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From the bookshelf: April 2026

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

The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson (1974; new 250th anniversary edition published in 2026) by Bernard Bailyn is the history of the native-born royal governor of Massachusetts Bay from 1771–1774 and his fellow American loyalists who found themselves on the losing side of the Revolutionary War. In the preface Bailyn writes that he was taking on this subject to help us see the “tragedy” of the Revolution. Not the sadness, or the error or wrongness of it. But to better understand “the limits within which men struggled . . . the famous and the obscure, the best and the worst, the winners and the losers.” We have to understand those stories—especially of those “who suffered violence and vilification, who were driven out of the land and forced to resettle elsewhere in middle life, and died grieving for the homes they had lost”—if we are to make sense of the Revolution. Thomas Hutchinson was the best-known embodiment of those Americans who still clung to England and who died in exile longing for their native home, a home that was transformed and unrecognizable to them as a result of revolution. This National Book Award-winning masterpiece succeeds in being largely free “of myths, wish fulfillments, and partisan delusion” and also marked “a turning point in historiography, illuminating the overlooked dimensions of American history and the stories that shape nations.”

From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in The Second Half of Life (2022) by Arthur C. Brooks begins with the premise that too many of us believe that the more successful we are the less susceptible we become to the sense of professional and social irrelevance that often accompanies aging. But Brooks asserts that our belief in our ongoing relevance simply isn’t true. Aging and decline are inevitable. A social scientist, Brooks chronicles his own journey, beginning at age 50 at the height of his career, to see if he could transform his future from disappointment to an opportunity for progress in new and unexpected ways. Depending on your perspective and personal experience, he either succeeded or simply finally found wisdom about the world as it works that many intuitively know or find through family, experience, or faith without having to read a self-help book.

Death in the Strike Zone: The Mystery of America’s First Baseball Hero (2026) by Thomas W. Gilbert has been accurately described as “part biography, part detective story, and part time machine.” A baseball historian who has written extensively on the early years of the game, Gilbert brings to life the story of James Creighton, a young Brooklyn ballplayer who shot to prominence during the Amateur Era, forever changed how the game is played, and then mysteriously died at the young age of 21 after suffering an injury. Creighton, who invented something new for the game—modern pitching—threw the first fastball and the first curve ball. Because of his prowess, baseball had to invent the strike zone. The young phenom’s death shocked the sport and inspired the first grand baseball-themed monument, which can still be seen in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. The story of how those who wanted to grow the game rushed to blame the death on cricket—which Creighton also played—and not baseball opens up Gilbert’s examination of a cover up as well as the nativist roots of our first national sport. As a result of their actions, Creighton’s singular role in changing the nation’s pastime has been largely missing from baseball’s history, until now.

The Great Divorce (1945), by C.S. Lewis is a Christian allegorical tale about a bus ride from hell to heaven. This is the book where Lewis first introduces the revolutionary idea (for some) that the gates of hell are locked from the inside. Amazingly, Lewis tells us, anyone who wants to stay in heaven can. “If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven,” Lewis insists. Without getting too deep into questions of judgement, let me just say that I agree with his perspective. Returning to this work written more than 80 years ago, however, I found myself underwhelmed. The tale itself was not particularly compelling. From my perspective the book works somewhat better as a meditation upon good and evil, grace and judgment.

Living in the Present with John Prine (2025) by Tom Piazza was to be Prine’s memoir. But after the songwriter’s untimely death from Covid it became an intimate and personal narrative of the artist’s last few years. In a series of road trips, late night jam sessions, meals enjoyed in John’s favorite diners, and interviews, Piazza succeeds in capturing Prine’s unique voice. As fans we have heard this voice most frequently in his unforgettable songs. The joy of this new work is that we now experience John’s take on life in his everyday speech and off-hand remarks. In the end, Piazza has written a beautiful and personal work about friendship, love, and loss.

Partly Strong, Partly Broken (2026) by Nathaniel Popkin is a work full of compassion and understanding as it explores the difficult questions around politics and racism that vex us today. The novel, told through the eyes of the passionate, inclusivity-minded Rabbi Adinah, focuses on political divisions poisoning an American Jewish community and a multifaith coalition in New Jersey. Set in the fall of 2023, the story unfolds before the attacks on Israel by Hamas and the subsequent devastation of Gaza in retaliation. Rabbi Adinah returns from a trip to Israel to find both her synagogue and her congregation falling apart. Many of the guardrails that guided our life together have been broken and refuge is difficult to find. Popkin creates a story for today’s world in which all can relate, and he examines these tensions with honesty and sensitivity. 

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

Keep reading!

More to come . . .

DJB

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

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

Mother’s Day lessons from Mom

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I have used essentially the same post on Mother’s Day since 2022. It says what I want to say in these times, so I’ll repost it again here, in a slightly edited form. Happy Mother’s Day!

Mother loved the old-fashioned iris. She had them in our garden patch and when I see them today my thoughts inevitably turn to her. As I passed near the Koiner Urban Farm on one of my recent walks I saw my first irises of the year. During what has been a tough time for anyone who cares about rights and democracy in America, my thoughts of Mom went to how she dealt with similar challenges.

Helen portrait
Helen and Tom Brown, 1950
Helen Roberts Brown

Mom passed away on New Year’s Day in 1998, but her life and the lessons she taught me still provide a helping hand here in the 21st century. Lessons such as:

  • Women are to be respected and valued as people. Mom, the first woman elected as a deacon at First Baptist Church, was a quiet but effective leader who valued other women as leaders. She worked most of her career under a woman, Briley Adcock, our municipal library director. Helen Brown was no radical feminist, but she also did not buy any of the “woman’s place on a pedestal” nonsense. Two of the best bosses in my career were women, and I worked easily in that environment thanks to Mom’s example.
  • Books are meant to be read, not banned and burned. Mom was a lifelong reader and learner. She loved books and as both a mother and a librarian she loved teaching young children about books. I am appalled at the push by right-wing zealots to ban books today, as if we learned nothing from the fight against the fascists in World War II. Our country is filled with problems. Reading too many books isn’t one of them.
  • Vote in every election. Mom and Dad were informed citizens with a strong BS detector when it came to politicians. They also voted in every election. Being independent, I know of more than one occasion when they cancelled each other’s votes. I’ve followed Mom’s lead, voting in every election since 1976 when I supported Jimmy Carter for president.
  • Treat everyone with respect. And that means everyone. We simply were not permitted to be rude to others, no matter how different they were or how marginalized by society. As the country has become more intolerant, I frequently remind myself not to fall into that trap.
  • Be the person you are meant to be. Mom and Dad probably succeeded with this life principle beyond their wildest dreams. Even when it was tough, they stood by their belief that each child has to figure out what is in store for them in this world. I have tried, generally with success, to follow their example with our children.
  • You have no right to complain if you don’t do the service. Mom did not like cynics who complained without making a serious effort to work towards a solution. She took her turn as PTA president, even though it was the year our local schools were being desegregated following the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. She did it because she felt it was the right thing to do. Mom was always “in the arena” as Teddy Roosevelt would say. **

