Books Completed in July 2026

 These Truths, Jill Lepore
An in-depth look at American history less from the cliche points of view from past history texts, but from the history of those in the background: Native Americans killed deliberately or turned into servants, Black men and women shipped in from Africa and treated like beasts of burden as they did work increasingly taken away from indentured servants, women who were confined to the kitchen and considered only fit for motherhood and nursing, the Chinese Exclusion Acts of the "Gilded Age" and the Japanese internment camps of World War II, even minorities like Catholics and Quakers marginalized and kept down.

The emphasis in the book is on the long-term affect of "the peculiar institution," as the slave-owners called it to downplay what it really was, and how it still effects today's society.

Thought provoking, a book made to send you into further research about real events.

 Thurber on Crime, stories by James Thurber, edited by Robert Lopresti
A collection of mystery and crime short stories, and of course of Thurber's absurd and entertaining cartoons, and historical essays by Thurber, from his diabolical "The Catbird Seat" to the humor of "The Topaz Cufflinks Mystery" (do human eyes shine like cats' eyes?) to his commentaries on real-life criminals Willie Stevens, involved in the infamous Hall-Mills murder case that was such a sensation in the newspapers of the 1920s and Harold Winney, who worked for Thurber's beloved "New Yorker" and stole over $71 thousand from its editor Harold Ross.

There are also two "Mr. and Mrs. Monroe" stories, as well as Thurber's spirited defense of the bloodhound, which, Thurber asserts, is hardly bloody or bloodthirsty.

 Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds, Thomas Halliday
How would you like to time travel and see what it was like in different epochs of the Earth's history? That's the joy of this book by Halliday, which begins with the world of the Pleistocene 20,000 years ago, among horses suspected of coming over a land bridge at the Bering Sea, early humans, mammoths, and short-faced bears all the way back to 350 million years ago in the Ediacaran period, where the land-masses were radically different from the present—even the constellations were different back then!—and multicelled bacteria flourished in the sea and on land.

Perfect for the geology/palentological fan.

 A Pretender's Murder, Christopher Huang
This second of the Eric Peterkin mysteries takes place almost directly after the first, while Eric is still adjusting to his new job as secretary at the Britannia Club, after having solved the murder of Bradshaw, the previous secretary. Eric is welcomed into the club due to his father's name and his service in the Great war, but still feels out of place due to his heritage: his father was married to a Chinese woman.

Then yet another murder happens at the Britannia: Colonel Hadrian Russell is shot and pushed out the front window. His four sons all dead in the war, his four daughters-in-law want the truth in his death found quickly, so Eric is once again dispatched to investigate.

Huang once again provides a twisty, complicated mystery against the mores of the mid-1920s. We also see more of Eric's sister Penny, who is a force of her own.

 Strange Red Cow (and Other Curious Classified Ads from the Past, Sara Bader
This is an unusual little book I picked up for a dollar in a used book store, about classified ads over the years. The notable thing about this book is that it was written only 20 years ago, when classifieds still flourished, and now they are virtually dead, replaced by Facebook Marketplace and social media.

The other thing that makes this volume worth reading is that it addresses the subject of "runaway slave" ads in a very honest way. It is sobering to read about enslaved persons being described in the same way as one would inquire over a lost dog or a misplaced item. Many examples are given, and it is a sobering reminder of the past.