty floating around . . . It is not that I advocate human frailty, but I had never seen so much of it, all at once, and it was a sort of breathtaking spectacle.”

Lemann looks at the courtroom scene in the Edwards case and writes, “My heart was back in business when I saw all that human frailty.”

This was a complicated trial and Lemann does minimal work to let us know about the mostly unforgettable group of lawyers. She is taken, however, with Jim Neal who is representing the Governor in this case and who “employed the Aw Shucks mode of address” to the jurors. And she is especially drawn to the “drawling white-haired gent of seventy called Camille Gravel, a defense lawyer for the Governor, (who) was to me perhaps the hero of the courtroom.” He does not have a law degree, “a not uncommon lack in his day,” and yet he was considered to be the best lawyer on the case. Lemann is smitten.

We are quickly brought into the drawn-out jury selection process and it is clear that this will take time, which Lemann relishes. The judge asks the initial hundred people in the jury pool if a long trial would cause them hardships and “about seventy percent of them lined up to make their lame excuses to the judge.” Everything from “my daughter is sick” to “I’m sick.”

“I think my nephew might know the Governor.”

“I think I might know him, too.”

“‘We all do,’ the judge finally said, wearily.”

The defense lawyers also ask questions to determine the intellect of the prospective jurors. Lemann notes that many of the jurors exhibited “a good deal of intellectual confusion” under questioning, “nor were the prospective jurors a shining testament to the quality of education in Louisiana.” As one hears so often in the South: “Well, at least we’re not Mississippi.” And when the jury selection is described for the second trial (after the first ended in a mistrial), “reporters were saying that this jury made the last jury look like Rhodes scholars.”

But it is the downtrodden and uneducated who have traditionally been the Governor’s supporters, so the defense lawyers knew what they were doing. When a “society juror” delivered his views about the Long tradition in Louisiana he is swiftly disqualified. “It’s his business what he do,” was the answer given by jurors who were accepted. Or “I go to the racetrack, too.”

“The society juror was swiftly disqualified, the downtrodden machine operator was put in his place, and the attitude of the jury chosen was: It’s his business what he do.

A series of jubilant parties broke out in New Orleans at this juncture.”

The quality of the reporters covering the trial is another recurring theme for Lemann, and we often meet them in the bar of the Lafayette Hotel in New Orleans, near the courthouse. One stormy night, two reporters sat here hoping that the Governor’s lawyers would come down for the cocktail hour.

“One was a Yankee and the other a Southerner, but both were covering the South, one for a newspaper above the Mason-Dixon line, and the other for one below. Theirs were the only two newspapers in the country whose Southern bureau is to be found in New Orleans. The Southern Correspondents Assoc., comprised of this lonely band of two, had been formed some months before on a stormy night in Biloxi, Mississippi.”

And—it can only happen in New Orleans—the Governor’s nephew who is on trial for benefiting from the corruption around his uncle is described as “fraud defendant by day, cocktail bar pianist by night, professor of classical religion in Massachusetts ordinarily (this fellow is a jack-of-all-trades, and an unlikely assortment.)” He is “staying at a local hotel free of charge in return for his service at the piano bar.”

There is a trial going on, but the actual arguments—especially those of the prosecutor—don’t excite Lemann as much as the “smoldering nightclubs, jazz-crazed bars” and other diversions included in the subtitle that Wolcott likens to “some 18th century picaresque novel.” She summarizes the basic racketeering charges in a little over two pages. However, what really interests her are the defendants who cannot stop making jokes (a Southern trait). There may be a dark side, “a lot of human condition” in the courtroom, but “the air they breathed was comical. They could not contain their good spirits.” Lemann speculates that their steadfast refusal “to admit the slightest shred of guilt, or to be anything but jolly” was the very theme of their defense.

The book is written in short snippets, which makes it an easy read. Looking back on it forty years later, the author admits,

“The style obscured the substance—or rather the style was the substance. And it isn’t boring. Also it’s pretty funny.”

