Category Archives: Books

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Item: After every election, those displeased with the outcome often threaten to “move to Canada” or to secede or otherwise withdraw from American life. I thought about that when I recently began re-reading Edmund Morgan’s classic The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop. I first read this book as an undergraduate in Phinizy Spalding’s Colonial American history class at UGA, and at that time I didn’t understand at least half of it. As I’ve mentioned before, I am now periodically re-reading some of the classics from grad school in order to do justice to books that got short shrift then. Morgan’s book was first published by Little, Brown, & Company in 1958 and is part of the “Library of American Biography” series.

The Puritans got their name, of course, because of their desire to purify the Anglican Church in England, and like many reformers on a mission, they could be a rather single-minded, driven, uncompromising bunch. This increasingly put them on a collision course with King James I and his son Charles I, as their demands for reform became increasingly outspoken. John Winthrop and many of his fellow Puritans could see the writing on the wall, and instead of remaining and taking part in what eventually became the English Revolution, they formed the Massachusetts Bay Company and in 1630 separated themselves from the home country by 3,000 miles.

The dilemma in the book’s title is the story of what happens when a Godly community decides to live in the world without being of the world—and the tension between the freedom of the individual and the responsibility that government has for maintaining order (reminiscent of our current controversy over vaccine mandates). Should the discontented leave and follow their own vision somewhere else, or stay and either come to terms with the status quo or tear down the system? Winthrop and his band of Puritans left to start anew, but he ended up with his own share of malcontents to deal with like Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson. Uncompromising purity or pragmatic compromise? Winthrop didn’t figure it out, and neither have we almost 400 years later.

Item: If you’re a fan of ZZ Top and haven’t seen it, check out the 2019 documentary “ZZ Top: That Little ‘Ol Band From Texas,” on Netflix. It’s a fascinating look at how a Texas rock band rooted in the blues transitioned to become instantly recognizable cultural icons—with the help of those MTV videos—after the release of Eliminator in 1983. The beards, the cars, and the music are all here in this retrospective nominated for a Grammy for Best Music Film. Despite the death of bassist Dusty Hill in July of this year, ZZ Top is still Bad, and Nationwide.

Item: Lots of good new history and biography being published this holiday season. In no particular order, here are some of the books I’m looking forward to reading:

Fernando Cervantes, Conquistadores: A New History of Spanish Discovery and Conquest (Viking, 2021)

Gordon S. Wood, Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution (Oxford, 2021)

Peter Ackroyd, Innovation: The History of England, Volume 6 (St. Martin’s, 2021)

Jay Cost, James Madison: America’s First Politician (Basic Books, 2021)

Dan Jones, Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages (Viking, 2021)

Adrian Tinniswood, Noble Ambitions: The Fall and Rise of the English Country House after World War II (Basic Books, 2021)

James M. Banner, Jr., The Ever-Changing Past: Why All History is Revisionist History (Yale, 2021)

Volker Ullrich, Eight Days in May: The Final Collapse of the Third Reich (Liveright, 2021)

Ronald Hutton, The Making of Oliver Cromwell (Yale, 2021)

Neil Price, Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings (Basic Books, 2020)

Andrew Roberts, The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III (Viking, 2021)

Item: I’m a huge fan of audiobooks and have listened to several good ones this fall. Being the season of darker days, I always like to hear a good rendition of Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Three that I would recommend are those read by Martin Jarvis (great production, reminiscent of the old radio dramas), Anthony Heald (no frills, just great narration), and Tom Mison (if you enjoy a British accent).

For those working hard to grow old gracefully, you’ll enjoy listening to Dick Van Dyke’s Keep Moving, and Other Tips and Truths About Aging, narrated by Rob Petrie himself. Van Dyke wrote this book when he was 89; he’s about to celebrate his 96th birthday and is still going strong, winner of five Emmys, a Tony, a Grammy, and recent Kennedy Center honoree.  

Dumas Malone’s 6-volume biography of Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson and His Time, was a joy to read, and equally brilliant is Anna Fields’ narration of all 6 volumes. Fields was the pseudonym for Kate Fleming, an award-winning actress, artist, singer, audiobook narrator and producer who died tragically in a flash flood at her Seattle, Washington, home in 2006 at age 41. Her production of this classic biography is a lasting legacy for one of the best audio narrators of all time.