When I see the patch of iris, I am reminded that Mom is still here, helping me see that we are facing another moment in America where we can change our narrative and our future for the better. It will not be easy, but we need to see everyone — even the marginalized — as humans of value with the same rights we have. We need to educate ourselves so we don’t blindly follow the tribe. We need to do our duty as citizens in a democracy.

It will not be easy, but we have to continue to try, for ourselves, and for our children and grandchildren. Our mothers are calling us.

Happy Mother’s Day.

More to come…

DJB

*In the original post I also linked to a lovely remembrance of Mom by my sister Carol.

**In his famous Citizenship in a Republic speech, Roosevelt railed against cynics who looked down at those who were trying to make the world a better place. “The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer,” he said. “A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities — all these are marks, not … of superiority but of weakness.” It is the person (man in Roosevelt’s day) who is actually in the arena, who comes up short but keeps striving, who counts.

Photo by Kevin CASTEL on Unsplash

A classic that speaks to our times

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Ferenc Molnár’s classic Hungarian young adult novel of the early twentieth century provided an unexpected pleasure in May of 2026.

When a friend loaned me a classic young adult novel from her native Hungary earlier this year, I wasn’t sure I would find it of interest. Then the country’s extraordinary democratic overthrow at the ballot box of autocrat Viktor Orban exploded into the news on a Sunday in April. Suddenly I wanted to know more about the people who had the courage to take back their country. “’The only moment you can compare it to is 1989,’ when, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Hungary’s Communist dictatorship came to an end,” said a woman at a rally the day before the historic vote.

The Paul Street Boys (1907) by Ferenc Molnár is a captivating and surprisingly emotional novel that explores themes of loyalty, sacrifice, and the loss of innocence. Set in 1889 Budapest, the story centers around two rival street gangs: the Redshirts and the Paul Street Boys. The two are fighting over a vacant lot they call their grund or “Fatherland”—with the Paul Street Boys defending their territory against the Redshirts led by Feri Áts. The Paul Street Boys are led by János Boka, a wise and honorable student who befriends Ernő Nemecsek, the smallest of the group. After members of the Redshirts steal Nemecsek’s marbles—a scene memorably captured in the Péter Szanyi sculpture in Budapest—the two gangs move towards a confrontation.

Time and again Nemecsek demonstrates his bravery and loyalty to his friends as the conflict escalates. Boka and Nemecsek spy on the Redshirts in their Botanical Garden hideout, and then Nemecsek returns on his own to the rival gang’s island hideaway and endures a dunking in the cold lagoon. But by standing up to Feri Áts he earns the older boy’s respect. The entire confrontation between the gangs is carried out in military fashion, governed by strategy, honor, and camaraderie. 

Located in the crowded Józsefváros neighborhood of Budapest, the grund offers the boys a “limitless” space for play, creativity, and adventure. It is also a place that belongs only to them, away from the strict rules of the adult world and the ever-watchful eyes of Professor Rácz. Throughout the book there are instances where little Nemecsek demonstrates that his bravery and loyalty surpass his size, none more important than at a critical moment in the battle when the Redshirts appear to be close to turning the tide. In a scene reminiscent of David the shepherd boy taking down the giant Goliath, Nemecsek surprises and subdues Feri Áts, the fierce leader of the Redshirts. The book ends in tragedy, however. Nemecsek dies of the pneumonia that he caught in the dunking. Boka also learns that a tenement building will soon be erected on the grund lot, meaning that the boys’ heroic struggle to defend it and Nemecsek’s sacrifice were in vain.

Molnár’s ending reflects this loss of innocence. János Boka sits and stares at a desk in front of him, his “simple and young soul” beginning to stir with the forebodings “of what life held in store.”

The Redshirt bullies (left) look on as Nemecsek rolls his marble outside the school (Credit: Wikimedia)

Life in Hungary has not been easy over the past century but the spirit of the people prevails. As Michelle Goldberg wrote in her New York Times column from the country immediately after the election that replaced Prime Minister Orban’s Fidesz party:

“Some admirers of Orban have argued that the fact that he lost proves he was never an autocrat to begin with. What it really demonstrates, however, is that opposition to Fidesz was so strong it was able to overwhelm all the structures Orban put in place to protect his rule: wildly distorted voting districts, a captured media, state-sponsored propaganda, local patronage networks, and widespread threats and intimidation.”

Honor, loyalty, forgiveness, reconciliation, patriotism, and bravery are all present in The Paul Street Boys. Loss, love of country, courage, perseverance, and loyalty all played out this past month in Eastern Europe. We saw little David taking down Goliath. Life is not a straight line, and what appears inevitable, such as the march towards autocracy, can change in what seems the blink of an eye by the actions of those—like a young boy or citizens who want their country back—whose power and agency is often dismissed.

Plaque on the wall of Kossuth House in Washington celebrating the 30th anniversary in 2019 of the overthrow of the communist dictatorship in Hungary. Always read the plaque.

More to come . . .

DJB

Photo of Péter Szanyi sculpture of Paul Street Boys in Budapest, 8. district, Práter street school, inspired after Ferenc Molnar’s novel (credit: Budapest Tours)

You must remember this

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“Maybe there are better films than Casablanca, but there are probably none better loved.”

While preparing for an upcoming lecture on the ways that popular culture has influenced our views of history, I began delving into one of the best known and beloved movies of the last 100 years.

  • The American Film Institute (AFI) listed it as #2 on the original list of America’s greatest movies (Citizen Kane was #1).
  • It’s also ranked #1 among cinema’s love stories and has six quotes named among the most iconic of all time . . . leaving out, amazingly, my favorite from the film. *
  • The song “As Time Goes By” sung by Dooley Wilson ranks #2 on the list of top 100 songs of American cinema, topped only by “Over the Rainbow.”
  • Humphrey Bogart’s character Rick Blaine was ranked #4 on AFI’s list of the greatest screen heroes—and Bogart himself was named the #1 screen legend of all time on AFI’s 100 YEARS…100 STARS!