In a new afterword, Lemann notes that her brother—a journalist—correctly predicted that journalists wouldn’t like The Ritz of the Bayou. But the assignment “to cover the trial of the wily Governor and spend what turned out to be almost a year back in my beloved New Orleans” was irresistible. And she, in her own way, stayed in her lane and didn’t veer over into journalism. Which makes this such a wonderful account.

She ends the afterword where I began: contrasting this trial forty years ago with current events. And Lemann definitely has a soft spot for Edwin Edwards.

“Unlike his current conman counterpart (whose specter haunts my reading of this book forty years after it was written), the Governor was born in a shack with no electricity or water in the middle of nowhere. From there he made his way. His shenanigans seem more embarrassing than demonically destructive. Maybe it was the smaller stage, a matter of proportion. Or maybe he just had charm, a huge advantage and a product of actual intelligence—things which the man on the grander scale lacks.”

As I wrote in my review of Lives of the Saints (her first novel, recently republished by the New York Review of Books), Nancy Lemann is having a renaissance some 40 years after her debut. In this time of chaos and darkness, do yourself a favor and dip into one or more of Lemann’s works to discover her singular, lovely, nutty, witty, melancholy and poignant outlook on life.

“Nuts,” as the narrator asserts in Lives of the Saints, make “life worth living.”

More to come . . .

DJB

Photo by Declan Sun on Unsplash

When our games become an obsession

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The Milwaukee Brewers won the 2026 World Series because “they played the game the right way.” A recently re-published novel—well-written, dark, and ultimately tragic—suggests what can happen when our belief in games moves into obsession.

I loved watching the Milwaukee Brewers march their way through the playoffs to capture the 2026 World Series. The Brew Crew, which had clearly captured not only the vibe but the soul of Milwaukee, played baseball as many of us of an older generation fondly remember the game. The data geeks who now dominate baseball’s front offices look only for fireballing pitchers and batters who swing for the fences, resulting in lots of home runs and even more strikeouts. They’ve convinced themselves and the owners that this rather boring approach to the game is how one wins.

The folks who own and run the small-market Brewers beg to differ.

And so we saw an entire postseason of singles and doubles. Moving the runner over. Sacrifice bunts. Making every bat count. Fouling off pitch-after-pitch from the 100 mph flamethrowers on the other team until they both got the pitch they could hit and could run up the pitch-count on these star hurlers and get them out of the game.

It was glorious.

The Brewers had the best record in baseball this year, but that doesn’t always translate into postseason success. This year it did. In fact, the two teams with the best records in their leagues (hat tip to the Tampa Bay Rays) ended up in the World Series. It almost felt like the 1960s.

In the midst of the polarization and corruption driven by “the world’s most obnoxious person,” America was given a treat to enjoy. Two small market teams showed that you don’t have to spend a gazillion dollars to pull a community together, put a quality product on the field, and succeed. So what happens next? The owners—you remember that they only want to make money, right?—have pretty much promised a lock out in their bid to install a salary cap. Because that’s the only way they can survive financially. Right.

There’s a very good chance that spring training games, at a minimum, and possibly some of the 2027 season, will be lost to the lockout. Because the poor billionaires who own major league baseball teams are not able to bleed every penny out of a weary and stressed fan base. Like their friends in tech and health care and oil extraction and elsewhere, MLB owners make billionaire and wealth taxes look better and better every day.

Making the ultra rich pay their fair share won’t solve all our problems, but it would certainly be a step in the right direction.

So baseball fans are faced with the cold of winter and low odds of having spring baseball begin on schedule. It is time to watch Bull Durham, maybe play a few games on the old wooden baseball pinball toy, and pull out all those classic books about the game.

This year, one classic—with its own cautionary tale about obsession and reality—has been reprinted just in time for your off-season reading.