Item: Long-suffering readers of this blog know I love scary stories at this time of year. I recently read The Casebook of Carnacki by William Hope Hodgson. Carnacki is a contemporary of Sherlock Holmes, created at the turn of the 20th century at the same time that many writers were trying to cash in on the consulting detective craze set off by Arthur Conan Doyle. Whereas Holmes never ventured into the realm of ghosts and goblins (with the notable exception of The Hound of the Baskervilles), Carnacki specializes in tracking down things that go bump in the night. Sometimes the hauntings have supernatural origins and sometimes not, but they all create an appropriate mood and are great fun. This series of stories was first published between 1910 and 1912 in Edwardian-era magazines before being pulled together for book publication under this title in 1913. They all follow the same formula: Carnacki has four friends over for dinner, after which they retire to the library for brandy and cigars while Carnacki tells the story of his various adventures, with titles like “The Thing Invisible,” “The Gateway of the Monster,” “The House Among the Laurels,” and “The Whistling Room.” Hodgson only wrote nine of these stories before his death at the Ypres salient in World War I on April 19, 1918, at the too-young age of 40. Happily, the Carnacki stories are back in print as part of the “Tales of Mystery & the Supernatural” series published by Wordsworth Editions. Check it out.

Till next time—and Happy Thanksgiving.

Q&A: Reading and Writing with Michael Van Wagenen

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Dr. Michael Scott Van Wagenen is associate professor and public history coordinator at Georgia Southern University. He is the author of the award-winning, Library Journal best seller Remembering the Forgotten War: The Enduring Legacies of the U.S.-Mexican War (University of Massachusetts, 2012), The Texas Republic and the Mormon Kingdom of God (Texas A&M, 2002), as well as several articles and book chapters. He is also co-editor with W. Paul Reeve of Between Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore (Utah State University, 2011). In the past 30 years, he has written, produced, directed, and/or edited over 20 documentary films. His work has twice won highest honors at the National Education Film and Video Festival and been screened at the American Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Margaret Mead Ethnographic Film Festival, Chicago Latino Film Festival, and several other venues. Dr. Van Wagenen received his BA from Brigham Young University, an MAIS from the University of Texas at Brownsville, and his PhD from the University of Utah.

What first got you interested in history?

When I was very young my grandfather would tell me stories about his experiences as a Navy officer in the Pacific during World War II. That definitely sparked an awareness in me that there was this adventurous place called “the past” that you could visit through stories, books, museums, and films.

What kind of reader were you as a child? Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?

The first book I read was an “abridged for young readers” edition of Robinson Crusoe. I was in first grade and binged it all in a day. I was hooked on historical fiction and non-fiction after that.

What book did you read in grad school that you never want to see again—and what book was most influential?

I studied folklore to enhance my understanding of history and really struggled with Roland Barthes’ Mythologies (1957). I’m sure it was me, not him. On the other side of things was Michael Kammen’s Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (1991). I couldn’t put that book down, and it really inspired my interest in the theories of collective memory.

What’s the last great book you read, fiction or non-fiction?

It’s a bit of a local cliché, but I finally got around to reading John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil this summer. I loved it—much better than the film.

You’re a documentary filmmaker: what movies and documentaries most inspired you when you were young? What filmmakers?

I don’t really remember watching documentaries as a kid. I watched a lot of old war movies and historical dramas on television: The Thin Red Line, Beau Geste, and Nicholas and Alexandra come immediately to mind. I also loved the satirical war television series F-Troop and Hogan’s Heroes. As far as filmmakers go, the first director I can remember being aware of was Akira Kurosawa. In high school in Los Angeles, I would go to the art house theaters to watch his films. Toshiro Mifune was my original action hero.

When you’re not reading for your particular field of history, what else do you like to read? What genres do you avoid? And what’s your guilty reading pleasure?

I am a complete sucker for a beautifully illustrated coffee table book. I have my own large collection of folk art books that I read and reread—my guilty pleasure, I suppose. As far as what I avoid: definitely self-help/motivational. Anyone who thinks they have the answer likely doesn’t.

What do you read—in print or online—to stay informed?

I consume it all, from left to right. I like to make my own decisions about things after I have read or listened to as many perspectives as I can. As you can guess, my politics are confusing to most people.

Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).