Film critic Roger Ebert made the astute observation: “When asked what is the greatest movie of all time, I say Citizen Kane. When asked what is the movie you like the best, I say Casablanca.”

Thankfully for the sake of my lecture . . . and for movie lovers everywhere . . . there’s a delightful book that helped flesh out my research with anecdotes and information that even longtime fans will find irresistible.

We’ll Always Have Casablanca: The Life, Legend, and Afterlife of Hollywood’s Most Beloved Movie (2017) by Noah Isenberg is a rich account of this most beloved movie’s origins as an unproduced stage play, its production as America’s involvement in World War II was beginning, its release just weeks after Allied troops landed in Morocco, and its long afterlife as a touchstone for our better angels. Isenberg, a noted film historian, conducts extensive archival research coupled with interviews of filmmakers, film critics, family members of the cast and crew, and diehard fans. The result is a deep yet swiftly moving, comprehensive yet tender account of the movie that millions around the world continue to watch and love. Senator Elizabeth Warren might have phrased it best in a New Year’s message written in 2016: “Each time I watch it, Casablanca gives me hope.”

In seven chapters titled from famous lines in the movie, Isenberg reveals the myths and realities behind Casablanca’s production. Chapter 1—Everybody Comes to Rick’s—sets the stage with extensive background on the writers of a modest, unproduced, three act stage play written in 1940 by English teacher Murray Burnett and his long-time writing partner Joan Alison. The origins of the story came from Burnett’s 1938 trip to Europe, as a relatively innocent and unsophisticated traveler, who saw firsthand the transformation of the continent by the Nazis. That summer he experienced the Nuremberg Laws, learned of the so-called refugee trail from Marseilles to Morocco, smuggled contraband from Jewish relatives out of Austria, and visited a smoky nightclub on the outskirts of Nice where a black pianist, a “crooner” from Chicago, was working the crowd playing jazz standards.

“Taking in the scene, Burnett purportedly turned to his wife and said on the spot, ‘What a setting for a play!’ Thus was the idea for Casablanca born.”

In what began a string of fortuitous timings associated with the film, the script showed up on the desk of Warner Brothers executives just days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. By New Year’s Eve the script was beginning a long series of rewrites by a variety of screenwriters, and the studio sent around an internal memo announcing, “The story that we recently purchased entitled Everybody Comes to Rick’s will hereafter be known as Casablanca.”

Controversial casting decisions are also part of Isenberg’s story (in a chapter entitled Usual Suspects) where we learn that studio publicists issued a red herring of a publicity announcement that Ronald Reagan would star in Casablanca. (Perish the thought!) Bogart was the natural choice, although the female lead’s nationality and character would need to be changed before a twenty-seven year old Ingrid Bergman becomes Ilsa Lund. Bogart would later say that his status as a sex symbol went sky-high after the movie although he didn’t change all that much. “Bergman looked at him with an amorous gaze and, presto, he had sex appeal.”

Arthur “Dooley” Wilson memorably plays the black piano player and Rick Blaine’s confidant Sam in Casablanca. Wilson did his own singing but as he didn’t know how to play the piano that part was dubbed in by a staff musician. His fully-formed and sympathetic character, highly unusual during the Jim Crow era, was heralded as ground-breaking in the Black press of the day. One reviewer noted that “no picture has given as much sympathetic treatment and prominence to a Negro character as occurs in this story of war intrigue in North Africa.” A review in the New York Amsterdam News, one of the nation’s few black-owned newspapers, was titled “Wilson’s Role in Casablanca Tops for Hollywood” with a subhead that said it all: “Stars in Pic with Bogart: Warner Brothers Shows That It Can Be Done.”

Two of the more interesting storylines in the book relate to the battles with Production Code and war information censors and the central role refugees from Hitler’s Europe played in the movie’s creation.

The Production (or Hayes) Code was a 1930s creation to ensure that no picture was produced which would “lower the moral standards of those who watch it.” Sex—and especially adultery—was one of the Hayes Office’s “favorite whipping posts” which ensured that Rick and Ilsa romance in Paris had to be consummated only after Ilsa assures Rick that she believes that her husband, Victor Laszlo, is dead. Once Laszlo (played memorably by Austrian-born actor Paul Henreid) returns that same set of rules set the stage for the ending. The overseeing eye of the Office of War Information (OWI) added to the mix. While Rick may say early in the film that he “sticks his neck out for no one,” we find in the course of the story that he worked against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War and Ilsa reminds him of why he needs to leave Paris before the Nazi’s arrive. “Richard, they’ll find out your record. It won’t be safe for you here.”

Personally, I found the backstory about the extensive and complex role of refugees to be fascinating, especially when contrasting history with today’s challenges. If you think about it Casablanca may be a love story, but it is also at its heart a story about the travails of immigrants and the many dangers faced by refugees. Isenberg provides multiple storylines for those interested in that part of the subplot.

The casting is where one sees this most clearly.

“Nearly all of the seventy-five actors and actresses cast in Casablanca were immigrants. Among the fourteen who earned a screen credit, only three were born in the United States: Humphrey Bogart, Dooley Wilson, and Joy Page, Jack Warner’s stepdaughter, who plays the Bulgarian refugee Annina Brandel. At the studio, Stage S, where Rick’s Cafe was assembled, was known as International House.”

The American-born bit actor who played Abdul the doorman at Rick’s noticed:

“. . . streams of tears flowing from the eyes of his fellow actors—most prominently Madeleine Lebeau, who plays Rick’s on-again-off-again paramour Yvonne—during the singing of the Marseillaise. ‘I suddenly realized,’ he recalled many years later, ‘that they were all real refugees.”

In a good example of how popular culture’s depiction of history doesn’t always match what actually happened, Isenberg notes that while the story of refugees in centered in Casablanca, it was still glossed over in certain ways.

“. . .to tell the story on the Hollywood screen in 1942, these refugees would have to be stripped of any obvious ethnic or religious affiliations. They would simply have to be ‘refugees” congregating at Rick’s Cafe, all of them, in the shared predicament—not specific to any one group as the film has it—of waiting to secure a prized exit visa.”