The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. (1968; reprinted by New York Review of Books in 2026) by Robert Coover is an original and challenging baseball novel that is about much more than the game. Henry Waugh is a “no-account accountant, barfly, and country music fan.” He hates his job and finds countless ways to avoid working. Henry annoys his boss, Horace Zifferblatt, who is looking for an excuse to fire him. The one thing Henry loves is baseball. “Not the actual game so much—to tell the truth, real baseball bored him—but rather the records, the statistics, the peculiar balances between individual and team, offense and defense, strategy and luck, accident and pattern, power and intelligence.” So taking the names of eight historical teams from baseball’s Civil War and Reconstruction eras, he has created a league that exists entirely in his head, except for the extensive scorecards, league standings, ongoing seasons, stat sheets, archives, and more. The games are played with dice following strict rules Henry has created.

When he rolls a certain combination Henry can immediately determine what has happened on his imaginary diamond, depending on the batter’s status: rookie, star, or just a regular player. Eating deli sandwiches and drinking copious amounts of beer, he will play multiple games each evening. This has gone on for years. When we join the action, the UBA is in its 56th season (or LVI as Henry likes to list it), and we come in during the seventh inning of a perfect game.

“Bottom half of the seventh, Brock’s boy had made it through another inning unscratched, one! two! three! Twenty-one down and just six outs to go!”

Brock is Brock Rutherford, retired star pitcher who came up to the league in season XIX, and Brock’s “boy” is his son, the rookie pitcher Damon Rutherford. Truth be told, the league has become a bit stale for Henry, but Damon’s performance revitalizes the game for its creator. After Damon completes his perfect game, Henry—who lives through each and every player, spectator, player’s wife, and manager—imagines the team going out to their favorite bar named Jake’s. There is no Jake’s, but when Henry sits in his local bar and calls out “Let’s go to Jake’s!” a prostitute named Hettie overhears him and asks, “Where?” Now, as Coover does more and more as the novel progresses, “we shift out of Henry’s reverie and back to real life.” But just as he has fun with the use of baseball jargon throughout the novel, Coover soon has Henry and Hettie in the heat of passion “whipping off” their uniforms. Henry becomes Damon, and together they “ran the bases, pounded into first, slid into second heels high, somersaulted over third, shot home standing up” only to step back in the box and do it all again.

The novel turns tragic as Henry, eager to see what his new star can do, pushes Damon to pitch the next game though he knows he should rest him between starts. Three consecutive rolls of triple snake eyes results in a freak death of the batter from a bean ball to the head. Damon Rutherford, Henry’s most cherished player, is the batter and his death haunts the imaginary game and Henry’s real (such as it is) life.

Henry is never overly attentive to his work and friends. But as the novel progresses, and especially after Damon’s death, he is consumed by the league. For the first time in 56 seasons he begins to manipulate the outcomes. He is pulled in deeper and deeper as his work and social life spin out of control. As the novel moves to its conclusion, the whole association is imperiled, “along with the sanity of its isolated creator.”

Coover has written a cautionary tale about fantasy, obsession, and control. Henry becomes less and less engaged with his co-workers as he stays up nights playing game after game. By the end of the book the association has continued even though Henry, apparently, has died. Written in the 1960s, Coover is well ahead of his time in anticipating fantasy baseball, yes, but more importantly, he is among the vanguard in considering the dystopian nature of artificial intelligence.

Unlike the recent World Series, a terrific one even with all its faults, Coover has created a world where things are perfect . . . until they are not.

More to come . . .

DJB

P.S. – Many thanks to my dear friend and Brilliant Reader George for gifting this book to me. He thought I would enjoy it and he, as usual, was right.

Photo by Rohit Choudhari on Unsplash

A Hallowe’en bonus treat for lovers of a good witness protection thriller

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Anna Scotti’s “It’s Not Even Past”—a brilliantly conceived set of murder mysteries featuring a librarian on the run—has just been re-published this fall after the original publisher closed its doors.