As a kid I visited my grandparents who were staying on a secluded part of the California coast. We were hit by a big storm with lots of wind, rain, and pounding waves for a couple of days. There was no television or radio—just a blanket, a lamp, and a stack of pulp westerns to read. I know I’ve romanticized that moment, and I have tried to recreate that environment over and over with no success. Hurricane season is not through yet this year, so who knows?

What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?

The Giant Joshua by Maurine Whipple (1941) is a historical fiction novel about Mormon polygamy in the mid 1800s. While it made a modest literary splash when it came out in 1941, it is largely forgotten today.

What book or collection of books might people be surprised to find on your shelves?

I have a small collection of books about UFOs. I was raised during the new-age UFO revival of the 1970s, so that shaped my childhood. I have actually published on historical UFOs and will likely develop a class on them. My approach to UFOs is similar to that of Carl Jung, who viewed them as another way to interpret the values and beliefs of a people.

How have your reading tastes changed over time?

Sadly, less MAD Magazine.

Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?

Grasshopper Jungle (by Andrew Smith, 2014). I like a good young adult fiction book, and this one was widely praised and loved. I guess my own childhood was too urban, too undersexed, too lacking in actual alien encounters for me to connect with it.

What book would you recommend for America’s current moment?

Don’t Bite Your Friends by Lisa Rao (2009).

What do you plan to read next?

My daughter is a professional writer, and she just sent me her latest manuscript. I’m thrilled to be diving into that one!

What is the next book or article you’re going to write?

I am putting the finishing touches on an article titled “Mormons, Memory, and the Mexican War: The Role of Mormon Battalion Commemoration in the Formation of Latter-day Saint Identity, 1921 – 2021.” I use as a case study the United States’ only religiously segregated military unit to explore how collective memory and identity are constantly evolving to serve a number of social, political, and religious agendas. What’s next after that? I am writing an article about a Mexican folk art particular to the Otomí people of central Mexico. Between the early nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries they created a particular style of crucifix, called a cruz de ánimas, that they venerated to end their ancestors’ suffering in purgatory. These artifacts serve as a preliterate genealogical pedigree, and very little has been written about them.

When and how do you write?

Mornings and nights are best for me. There are too many distractions during the day. I am one of those people who need large blocks of time to find my focus.

With which three historic figures, dead or alive, would you like to have dinner?

I have three immigrant ancestors: one Dutch from the 1600s, one Irish from the 1700s, and one Scottish from the 1800s, who I would love to meet. I would cook Tex-Mex food and ask them so many questions that they would be begging to crawl back into their graves!  

Q&A: Reading and Writing with Lisa Tendrich Frank

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Lisa Tendrich Frank is a historian who specializes in gender and the American South and Civil War. She is the author of The Civilian War: Confederate Women and Union Soldiers during Sherman’s March (Louisiana State University Press, 2015), which examines how warfare was redefined when the homefront and warfront collided as well as how gender guided both soldiers and civilians in one of the war’s most famous campaigns. She has also published six edited collections and dozens of articles and book chapters. Her most recent collection is Household War: How Americans Lived and Fought the Civil War (University of Georgia Press, 2020), co-edited with LeeAnn Whites. Dr. Frank is currently working on a book that explores the “domestic warfare” campaigns of U.S. generals Ulysses S. Grant, Philip Sheridan, and William T. Sherman. The book reexamines the forced evacuation of civilians from Atlanta in 1864 as part of a larger campaign to win the war by bringing it directly to the homefront. Dr. Frank’s research has been supported by fellowships and grants from various institutions, including the Huntington Library and the American Historical Association. She received her BA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and her MA and PhD from the University of Florida. During her career, she has taught at several universities, including Occidental College; University of California, Los Angeles; University of North Florida; Florida Atlantic University; and California State University, Fullerton. She has also worked as a writer and consultant for various non-profits. Most recently, she served as the lead historian for the University System of Georgia’s Naming Advisory Group. For more information, visit www.lisatendrichfrank.com.

What first got you interested in history?

I remember being bored by some history classes, but never by history. Historical fiction initially sparked my interest. I was fascinated with books written in the 20th century about historical events as well as those written in the 19th century (like Louisa May Alcott’s books). I also visited a lot of museums and historic sites around the country with my family as a child. Among other things, we went to the Smithsonian Museum of American History, visited Civil War battlefields, ate gingerbread in Colonial Williamsburg, and walked Boston’s Freedom Trail.