André Aciman, author of Out of Egypt, observes,

“All these Jews are on screen and yet they cannot address it explicitly. It’s all over the screen, but not in the movie.”

That Jews were fleeing the Nazis and trying to leave Europe wasn’t a hidden secret at the time. Six million Jews were eventually killed in Hitler’s concentration camps. Yet the movies at the time could not, or would not, be that specific for fear of upsetting the Americans who flocked to theatres in that era. It is another part of our past that deserves deeper reflection.

Just like the movie, there is so much to love about this book. I’ve only touched the surface. But let me give the last word to scriptwriter Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally) who, months before her death, wrote a short Valentine piece for The Daily Beast in which she listed her all-time favorite love stories,

“. . . including Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934) and Bill Wilder’s The Apartment (1960). Naturally Casablanca ranks high up on her list, but unlike the other wordier entries, her commentary on the film is limited to just two short, revealing lines: ‘How many times can you see it? Never enough.'”

That’s a historical perspective I can agree with.

More to come . . .

DJB

*The six quotes in the top 100 are:

  • No. 5: “Here’s looking at you, kid” spoken by Rick (Bogart) to Ilsa (Bergman)
  • No. 20: “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”
  • No. 28: “Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By,’” (often misquoted as “Play it again, Sam”
  • No. 32: “Round up the usual suspects”
  • No. 43: “We’ll always have Paris”
  • No. 67: “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine”

Observations from . . . April 2026

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A summary of the April posts from the MORE TO COME newsletter.

When April’s warm weather turns suddenly cool—which seems to happen about every twelve hours—Candice will invariably say, “Well, we’re in Winter/Spring season.” She is kind enough not to add, “What do you expect?”

But she was thrilled to find a recent New York Times article where the writer Melissa Kirsch was using April-themed poems to make a similar and larger point. “April days contain multiple seasons. There’s a lesson in there if we want to take it, about holding multiple things at once.”

“Certainty is easier” [Kirsch continues]. “April, in much of the country, is liminal, vacillating between winter and spring, refusing to resolve cleanly. If you look closely, you can observe this tension: the tulips quivering in the gusting wind; people in shorts and people wearing mittens on the same block; stepping onto the porch to see a robin and instead seeing your own breath. The internal work is much the same. Sitting quietly, paying close attention to the weather inside, you can observe the hope that blows in with the fear, the lightness and heaviness that seem to be competing.”

This April, I found myself writing about living in these liminal times and spaces. The purple iris and the revolutionary nature of flowers is a meditation of sorts that fits this theme. In a not terribly enthusiastic review of a self-help book, I spend a good bit of the post quoting the poet Carrie Newcomer and the way she reflects on “living in that vibrating and shifting center point between all that was and all that’s to come.” This month you’ll find thoughts on creation, darkness, and the coming of spring.

In our conversation about his new novel—a post which was at the top of the list of reader views in April—Nathaniel Popkin notes:

“None of us are what we wish we were, nor what others wish we were, but we are what we are, as painful as that may be sometimes. In this particular novel, I do want to help the reader see complexity, to feel how hard it is to be certain about anything. To hold possibly oppositional truths and not necessarily to accept them but to acknowledge their simultaneous presence.” 

Kirsch writes that her work in the Times to identify things that bring joy is not meant “to deny that there are difficult things in the world, or to avoid the inevitable contradictions that come from loving things: beautiful films about sad subjects, art that emerges from suffering.” 

Life is hard because mystery is hard. Life is also joyful and full of wonder. Like all truth, life is a paradox. Joy, as Rebecca Solnit has observed, can be a fine initial act of insurrection. In a similar vein, doubt can be a doorway to truth.

April, that most liminal of months, brings hope and joy along with the doubt and fear.

Let’s jump in and take a look at the encounters, discoveries, and observations from the slow lane of life that I uncovered in April.

READER FAVORITES

Staff at Bold Fork Books in Mt. Pleasant during the DC Independent Bookstore Crawl

Three posts were at the top of the list of reader favorites in April.

  • When our refuge is shattered was the latest installment of the MTC Author Q&A series. Nathaniel Popkin talked with me about his upcoming novel Partly Strong, Partly Broken (due out on May 5th) and the story of a progressive rabbi trying desperately to hold her interfaith community together. This is a thoughtful and deeply compassionate examination of the age-old divisions poisoning America’s social contract in the 21st century, and our readers found Nathaniel’s conversation with me both moving and timely.

JOURNEYS THAT SHAPE A LIFE

Journeys are literal and figurative, temporal and spiritual. Interior journeys can take place without leaving home. In April, I wrote about different kinds of journeys that continue to shape my life.

  • Recently I have been thinking of past journeys in my life where I have moved physically as well as emotionally and intellectually. I’ve wanted to reflect on what I gained from seeing more of the world and what we have to lose as travel becomes more difficult in this time of self-inflicted geopolitical suicide. Journeys is a series of short takes on fifteen trips that changed my life: that first family vacation; the drive to meet our children for the first time; an unforgettable visit in Ukraine; a memorable excursion in Southeast Asia, and more.
  • In this year of turmoil and unrest The job of God is already taken was my reminder to myself as well as to you, dear readers, to remember that no one has it all figured out. As we continue to look to the promise of what America is about and work to make it a land for everyone, this Saturday grab bag collected thoughts from writers and songs from musicians to help us move forward.

A BUSY MONTH FOR READING

April brought some time to read. So I took advantage of the opportunity . . . and to visit more independent bookshops in the DC region.

  • The forgotten life and mysterious death of baseball’s first phenom is a review of Thomas W. Gilbert’s Death in the Strike Zone. This 2026 book examines the life and mysterious death of baseball’s first hero, James Creighton, who invented modern pitching and then died a mysterious death at the age of 21. I found this book—and a host of other treasures—at Wonderland Books, a cozy yet bustling independent bookshop in the heart of Bethesda.
  • My history book group read a sympathetic yet balanced portrayal of one of the American Revolution’s defeated voices. The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson by Bernard Bailyn is being re-released on the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Considering revolution from a different viewpoint is my review of this National Book Award–winning masterpiece.
  • Living in the in-between times of life is my less-than-enthusiastic take on From Strength to Strength, a 2022 book by Arthur C. Brooks. The New Yorker had a scathing review of the most recent work by Brooks that included this assessment: “Like much popular social science, it makes no effort to prove or even to persuade. It simply asserts and instructs. Its tone as it does so is distinctly infantilizing.” Every now and then I read a book so you don’t have to, dear friends.
  • Hanging out with John Prine is my review of Tom Piazza’s Living in the Present with John Prine, an intimate portrait of one of the most beloved singers and songwriters of our times.