With Hallowe’en on the horizon I spent part of October reading murder mysteries. Now that the day has arrived I have a special treat: news of the re-publication of a wonderful “witness protection thriller.” Crippen & Landru released It’s Not Even Past with a new cover (by Christian Gibson) and a new introduction earlier this month.

It’s Not Even Past (originally published in 2025; newly republished in 2026) 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 where they received wide critical acclaim. In this wonderfully crafted work 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.

You can read my full original review from 2025 here.

Later that year, Anna answered my questions about the book and murder mysteries in general in a well-received Author Q&A, which you can read here. When I began the interview by asking how she became interested in murder mysteries, here was part of Anna’s reply:

“I’ve always loved reading mysteries―my mother would pass along her Agatha Christie and Elizabeth George paperbacks when she’d finished, and my dad his Dick Francis racetrack novels. My sister and I would fight over them, along with Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazines, which came out monthly back in the day.”

Do yourself a favor and order this book. You’ll thank me for it.

My years of reading dangerously

As I have explained before, I didn’t begin reading murder mysteries until I retired and the pandemic hit. Since then I’ve tried to make up for lost time, always including several from the genre as part of my intention to read “five books per month.”

Here’s an up-to-date list by year with links to my reviews. A couple are more historical fiction than traditional murder mysteries, but I’ve included them here since somebody dies along the way. You can also find the full list with links in the Reading Dangerously (AKA Murder Mysteries) category of MORE TO COME.

2022

2023

2024

2025

2026 (Through October)

AND A MUSICAL TREAT

Because Hallowe’en falls on Saturday, let’s end with a few special musical treats selected just for the holiday. Nina Simone does her usual masterful job with the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins hit I Put a Spell on You. That is followed by Elise LeGrow breaking the Bo Diddley classic Who Do You Love “down to a new set of bare bones. Watch her rasping howl bring ‘a tombstone hand and a graveyard mind’ to life.”

Next, let’s turn to Rhiannon Giddens with a version of O Death from her album, They’re Calling Me Home. Giddens, with partner Francesco Turrisi, base this version on singing by Bessie Jones of the Georgia Sea Island Singers. As the Bluegrass Situation (BGS) site notes, it is a good reminder of “just how much of American music and culture are entirely thanks to the contributions of Black folks.”

To wrap up, let’s turn to one of the most haunting versions of The Unquiet Grave recorded by my favorite Irish band, Solas. And this snippet from the lyrics give a hint of what’s to come.

One kiss, one kiss of your lily white lips, one kiss is all I crave
One kiss, one kiss of your lily white lips and return back to your grave…”

Well, you get the idea. Give it a listen.

Have a spooky Hallowe’en!

More to come . . .

DJB

Photo of a mysterious street by Adrien Brunat on Unsplash

Observations from . . . October 2026

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This summary of the October posts from the MORE TO COME newsletter begins with a reflection on memories. Of souls and saints we have known. Of passages through and out of this life.

A friend passed away yesterday morning. Jan’s was a full and extraordinary life, having lived in countries around the globe raising a family with her late husband Gene. She wrote a beautiful memoir so that her grandchildren could appreciate another time and place. Jan—a thoughtful reader and commentator—would share insights after reading about a book I’d reviewed on MTC or to encourage me to tackle a work she’d found meaningful.

Earlier this week, our nephew and his wife welcomed a new baby boy into the world. My sister texted that Peter Raouf Ghattas—named in part for his grandfather—arrived weighing in at 8 lbs 10 oz. “Mom and son are doing well. Dad is hanging in there too!”

Moving from October into November we are encouraged to remember the souls, saints, and, yes, even the scoundrels who have walked the earth. Passages into, through, and out of this life are all important. Candy, costumes, ghostly songs and—increasingly—extravagant lawn decorations are how most Americans approach Hallowe’en. Many see it as a harmless observance for children and young adults, to tie us over to Thanksgiving.