I became interested in becoming a historian when I took a Civil War lecture class with Stephen Oates as a college sophomore at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He was an amazing lecturer who had us all on the edge of our seats in each class and sometimes elicited applause during lectures. The books he wrote are like that, too—as I read his biography of Abraham Lincoln (With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln, 1977), I practically yelled at Lincoln not to go to Ford’s Theater. I also loved Oates’ classes because he taught history by focusing on the individuals who lived through the events instead of solely on troop movements. His lectures and the books he assigned to the class brought the Civil War and other topics to life for me. After that semester I took some small seminar classes with him—Civil War through Biography and Mari Sandoz’s American West. I knew I wanted to learn about and write about history the way Oates did. When I decided to pursue a graduate degree in history, he helped me narrow down the programs and potential advisors who would best suit my interests.

What kind of reader were you as a child? Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?

I was an obsessive and voracious reader. I read every fiction book I could get my hands on as a child, and I read as often and as much as I could. I devoured books (but not literally!). My parents were constantly trying to get me out of the house to do something (anything) else. I used to get in trouble regularly for staying up too late reading with a flashlight (I had several extra books and flashlights stashed under my bed in case I was discovered), and one of my best friends and I would sit together during lunch at school and on weekends each reading a book. My favorite books as a child (I had a lot of them) included Alice in Wonderland, Jane Eyre, Little Women, The Count of Monte Cristo, The BFG, The Prince and the Pauper, Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy books, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie books, L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables books, Agatha Christie’s books, everything by Tolkien…. For the record, I still stay up too late reading novels and my best friend and I still talk about books together.

What book did you read in grad school that you never want to see again—and what book was most influential?

I would be happy to never see Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman’s Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (1974) ever again. It’s offensive to me in its use of qualitative methods to evaluate the very human and very horrible experience of enslavement. I am still amazed at how widely read it was.

On the other hand, LeeAnn Whites’ The Civil War as a Crisis in Gender: Augusta, Georgia, 1860-1890 (University of Georgia Press, 1995) rocked my world. It gave me a model for the kind of history I wanted to do and write. It opened my eyes to how ideas about masculinity and femininity shaped the behavior of nineteenth-century Americans. That book, with Nina Silber’s The Romance of Reunion: Northerners and the South, 1865-1900 (University of North Carolina Press, 1993), shaped the kind of history that I do. I had read other books on gender, but never anything that demonstrated to me how I could apply it to the Civil War. I read both as I was preparing for my qualifying exams and they both shaped how I approached my dissertation and everything I’ve written since then.

What’s the last great book you read, fiction or non-fiction?

The most recent great fiction book I read was Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague by Maggie O’Farrell (Knopf, 2020). I loved it. It’s beautifully written and evocative. I cried a lot. I got completely swept up in the story and didn’t want it to end even though I loved it so much that I read it too quickly.

When you’re not reading for your particular field of history, what else do you like to read? What genres do you avoid? And what’s your guilty reading pleasure?

When I’m not reading for “work,” I read fiction. I have a large and always growing pile of books “to be read” and choose the one I’m in the mood for when I finish whatever I’ve been reading. I like books with characters I can imagine being friends with, and I hate books with characters I dislike. I avoid non-fiction and horror. My guilty reading pleasure is reading too many books at once.

What do you read—in print or online—to stay informed?

I read The New York Times online as well as articles from other newspapers and news magazines to stay informed.

Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).

I will seriously read anywhere at any time, but my favorite place to read is sitting in the shade on a breezy beach with my feet in the sand as I listen to the waves. My preferred reading is always fiction in book form, not electronic. I love the feel and smell of a new book.

What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?

When I want to relax, I often read or bake. I have a nice collection of cookbooks, and I absolutely love Sweet Serendipity. I think a lot of people know about the restaurant in New York City, Serendipity 3, but they probably don’t know of this amazing cookbook. In case you’re wondering, the Goddess Diane’s Chocolate Chip Cookies are my personal favorites but everything I’ve made from the cookbook has been delicious.

What book or collection of books might people be surprised to find on your shelves?