COMMENTS I LOVED

I shared the post of my visit to Wonderland Books with the owners and both wrote lovely notes in response. Amy Joyce said,

“Thank you so much for this, David. What a lovely write up of Death in the Strike Zone! (Gayle and I are huge baseball fans, as you clearly saw in our front window.)

Thanks for all the attention you bring to independent bookstores, which we both have loved since we were young. We feel very lucky to have the chance to own Wonderland—it’s been a dream.” 

Friend and Brilliant Reader Sandy had a personal memory to add to my review of the Bernard Bailyn book on Thomas Hutchinson.

“I took Bailyn’s courses in colonial and revolutionary war history when an undergraduate. He was a wonderful teacher—you can imagine from his book how engaging his lectures (and both were big lecture classes) could be. He used to tell stories of the founding fathers’ foibles, with tears running down his cheeks from laughing at the absurdity of some of their actions (Franklin was a prime target, as I recall, though Thomas Jefferson got some as well). He was one of my favorite professors, although I was not an American history major. The ‘strangeness and pastness of the past’ was always top of his mind, and he brought that strangeness alive to his students. I’ve not read the book on Hutchinson, but was delighted to read your summary. Thanks for the trip down memory lane . . .”

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 March 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.

Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash

Need to broaden your horizons? Try a reading challenge.

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My friend Margit recently passed along a reading challenge. Four months into the year and I’m halfway home!

Reading, it is said, broadens your horizons. But what if you find yourself stuck reading the same type of books year after year?

My friend and Brilliant Reader Margit recently loaned me a young adult novel from her native Hungary. Inside she had slipped a note and a piece of paper that had the look and feel of an old library card. Instead it was a Reading Challenge 2026 list from Chapter One Bookstore in Hamilton, MT, near where she visits a family home.

As Margit suspected, I immediately thought 1) I really want to do this and 2) I need to share it with others. The internet is full of these types of annual lists, designed to get you out of a reading rut. But I thought the Chapter One version had some great categories. Plus a friend and Brilliant Reader suggested it (adding my name to the back of the card), so this was a no brainer!

Let’s kick it off here.

I’ve listed the ten challenge items in their original order. When I’ve read a book that fits, I’ve linked to my review on MTC. Every so often I’ll return and catch up, with the goal of reaching all ten by December 31st.

Won’t you join me? Feel free to update your results in the comments.

CHAPTER ONE READING CHALLENGE 2026

Challenge books read and reviewed as of April 2026:

1 – A book you’ve picked based on the cover

2 – A book with a screen adaptation

3 – A book that makes you think, “WTF?”

4 – A book about a skill/trade/craft

5 – Wild card/unusual pick

6 – A work in translation

7 – A collection of poetry

8 – A book published in the year you were born

9 – An essay collection

10 – A book recommended by a friend/buddy

Having completed six out of ten challenges without even knowing I was in the game, I have four left (although I think I should probably find a second, better example for #3 than the one I’ve included).

  • Numbers 1 and 5 will be easy. I suspect I have both in hand.
  • Numbers 3 (a second choice) and 4 will take some thought.

And then there’s Number 8. A little internet research shows I have lots of options for books published in 1955:

  • A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O’Connor. This is sitting downstairs in my bookcase.
  • Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Hmmm . . . not sure MORE TO COME is ready for that review, even though I probably should read the book at some point.
  • The Quiet American by Graham Greene, which is actually an early favorite in this list. I’ve never read it but respect the views of friends who have recommended it.
  • The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.
  • Hickory Dickory Dock (Hercule Poirot, #34) by Agatha Christie, which would provide me with another dip into the detective fiction pool.
  • Beezus and Ramona (Ramona, #1) by Beverly Cleary which very well may be in Candice’s bookcase.

After I drafted this post Candice said she wanted to go to Politics & Prose to get a book for our upcoming trip. I’m incapable of going into a bookshop with such a rich selection of offerings and not buying something . . . so I picked up The Quiet American and then Candice came out of the children’s section with Beezus and Ramona (which we had discussed in the car on the drive over). Now I have two books to meet #8 in the challenge and, as a bonus, I have books to highlight alongside P&P for my 2026 quest to visit all the DC-area independent bookstores.

Well, time’s a wastin’. Let’s get to it!

More to come . . .

DJB

Photos of books and reader from Unsplash.

A successful 2026 Independent Bookstore Crawl

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A quick photo essay celebrating Independent Bookshops and the 2026 DC Independent Bookstore Crawl.

At 10 a.m. this morning Candice and I set out to visit six area independent bookshops as part of the 2026 DC Independent Bookstore Crawl. I highlighted this event last Saturday on MORE TO COME so today’s post is a photo essay of our splendid adventure.

We began just north of Silver Spring in the bustling little downtown of Kensington Maryland, where in 90 minutes we visited three bookshops:

James of Bergstrom Books
Elisenda at Kensington Row Bookshop

While there we chatted with the owners: James at Bergstrom Press & Books, Elisenda at Kensington Row Bookshop, and Melissa at Bonjour Books DC. It was so appropriate for multiple reasons that Candice found a copy of our friend Janet Hulstrand’s memoir for sale at Bonjour Books. That was the book that kicked off my Author Q&A series back in 2023, and Janet was the one who introduced us to this wonderful treasure in historic Kensington.

We then drove down to the heart of DC as we visited:

All three were packed with other “crawlers” and shoppers, but we had a chance to explore each and made plans to return later when we could spend more time in the stacks. The friendly staff at Bold Forks took time out to discuss future shopping opportunities and to pose for a photograph.

. . . while we made sure to document each visit with an in-store photo.

DJB at Bold Fork Books
Checking out Lost City Books

At Kramer’s, our sixth stop, we picked up our prizes—great looking Independent Bookstore Crawl tote bags—and ask a shopper to document the end of our tour.

Oh, did I mention that I had prepared a “shopping list” of recommended books, and we found seven of those treasures today (one is on back order). We were able to spread the wealth among all six stores.

We finished our crawl with a pizza and then stopped across the street at Second Story Books in Dupont Circle which I’ve already visited this year, just to add a seventh stamp to our collection.