But the holiday, which originally came from pagan origins and traditions, was eventually transformed into a Christian observance, closely linked to All Hallows Day or All Saints Day on November 1st. “All-Hallows-Even (that is, evening) is the night before All Hallows Day.” A day to remember.

The traditional apostrophe in the earlier spelling of Hallowe’en denotes the missing “v” of “even.” Yes, I may be an old goat, but I love the traditional spelling to remind us of the holiday’s origins.

Credit: Gary Larson “The Far Side”

Remembrances of people who touched my life have been a part of MORE TO COME since I first put fingers to keyboard back in 2008. Some famous. Some friends. Some family. Earlier this month I scrolled through the Rest in Peace section of MTC and found memories flooding into my head. Into my heart.

Those who came before can provide guidance for navigation in troubled times. I am able to recall the life of a former colleague and dear family friend who lived full of gentleness, generosity, gratefulness, and grace and see possible paths forward. Humor, a self-deprecating style, and kindness can bring fame to a mediocre ballplayer who went on to become a beloved broadcaster and actor. But mostly those traits fostered deep affection. Heroes show us that in this time of anger and divisiveness, one can choose instead to bring a childhood joy and a sense of wonder to everything we do.

Other lives speak profoundly to the love that comes out of sacrifice and adherence to values that go beyond self-interest. In looking through posts of those who have passed on, I was reminded over and over again of how service, humbleness, fairness, and unconditional love are keys to a good life. A friend and former Congressman encouraged us, by taking the path less traveled, to have the courage to change our minds.

We all know people who shape us in ways we cannot even fathom. We do well to keep their memories alive. Sometimes the best remembrance is to pull out a guitar, play music, and tell stories.

At the end, what really matters is who you loved and who loved you.

In a month full of travel, spooks, unrest, change, birth, deaths, and anxiety—“when powerful forces are seeking to divide us one from another, when the legitimacy of our constitutional institutions is under attack, and when factually supported truth itself has come under relentless challenge”—we can use our memories and the examples from past lives to give us strength to navigate the uncertainty and chaos. We can begin each day with a commitment to “live with compassion, with grace, with insight, with integrity, with love.” We can connect to our best selves and, in doing so, connect to the world.

Let’s jump in and see what memories and connections piqued my interest on MORE TO COME as summer’s end led us to the inward focus of autumn. As the natural world “turns toward rest.”

READER FAVORITES

During two recent weeks of both personal time and travel with National Trust Tours in Milan and Lake Como we sampled a variety of delectable foods, visited a number of remarkable historic sites, walked the old streets of thriving communities, and engaged with the citizens of the world.

Sampling the inimitable cuisine and culture of Lombardy: Part 1, The Milan edition was the top post in terms of reader views in October.

ANNOY THE BOOK BANNERS AND READ

The other reader favorite was a highlight of Banned Books Week. Books are to be treasured, not banned is my reminder that America’s problem is not that we’re reading too many books. Free people read freely!

Each day that week I focused on a photo of banned books from a DC area bookstore. Monday’s photo from Solid State Books was embedded in the Books are to be treasured . . . post. Tuesday’s photo came from Old Town Books in Alexandria; Bards Alley in Vienna is the setting for our photo for Wednesday; on Thursday I visited People’s Book in Takoma Park; while East City Book Shop was the scene of Friday’s banned book photo. Check them all out and go read a banned book!

REACHING THE THREE-QUARTERS POLE IN THE INDEPENDENT BOOKSHOP TOUR

Unknown creator/screenshot by arhpdx

In October I wrote about visits to three regional independent bookstores: one in the District, a second in Maryland, and another in Virginia. Twenty-four reviews down, six to go! Here are the shops and books I highlighted in October:

A MONTH OF READING DANGEROUSLY

Books were very much on my mind this month. October, with Hallowe’en at the end of the month, is a wonderful time to read all types of detective fiction. In addition to Donna Leon’s The Girl of His Dreams noted above, here are four additional murder mysteries I read to put me in the proper frame of mind for the ghosts and goblins that will show up at our door tomorrow evening.