I think people would be surprised at the breadth of topics and type of books I have on my shelves. In addition to my collection of Civil War and other history books, I have a large and wide-ranging fiction collection. It defies easy categorization. It includes Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl, Ha Jin’s Waiting, Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians trilogy, all of Gregory Maguire’s books, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy, James McBride’s Good Lord Bird, Madeline Miller’s Circe, Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, all of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo, The Riverside Shakespeare, Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad, Herman Wouk’s Marjorie Morningstar….

How have your reading tastes changed over time?

I don’t know that my reading tastes have necessarily changed that much but my willingness to put down a book I don’t like has definitely increased. I used to feel like I had to finish every book I started, and I forced myself to do so. I will still finish non-fiction that I’m reading for work or anything that I’m reading for my book club. However, sometime after college I decided that I’d read enough to know what I liked and what I didn’t like and that I no longer needed to read books just because other people thought I should. If I start a book and don’t like it, I put it down and walk away and start another book.

Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?

I practically got booed out of my book club for panning Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom: A Novel (FSG, 2010). I hated everything about it, but especially that none of the characters seemed to have any redeeming qualities. Although I’ve really liked most of Fredrik Backman’s books, I stopped reading Beartown (Atria, 2017) once I realized what it was going to be about.

What book would you recommend for America’s current moment?

You’re probably looking for a non-fiction book here, but I think fiction is always the best answer. My comfort reading and escape from reality for the past decade has been Deborah Harkness’s All Souls Series (A Discovery of Witches, Shadow of Night, and The Book of Life) and Time’s Convert. They are my favorite books of all time. I love them and wish I could jump into the books and meet many of the characters (especially Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont). Harkness’s novels stress the importance of diversity, multiculturalism, and cooperation—lessons that I think everyone needs or can appreciate these days.

What do you plan to read next?

I’m currently reading The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (Harper, 2021) and Libertie: A Novel by Kaitlyn Greenidge (Algonquin, 2021). They’re both amazing books with complicated and relatable characters. I keep switching between them because I’m wrapped up in both stories.

What is the next book you’re going to write?

I’m working on a book on what I call “domestic warfare” during the American Civil War. I’ve always been interested in exploring the ways that the homefront and warfront connected and how 19th-century Americans understood these connections in ways that modern historians often ignore. This book is exploring how U.S. generals Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and Philip Sheridan pursued victory with strategies that intentionally brought war to the homefront. It explores how they engaged in military occupations of towns, evictions of civilians, and invasions of homes that upended white southern households and helped end the Civil War.

When and how do you write?

I write best under the pressure of an approaching deadline. I often create artificial deadlines to keep the process moving and use small rewards to push me toward these goals. For the past year and a half, things have been unusually chaotic and unpredictable, which has made it difficult for me to find sustained and regular periods to write. I look forward to life returning to something closer to normal so that I can reestablish a regular schedule for writing.

With which three historic figures, dead or alive, would you like to have dinner?

The Civil War historian in me definitely wants to meet William T. Sherman and Clara Barton. I’ve spent so many years studying them and trying to figure out their motivations and lives, so I’d love to hear from them personally. Modern-day me would also like to have dinner with Hillary Clinton. I’m not a senator or a former secretary of state, but I feel like we’d have a lot in common and have a lot to talk about.

The Freshest Advices

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Item: Back in 2008 I subscribed to the Easton Press list of the “100 Greatest Books Ever Written,” and every month for 8 years and 4 months a handsome, leather-bound volume turned up in my mailbox. I should note here that these are not in fact the greatest books ever written. They’re the 100 books that someone at Easton Press thinks are the greatest ever written; many of them wouldn’t pass muster for being “great,” and needless to say the list is very western- and male-centric.  You will not find on this list Ssu-Ma Ch’ien’s Records of the Grand Historian, The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon, Sun-Tzu’s The Art of War, or Lady Murasaki’s Tale of Genji. For that matter, you won’t find Montaigne’s Essays or Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, nor Boswell’s Life of Johnson or The Education of Henry Adams. But you will receive Darwin’s On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, which may be one of the most important books ever written, but it is not, stylistically, a great book. Be that as it may, I dutifully read the first 90 or so on the list as they randomly arrived (they aren’t ranked) before getting distracted with the last 10. I’m finally making my way through those and am currently reading The Republic by Plato. I’m about a third of the way through. It’s certainly one of the foundational texts in western literature, and I would agree with Clifton Fadiman’s assertion that it is an ambitious and rather difficult book. He suggests that those following the Lifetime Reading Plan start with Plato’s other works, beginning with the Apology, the Crito, the Protagoras, the Symposium, then the Phaedo. I’ll continue on with the Republic and learn as much as I can, listening to the dialogue between the fascinating Socrates and his many interlocutors. Even if I absorb only half of what is going on in this book, that’s saying something. More later.