I’ll write more about each of these stores when I review the books I purchased in those shops. For now, I just want to say thanks to all the wonderful booksellers and staff for making this such a grand day of celebration. As the t-shirt I wore today says, Knowledge is Power!

Keep reading!

More to come . . .

DJB

The forgotten life and mysterious death of baseball’s first phenom

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Thomas W. Gilbert’s newest book examines the life and mysterious death of baseball’s first hero, a work I found at a cozy yet bustling independent bookshop in the heart of Bethesda.

As I was walking to the next stop in my 2026 quest to visit all 29 DC-area independent bookshops, I was pulled up short by a display in the store’s window. Although it was cold and gray in Washington the nation was celebrating Opening Day and the good folks at Wonderland Books had a large and enticing spread of baseball titles and paraphernalia to lure in this lifelong fan. It didn’t take much to draw me into this cozy bookshop in the heart of Bethesda where I found enough baseball books—both well-known and more obscure—alongside many other treasures to more than fill a summertime of reading.

The one I chose opened up baseball’s fascinating and often forgotten Amateur Era.

Death in the Strike Zone: The Mystery of America’s First Baseball Hero (2026) by Thomas W. Gilbert has been accurately described as “part biography, part detective story, and part time machine.” A baseball historian who has written extensively on the early years of the game, Gilbert brings to life the story of James Creighton, a young Brooklyn ballplayer who shot to prominence during the Amateur Era, forever changed how the game is played, and then mysteriously died at the young age of 21 after suffering an injury. The young phenom’s death shocked the sport and inspired the first grand baseball-themed monument, which can still be seen in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Soon afterwards, however, the cause of death became shrouded in mystery and perhaps involved a cover-up by the era’s stewards of the game. As a result, Creighton’s singular role in changing the nation’s pastime was largely left out of baseball’s history.

In ten swiftly moving chapters Gilbert takes the reader through the origins of the game in the fields of New York and Brooklyn, establishment of Amateur Era clubs, the fluidity of rule changes, efforts to market baseball to the entire country, the effects of the Civil War on the game, and the move to the professionalism of the sport. Creighton, who invented something new for the game—modern pitching—played an oversized role in many of these events. He threw the first fastball and the first curve ball. Because of his prowess, baseball had to invent the strike zone. Gilbert argues convincingly that Creighton’s pitching style was entirely legal given the Amateur Era rules that required the “pitcher” of the day to throw the ball underhand to the batter without twisting the wrist. Yet his unorthodox style, which put significant pressure on an inguinal hernia or gap in the abdominal muscle wall, caused him to collapse in the middle of a contest and die just four days later. The story of how those who wanted to grow the game rushed to blame the death on cricket—which Creighton also played—and not baseball opens up an examination of the nativist roots of our national pastime.

Many Americans believe the myth that baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday in the rural fields of Cooperstown, New York. That was a story created by a commission established by American Nativists such as Albert Spalding to “prove” that the game was invented by Americans “and had no foreign origins.”

“Baseball the sport began as a reform movement. It shrewdly marketed itself to the Protestant middle classes, who disapproved of violence and gambling, as a clean alternative to the sleaziness of horseracing and boxing. Both to keep out corruption and to be seen as respectable, organized baseball originally felt it had to be amateur.”

But Creighton’s style of play was electrifying, bringing out large numbers of spectators, and turning the game from a participant sport to entertainment. Professionalism wasn’t far behind. “Less than a decade after the death of James Creighton, amateurs would no longer contend for national championships.”

Death in the Strike Zone is an enlightening read for fans and those who love history. And I can’t mention the book without a hat tip to the publisher, the Boston-based Godine Press. This is a beautiful, physically well-constructed book that shows the firm’s commitment to excellence. The chief buyer at one of Washington’s premier independent bookshops has written that “DRG continues to publish well made, often beautifully illustrated books every bookstore should be proud to carry on their shelves. Godine’s books are meant to last a lifetime.” It certainly was a fitting find in a small, independent bookshop that is also committed to a carefully curated selection of books tailored for the local community.

Wonderland Books was the fifth stop in my 2026 quest to visit all 29 DC-area independent bookstores. Wonderland is the creation of two women: a former award-winning journalist at The Washington Post and a lawyer and corporate communications strategist. Both have been lifelong readers who have written for decades about books and their authors. Those experiences come through in the choices of titles on the shelves and in the inviting setting for browsing and reading in the midst of Bethesda’s busy downtown.

The staff on the day of our visit was knowledgeable, eager to be of help, and attuned to their DC-based customers’ special interests. When I inquired about a new work that was just published, they noted it was on order and offered to hold a copy. They directed me to several areas when I asked about specific genres. And as I picked up this simple card with a request to Alexa, they laughed and said, “its our best seller!”

Of course I had to buy one!

I visited Wonderland with a friend who lives just a few minutes away. Yet like me Bob was discovering it for the first time. A retired television journalist, he also found a variety of selections to fit his taste at the shop. He has since exclaimed how much he enjoyed Kate Quinn’s historical novel The Huntress, which he picked up on our initial visit. I don’t think it will be his last.

More to come . . .

DJB

To read the first four installments describing my DC Independent Bookshop tour, visit:

Photos of James Creighton monument from Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Wonderland Books exterior via Yelp.

Depiction by George H. Hastings of an 1888 game at the South End Grounds between the Boston Nationals and the New York Giants. The artist used reproductions from original images to depict the players on the field, in foul ground, and some of the spectators. Photo by Boston Public Library on Unsplash.

When our refuge is shattered

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In this latest installment of the Author Q&A series, Nathaniel Popkin talks with me about his new novel and the story of a progressive rabbi trying desperately to hold her interfaith community together. Popkin has created a thoughtful and deeply compassionate examination of the age-old divisions poisoning America’s social contract in the 21st century.

Today’s news is full of stories of deep political divisions that threaten to rip apart bonds and affinities that have connected us—at the personal, community, national, and global levels—for decades if not centuries. As our attention is once again turned to war in the Middle East, a new novel set for publication on May 5th takes us into the life of a Jewish and multifaith community in New Jersey to examine the deep ties, explosive tensions, and inherent contradictions that exist at the core of this and so many relationships.