  • Of manners and mystery—My review of the debut novel of Julia Seales entitled A Most Agreeable Murder, a recent parody of the classic English cozy mystery, was the first in this series.
  • Reinvention . . . with the twist of a knife—Richard Osman’s third installment in the Thursday Murder Club series, The Bullet That Missed, is clever and charming.
  • A “slow food” type of mystery—Bruno, Chief of Police is the first installment in Martin Walker’s successful series about life and crime in a small French village.
  • A fatal greed—Georges Simenon’s The Shadow Puppet is the twelfth installment in the legendary Maigret series and it served as a perfect ending for my month of reading dangerously.

THE KITCHEN SINK: BASEBALL, BOOKS, AND BILL EVANS

I’ll add a few random thoughts to bring this summary to a close.

Every now and then I pick a winner. Bring on October baseball! was my non-analytical, highly personal take on who will win it all. Shockingly, I picked the Brew Crew! I’ll have more on the World Series Champions—and a review of a baseball novel that was just republished as a New York Review Book Classic—next week.

From the bookshelf: September 2026 highlights the books I read last month.

Finally, you may have noticed that we have an election coming up next week. I voted today to do my part to begin the dismantling of a political cult run by “the world’s most obnoxious person.” If you are feeling anxious, I might suggest some Bill Evans. Peace Piece is an unrehearsed modal composition that he recorded for his Everybody Digs Bill Evans LP in 1958. It is hailed as one of the most beautiful and evocative solo piano improvisations ever recorded.

DON’T POSTPONE JOY

Thanks, as always, for reading. Your friendship, support and feedback mean more than I can ever express.

As you travel life’s highways be open to love; thirst for wonder; undertake some mindful, transformative walking every day. Recognize the incredible privilege that most of us have and think about how to put that privilege to use for good. Women, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, public servants, and others can feel especially vulnerable . . . because they are. Work hard for justice and democracy as the fight never ends.

But also keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable. Take time to dawdle and dream. Let yourself be bewildered!

Leave enough empty space to feel and experience life. Those gaps are where the magic begins. When times get rough, let your memories wander back to some wonderful place with remembrances of family and friends. But don’t be too hard on yourself if a few of the facts slip. Just get the poetry right.

Be comfortable in the mystery. Seek the uplifting spirit that leads to a life of grace and wonder.

Grace to help us remember that we can do hard things. “Grace to never sell yourself short; Grace to risk something big for something good; and Grace to remember the world is now too dangerous for anything but the truth and too small for anything but love . . .”

Wonder to help us remember that “we are here to keep watch, not to keep.” Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. And bash into some joy along the way.

Life is finite . . . love is not.

Try to be nice. Always be kind.

More to come . . .

DJB

For the September 2026 summary, click here.

You can subscribe to MORE TO COME by going to the small “Follow” box that is on the right-hand column of the site (on the desktop version) or at the bottom right on your mobile device. It is great to hear from readers, and if you like them feel free to share these posts on your own social media platforms.

Cemetery photo by Attila Lisinszky on Unsplash

Sampling the inimitable cuisine and culture of Lombardy: Part 1, The Milan edition

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During two recent weeks of both personal time and travel with National Trust Tours in Milan and Lake Como we sampled a variety of delectable foods, visited a number of remarkable historic sites, walked the old streets of thriving communities, and engaged with welcoming locals and curious visitors from around the world.

Part 1 highlights our five days in Milan. Magnifico!

Candice and I arrived five days early for our National Trust Tours excursion to the Italian Lakes and Lombardy. In addition to the practical necessity of resetting our body clocks following an international flight, we wanted to spend personal time in Milan, the capital of the Lombardy region, before moving to focus on Lake Como with the NTT tour.