Item: I just finished A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Viking, 2016). It’s the fictional account of Count Alexander Rostov, who is sentenced in 1921 by the Bolsheviks to house arrest in the Hotel Metropol in Moscow, and he spends the next 30+ years there without (hardly) leaving. Doesn’t sound like much of an opportunity for a plot, does it? Just as in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1944 film Lifeboat, however, confining all the action to a small area places tremendous demands on the author and his characters, and the book succeeds and satisfies on many different levels. Highly recommended.

Item: The Atlanta Falcons are two games into the latest NFL season with new coach Arthur Smith and everything seems familiar—and not in a good way. It’s still hard to believe that this team was in the Super Bowl just 5 years ago. Even with a new coach and general manager, they still seem headed in the wrong direction. There are three equally bad teams coming up on the schedule—the New York Giants, the Washington Football Team, and the J-e-t-s, Jets, Jets, Jets—with a combined record right now of 1-5. We’ll find out a lot about the home team over that span, though you may want to avert your eyes.

Item: The Georgia Bulldogs, on the other hand, look mighty good after three games, the first of which was a beat-down of perennial powerhouse Clemson. It’s still hard to know how good or bad Clemson is, however, coming off a slim and unconvincing win over Georgia Tech. That’s the problem with college football—there’s no pre-season, and when you win your first game over a good opponent, you don’t know whether your team is really great or if the good opponent ain’t all that good after all. Georgia will find out quickly, however, if its defense is as great as it seems, with games coming up on the road against Auburn, Florida, and Tennessee, and home matchups against surprisingly good Arkansas and Kentucky. Don’t avert your eyes on this one.

Item: Here in this space back on April 1 I was excited for the start of the Major League Baseball season. The Bravos haven’t disappointed, poised at this juncture to win another National League East title, with 11 games left and a 3-game lead in the loss column (the only place that matters) over the Phillies. After stalling in third place for most of the first half, it’s been a lot of fun to watch the Braves catch and pass the Phils and hated Mets over the past three months, even if they don’t go far in the playoffs. It’s also been great fun to watch the much-vaunted Mets crash and burn again too. Did I mention I hate the Mets? The postseason begins Tuesday, October 5.

Item: Sothebys’s will auction a rare copy of the final printed version of the US Constitution this November, and it’s expected to fetch upwards of  $20 million. It’s one of only 11 in existence, and the only one in private hands, the others being in institutions. The owner bought it in 1988 for $165,000—not a bad investment. You will recall that GHS owns a draft copy of the printed Constitution with Georgia delegate Abraham Baldwin’s hand-written edits. It’s one of only 12 in existence.  

Item: Look out for a short book review essay in the Fall 2021 issue of the Georgia Historical Quarterly by Pulitzer Prize-winner David Garrow, author of Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1986), and, most recently, Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama (2017).

Item: Not surprisingly, the Rolling Stones did not take my advice and call it quits after the death of Charlie Watts, thank goodness. They launch their long-delayed No Filter tour of the US this Sunday, September 26, in St. Louis, and if history is any guide, they’ll sound amazing. They always do. Let’s hope they can dodge both the Delta variant and the Grim Reaper for just a while longer.

Item: In the July 23, 2021 issue of the Times Literary Supplement, in a review of Reid Byers’ book, The Private Library: The History of the Architecture and Furnishing of the Domestic Bookroom (Oak Knoll, 2021), A.N. Wilson quotes Leigh Hunt, the English essayist, critic, and poet on the difference between a library and a study: “I entrench myself in my books equally against sorrow and the weather. I like a great library next to my study; but for the study itself, give me a small snug place, almost entirely walled with books. I dislike a grand library to study in. Capital places to go to, but not to sit in. We like a small study, where we are almost in contact with our books.” A small snug place almost entirely walled with books would describe the room in which I’m sitting, and from where I often recorded Dispatches from Off the Deaton path, including this one on libraries. It made me wonder exactly how many books I have crammed into this space, so yesterday I counted: 1,672, plus or minus a few. But there’s always room for more.

Till next time.