Partly Strong, Partly Broken (2026) by Nathaniel Popkin is a work full of compassion and understanding as it explores the difficult questions around politics and racism that vex us today. The novel, told through the eyes of the passionate, inclusivity-minded Rabbi Adinah, focuses on political divisions poisoning an American Jewish community and a multifaith coalition in New Jersey. Set in the fall of 2023, the story unfolds before the attacks on Israel by Hamas and the subsequent devastation of Gaza in retaliation. Rabbi Adinah returns from a trip to Israel to find both her synagogue and her congregation falling apart. A hurricane has ripped a hole in the roof, and her office, which was always her refuge, is flooded. At the same time, a new conservative member of the congregation has become friends with the synagogue’s president and inserts herself into Adinah’s efforts to build a Hebrew Learning Center. This new congregant’s strong views on Israel disrupts the rabbi’s weekly Torah class and sows divisions while threatening the rabbi’s work of inclusivity and her vision for the Center. To further compound the rabbi’s troubles, a young Syrian refugee she mentors is the victim of a brutal hate crime, and as she lies in a coma the alliances Rabbi Adinah cultivated with leaders of other faiths become increasingly challenged.

Partly Strong, Partly Broken probes the stories, beliefs, and intensions of people who are working to navigate troubled and dangerous times. Many of the guardrails that guided our life together have been broken and refuge is difficult to find. Popkin creates a story for today’s world in which all can relate, and he examines these tensions with honesty and sensitivity. I was delighted when Nathaniel agreed to chat with me about his book in this most recent installment of my Author Q&A series.

DJB: Nathaniel, as I was reading the novel I was reminded of George Packer’s 2013 nonfiction book “The Unwinding” on the demise of the American social contract. Do you see your work as being solely focused on divisions within the American Jewish community or are there broader forces at work and, if so, are there deeper lessons for readers to take away from your book?

NP: I’m glad you’ve raised this because the novel is deeply engaged in asking how the American social contract might break down. How fragile is it? How resilient, even in the face of what sometimes seem like impossible conflicts? We’ve all seen in the past three years especially how oppositional beliefs about Israel and Palestine have divided people, even those otherwise on the same political side, and how these “tensions boiling over,” as the New Yorker put it, could even sway elections. The novel’s beloved protagonist, Rabbi Adinah, co-leads a multifaith coalition of religious leaders who are a mirror on the demographics of their inner-ring New York suburb and who together are in pursuit of justice—the fulfilment, it seems to me, of the American social contract. The rabbi’s co-leader and confidant is Imam Abdul, Palestinian American, educated in Cairo, and together they respond to a hate crime against a young woman, Fami, a Syrian refugee they’re both invested in (by way of the social contract, in fact). What could disturb this alliance? What kinds of threats? These are some of the questions the novel asks readers to consider. As a work of fiction, Partly Strong, Partly Broken is more of an invitation to ask questions than answer them. An invitation to wonder, to stir intellectually, psychically, rather than a giver of lessons. The only thing the novel teaches, in my view, is how complex and multi-layered all these questions are.

The issue of “going or leaving home” is important to Rabbi Adinah, as she begins to grapple with that question early in the book. What aspects of home―especially for American Jews in the context of belonging and Israel―do you want your readers to explore along with Adinah as the story unfolds?

When the novel opens in early September 2023 Rabbi Adinah is returning from a three-week trip to Israel, where she’s participated in the massive pro-democracy protests. And where she’s been staying (in Haifa) with her ex, Sana, a Palestinian Israeli social worker, someone she’s never been able to let go. Sana, I believe, is “home” for Adinah, as much as the former, somewhat sweeter version of Israel (in memory, at least) of two decades previous, the space and place where they fell in love. As Molly Crabapple suggests in her new book, Here Where We Live Is Our Country, the question of home for Jews is fraught. The multi-generational trauma of displacement colors all questions of belonging and attachment. Which is why Israel has been able to loom so large in the Jewish imagination. If there had been more and different choices, then perhaps this particular attachment would feel different. Rabbi Adinah grew up in California in a placeless-feeling suburb and she found her own way to Jewishness, an evolution that offered her various homes, including Girona, Spain, and the multifaith coalition in her New Jersey town. These are all aspects of home for her. In reflecting on Israel, the diaspora, Yiddish and Hebrew, the novel does ask readers to question Jewish notions of home and belonging. There are many versions of answers here!

There are certainly bad actors in the larger story of Israel and Gaza, but within the focus of your novel the main characters hold passionate beliefs that don’t, in and of themselves, make them bad people. What are we to make of that and how might the reader put that in the context of the communities where they live?

For the novelist there really are no “good” or “bad” actors. The writer must be curious—lovingly curious—about all their characters, about all those characters’ motivations, and try to see them for who they are. None of us are what we wish we were, nor what others wish we were, but we are what we are, as painful as that may be sometimes. In this particular novel, I do want to help the reader see complexity, to feel how hard it is to be certain about anything. To hold possibly oppositional truths and not necessarily to accept them but to acknowledge their simultaneous presence. At the same time, I try somewhat subtly to disturb preconceived notions about who believes what in relation to Israel. And what even Israel means to people in an American context. That is not to say this novel doesn’t have an ethical core or a kind of foundational point-of-view. The rabbi herself, who isn’t strident and isn’t a fundamentalist, counts on two things: her experience in the world and her instinct, which is to distribute gifts. She has an ego, too, and the reader will come to see how it might interfere in all this.

Rabbi Adinah has multiple roles: leader of a Jewish faith community, public face of American Jews in her larger community, important player in the local multifaith coalition, mentor for young people, advocate for a new Hebrew Learning Center. How does the fact that these roles don’t always align speak to larger issues in American life today?

A person can experience a lot of internal resistance, dissonance, even detachment if the various aspects of their life don’t feel aligned. To have integrity means somehow to be so self-organized that all the aspects feel integral, of a piece, and possibly integrated. But is this really possible, even for a thoughtful person like the rabbi? In addition to being a joyful scholar and mentor, Rabbi Adinah is strong willed, and willfulness can be blinding. She’s putting a lot of effort into making these various roles feel integrated. In fact, she’s invented the Hebrew Learning Center to do just that: make everything make sense. But as events take on their own force and meaning around her, can this delicate apparatus hold?

This book revolves around a Jewish community but you have said that this is not a Jewish book. What does the book―and the grappling with questions around myth and justice―hold for non-Jewish readers?

The special power of novels is to make the particular feel universal. You can read Dostoyevsky or Cervantes or Krasznahorkai or Flannery O’Connor and feel like the author is speaking to you, reaching some part or aspect of your life or humanness, a sway of the heart or mind. And so, of course, a novel that centers on a Jewish community in 2023 can relate to readers from anywhere, at any time. To that end I will add that the novel is an invitation to look through a particular lens at this era of American life, as political beliefs have fractured families, social organizations, churches, you name it.