It had been ten years almost to the month that I’d last visited the region, so I was eager to see how it had changed. And since the last trip was a solo flight, I also wanted to introduce Candice to this part of a country we came to love in 2016 on a six-week sabbatical.

Milan is Italy’s economic powerhouse, and it is no surprise that the country’s wealth—both financial and cultural—can be seen in superb architecture, splendid works of art, and world class museums. Over the course of our days in Milan (both privately and with NTT) we walked city streets that are often compared to Paris (best seen in the early morning light); toured the Sforza Castle; spent time in the Galleria, the world-renown shopping district; made two visits to the Ambrosiana museum; and spent several hours at the flamboyant 14th-century Duomo, a Gothic masterpiece with 2,244 marble saints and nearly 100 gargoyles.

Finally, as is our custom, we used those first days in Milan to take a culinary tour, sample some of the city’s various restaurants and food halls, and enjoy a first class meal at one of Milan’s finest Michelin-rated restaurants.

This photo essay will walk you through these six days in Milan.

STREETSCAPES OF MILAN

Milan is a very walkable city and I explored it at all parts of the day. The streetcars—from all eras of the city’s growth—were a special touch for me.

SFORZA CASTLE

The Sforza Castle encompasses seven centuries of history and is an extraordinary testimony to Milan’s past and future.

“A stronghold built by order of Galeazzo II Visconti between 1360 and 1370 , the Castle became a ducal residence during the Visconti era, undergoing partial demolition during the Ambrosian Republic (1447-1450). Rebuilt by the new lord of the city Francesco Sforza, it became the elegant setting for one of the most sumptuous European courts during the time of Galeazzo Maria Sforza and Ludovico il Moro, in an era that saw artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Bramante in Milan.”

Today the Castle houses museums and cultural institutes and is one of the most significant monuments in the city.

Since 2015, the space of the ancient Spanish Hospital of the Castle has offered a suggestive setting for the poignant, last masterpiece of Michelangelo Bonarroti (1475-1564): the Pietà Rondanini .

The sculptor worked on the Pietà during the last ten years of his life, gradually modifying its layout. The sculpture . . . is the elder artist’s testament and meditation on death and the salvation of the soul . . . The positioning of the bodies of Mary and Jesus at different heights seems to suggest the intertwining of multiple moments in Christ’s story: the deposition from the Cross, the burial, and even the Resurrection, in the dissolution of the Son’s body in his mother’s embrace.

GALLERIA

I’ve never seen The Devil Wears Prada 1 or 2 but some in our group were very excited to visit this space that is apparently featured in an iconic scene from the movie. I was more excited about two wonderful meals we enjoyed in a classic Italian restaurant across from the original Prada store.

THE AMBROSIANA

Founded in April 1618, the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana was born “thanks to the vision of Cardinal Federico Borromeo, who donated his precious collection of paintings, sculptures, and drawings to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana—which he had established in 1607.”

It was a place our friend and Brilliant Reader George had encouraged us to visit, so we made two trips to explore the treasure trove of unique artwork which serves as a meeting place for art, culture, and beauty.

The museum contains a number of masterpieces, including Leonardo da Vinci’s Portrait of a Musician, the only painting by Leonardo on wood to have remained in Milan; . . .

Raphael’s Preliminary Cartoon for the School of Athens, the largest Renaissance cartoon that has survived to this day, made by Raphael as a preparatory work for the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican, which was commissioned by Julius II; and . . .

Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit, probably “the most famous painting in Cardinal Federico’s collection . . . It is justly considered to be a sort of prototype of what was to become known as the ‘still life’ genre.”

THE DUOMO

CUISINE

We enjoyed sampling restaurants and culinary shops during our time in the city, including such well known food halls as Peck and the nearby Giusti balsamic vinegar boutique.

The highlight of our culinary experience in Milan was an evening Candice and I spent at the Michelin two star restaurant Verso Capitaneo. The creation of two brothers, Remo and Mario, Verso is an open kitchen restaurant where all twenty diners watch the chefs craft creative and delectible dishes.

The Elite Traveler describes the experience:

“Verso, located in Milan’s Piazza Duomo, offers a refined dining experience with an intimate setting. Brothers Remo and Mario Capitaneo helm the kitchen, presenting a cohesive vision born from experience in other Michelin-starred establishments. The restaurant has earned two Michelin stars, a testament to their dedication and skill. With limited seating and an open kitchen, Verso provides an unusual dining experience where guests can witness the culinary artistry firsthand. The ambiance is pleasant and informal, designed to make diners feel welcome and experience a different perspective from that of a traditional restaurant.”

As a welcome gesture, everyone receives the house snack: an intriguing rose made with beet petals and caviar, “the latter has captured attention on social networks, becoming one of the restaurant’s most popular posts on Instagram.”

The restaurant’s configuration

Chef Mario was at the helm during our three-hour feast. I’ve included less than half of the dishes from the meal. The entire evening was, to fall back on a classic, magnifico!

More to come . . .

DJB

Part 2, with photos from our time on Lake Como, will arrive sometime next week.

All photos by DJB except for the Verso interior (credit the restaurant) and the photo of Candice and DJB with Chef Mario (credit the hostess).

A fatal greed

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Georges Simenon’s twelfth installment in the legendary Maigret series was a perfect ending for my month of reading dangerously.

For October’s fifth book of detective fiction in celebration of Hallowe’en, I turned to an old favorite. The sparse, descriptive writing of Georges Simenon always works in putting the reader right in the center of the conflicting emotions around crime, betrayal, and the search for justice.

The Shadow Puppet (1932) by Georges Simenon is the twelfth installment in the legendary Inspector Maigret series. A businessman has been shot dead in his office and the monthly payroll taken from his safe. While walking on the dimly lit Place des Vosges, Maigret hears the sound of a woman in distress. But this is deceiving, as she is giving birth in a room above. However, as the lights of the apartments across the courtyard flicker, Maigret sees shadowy figures at the windows. He soon comes to understand that behind one of those windows is the dead man and his empty safe. His job is to discover who, behind those other windows, may know of—or have committed—the murder.

The plot begins in earnest as Inspector Maigret investigates the murder of businessman Raymond Couchet in his office at Place des Vosges, Paris. Couchet was shot in the heart and he died instantly. 360,000 francs are missing from the safe, but they must have been taken before the murder, because the dead man’s body blocks access to the safe. Couchet, who was shot sometime between 8 and 9 p.m,, had been set to meet his mistress, Nine Moinard, at the Café Select at 8:00. Maigret notices Monsieur Martin, a resident of the nearby apartments, searching the rubbish bins in the courtyard. He is looking for his lost glove. He later learns that Madame Martin—who is Coucet’s first wife and the mother of their son Roger—was also searching in the bins that evening.

It quickly gets very complicated with contested wills, Roger’s addiction and eventual suicide, Madame Martin’s incessant complaining about money, and the bourgeoisie family of Coucet’s second wife pulling together to protect her interests.

In this installment of the Maigret series, Simenon uses vivid characterizations to have us see into the lives of Parisian businessmen, petty officials, and high-bourgeoisie. His descriptions of the various settings—the Place des Vosges, cafes, and residences—adds to the allure of the mystery.

In the end, Maigret uncovers a tragic story of “desperate lives, unhappy families, addiction, and a terrible, fatal greed.”

This is the fifth and final installment of my “month of reading dangerously” in anticipation of Hallowe’en. To see the others, check out the most recent listings under the Reading Dangerously (AKA Murder Mysteries) tab.

Enjoy!

More to come . . .

DJB

Shadows photo by Maria Ionova on Unsplash