By transposing the experience of fracturing communities to a fictional world, the novel enables us to see our situation more clearly through distance. Our reality becomes mythic and fluid, disrupting even the idea of firm and inflexible positions. Though unity may always be illusory, the novel still wants to say that something special is being lost when we are so divided: the “Kingdom” as the rabbi imagines it, lush with powerful virtue—not just within Jewish communities, but across multifaith and multiethnic America.…

But I think there’s more to it. From my standpoint, as the writer, Partly Strong, Partly Broken is about a turning point, a moment of societal change, in this case the ending to the rabbi’s “Kingdom,” liberal Jewish America’s relative unity and relative comfort with and connection to Israel (public opinion polls since Oct 7 play this out).

As I was conceiving Partly Strong, Partly Broken, I kept coming back to one of my favorite works of fiction, Guiseppe di Lampedusa’s 1958 novel The Leopard, perhaps best known for its film adaptation starring Burt Lancaster. There must be a name for such literature, which observes a key tipping point of a societal balance, in this case the gradual and yet sudden breaking apart of the Sicilian aristocracy in the 1860s. Lampedusa famously reproduces the social and cultural milieu of mid-19th-century Sicily as if he had been there watching, as if the unraveling of landed privilege was going on in front of his eyes.

To a certain extent even a century later it still was, of course, but in addressing the decisive moment of the creation of the Kingdom of Italy, he also benefited by the perspective of time. That wasn’t the case for me. Partly Strong, Partly Broken is a novel of now, and it derives its purpose and meaning from the shared anguish of the present day. At its center, trying to hold together a suddenly fracturing American Jewish community (and that community’s multifaith alliances), is not a towering prince like Lampedusa’s Don Fabrizio, but a cleric with unruly hair and high boots, Rabbi Adinah.

It may be our responsibility as writers to speak to the now, but without perspective, how do we even know what we’re talking about? And isn’t social media producing enough immediate commentary? Why even bother to transform the present into fiction? For me, the answer is simple: it’s a coping mechanism. A novel can suggest the capacity to have some control in a moment when it feels like everything is spinning toward dissolution. For the reader, I hope, it brings a kind of perspective, not of time and distance, but of truth and authenticity. Anyway, I hope Rabbi Adinah will share a bit of the timelessness of Don Fabrizio.

Thank you, Nathaniel.

Thank you for your excellent and engaging questions.

More to come . . .

DJB

Photo of storm on Unsplash

A celebration of independent bookstores

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Next Saturday is a day for celebrating indie bookstores . . . and to make a big dent in my quest to visit all 29 independent bookshops in the DC region!

This year Independent Bookstore Day—April 25th—comes just in time!

I’m on a bucket list quest to visit all 29 independent bookshops in the DC region this year. * With travel and winter and (insert other excuses), I’m off to a slower-than-hoped-for start. Thanks to the prodding of the good folks at People’s Book in Takoma Park I was reminded that I can visit six (or more) in one day and win a fabulous prize!

So what’s better than visiting your indie bookstore? Visiting more indie bookstores!

Books to be read

The last Saturday in April is Independent Bookstore Day, so Candice and I will be joining the annual bookstore crawl to DC-area indies. Those of us who participate get to choose our own stores and route, invite friends to come along, and support the bookstores we visit with a purchase. Pick up your map at a DC bookstore, or print one out yourself.

Get a stamp at six—or more!—stores, and you’ll win a glorious prize! Enter raffles for a bookish gift card or a year of free audiobooks!

I hope to see you at an independent bookshop on April 25th.

And for the record, I am now a little more than one quarter of the way through, having visited eight bookshops in the DC region. Here’s an update on my 2026 quest:

BOOKSHOPS I HAVE VISITED

People’s Book in Takoma Park

BOOKSHOPS THAT REMAIN ON MY LIST

Bridge Street Books in Georgetown

For those who might wonder about the progress of other items on my bucket list, here’s a post on completing my visits to all 50 states; the latest update on my quest to visit all Major League Baseball ballparks; and, with this year’s travel, I will reach 33 countries visited to get nearer to my goal of 40 countries by the time I reach 80 years of age! I’ll list those in some future post.

SONGS ABOUT BOOKS

And because it is Saturday, I have included a few tunes for book lovers (with a longer list from Penguin UK for those who want to go down a rabbit hole). Note that the Oxford Comma tune by Vampire Weekend should probably be listed NSFW. But book nerds will like it!

For those who like wailing in their music, this Kate Bush tune is just for you, with the description courtesy of the Penguin playlist:

“Inspired, obviously, by the tale of (super angsty and high-maintenance) lovers Heathcliff and Cathy from the Emily Brontë novel of the same name, Kate Bush’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ is that song. Told from the point of view of Cathy, the song references the worst qualities she and Heathcliff display in the novel, and that arguably is a major factor in their doomed love story (‘You had a temper like my jealousy’).” 

I’m sure that Lewis Carroll never imagined that “his pipe-smoking caterpillars and magic mushrooms were, almost exactly a century later, celebrated in what is commonly understood to be an ode to hallucinogens.” But that didn’t stop Jefferson Airplane from creating a classic.

And we’ll end with The Beatles and the tune Paperback Writer. The Penguin description describes it pretty well:

“This song is about a writer desperately—and a bit pathetically—trying to get his 1,000-word novel published: ‘Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?/It took me years to write, will you take a look?’ But it’s also a veiled tribute to Edward Lear, a Victorian poet and painter famed for his nonsense poetry. As McCartney, who wrote the song, sings: ‘It’s based on a novel by a man named Lear/And I need a job/So I wanna be a paperback writer.’ This could, in fact, have been an in-joke, even a dig at Lennon, whose own writing at the time had been compared to Lear’s. True or not, the song, it must be said, was certainly catchier than Lennon’s semi-sensical prose.”

Whatever types of books or music you enjoy, take the opportunity to visit an independent bookstore next Saturday!

More to come . . .

DJB

*I originally had 25, but the Potter’s House has closed and then I added five more while preparing this post. Some stores are focused on other items, such as children’s toys or comic books, and I haven’t included those establishments in my list.

Book lovers sign by Tadeusz Zachwieja on Unsplash