1. Teaser Tuesday
2. Top Ten Tuesday: So You Say You Want a Revolution?
3. June’s Recap
   1. The Unreviewed
   2. Coming up in July..
   3. BookTube Highlight:

Gloriosky, is it July already? June is gone, and with it, half of 2025. Today I’m going to combine my monthly wrap-up with Tuesday meming — first the tease, then the top ten!

Teaser Tuesday

The strongest version of a Stoic focus on an ethics in action can be found in the views attributed to Musonius Rufus. For him “philosophy is nothing else than to search out by reason what is right and proper and by deeds to put it into practice” (“Is Marriage a Handicap for the Pursuit of Philosophy?”) THAT ONE SHOULD DISDAIN HARDSHIPS: THE TEACHINGS OF A ROMAN STOIC

In general, the quality of play fell somewhere short of the ideal. As one newspaper put it, “Most of the [Congressional] players in trying to catch the ball held up their hands as if they expected someone to place in them very gently a salary check or a piece of pie.” – THE HOUSE DIVIDED: THE STORY OF THE FIRST CONGRESSIONAL BASEBALL GAME

Top Ten Tuesday: So You Say You Want a Revolution?

Today’s treble-T is a freebie, and since we’re only days away from the 249th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, why not highlight some American Revolution books?

• Passionate Sage: The Life of John Adams, Joseph Ellis.
• American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll, Brad Birzer
• The American Tory, ed. Morten and Penn Borden. An anthology of those who were ‘sceptical’ of the Revolution.
• American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, Joseph Ellis
• His Excellency: George Washington, Joseph Ellis
• Founding Brothers, Joseph Ellis
• Alexander Hamilton, Rob Chernow
• John Adams, David McCullough
• 1776, David McCullough
• First Family: John and Abigail Adams, Joseph Ellis

June’s Recap

June was a ‘return to normalcy’ month, with nonfiction leading fiction, and I started a new feature (Saturday Shorts) that will endure so long as I can find short stories of interest. As far as my annual challenges go, everything but the Science Survey is…moribund, shall we say? Half of the Survey is finished, and I have strong prospects for most of the rest. I have found a fresh book on Madrid which I might use to restart the Grand Tour, though. At any rate, I’m not giving up on it, as that goal of reading European history outside England, France, and Germany has been a desire of mine for years. June also ended the SF drought: despite it being one of my top four categories, I hadn’t read any in 2025.

Since it’s the yearly midpoint: Fiction is leading Nonfiction at 52% to 47%, but that’s almost entirely CJ Box’s fault: recent reading has been in keeping with my usual reading patterns. Box is also responsible for the ten point lead that physical books have over ebooks, since all but the short-story collection in the Pickett series were physical books. Over half of my reading has come from the library, another 20% from Kindle Unlimited, and purchased titles is still happily under 10%. (Currently it’s at 6%.)

The Unreviewed

Provoked, Scott Horton. Review is still in progress. It’s not easy digesting a 2000 page (on kindle) book.

Uncharted, Chris Whipple. Did not merit a review. I read it for two reasons: first, the subject was inherently interesting, given that the 2024 election was wild. One person almost gets shot — twice — and the other guy withdraws just as the campaign is about to head into the second half, with clouds of gossip about what might’ve happened behind closed doors? Second, I’ve read two Whipple books and my reaction to them was wildly different: one was fascinating history, one was partisan dreck. Unfortunately, this was worse than Fight of his Life: it’s hyperpartisan, but now Biden is a scapegoat instead of a saint. (It’s also lazy: much of the beginning seems like cobbled-together notes from ten years ago.) The only interesting element was his ongoing text conversation with Paul Manafort, one of Trump’s campaign people. I think it’s just an opportunistic work to pick up a little revenue from the drama being fresh in people’s minds.

Coming up in July..

Independence Day is this Friday, so I may try to read something related this week — possibly Friends Divided, on the relationship between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. While I’ve read a lot about their dynamic, it’s all been from Joseph Ellis — I’m curious to see what fresh take Wood may have. I usually do “Space Camp” in July, and in the last two years I’ve also done “Blast from the Past” where I visit books from when I was a kid and early teenager. This year I’m thinking of re-reading Roswell High by Melinda Metz, a SF series about three kids who were in incubation pods during the Roswell crash and woke up as children concealed in a desert cave, with no clue as to their origin but looking like humans. I’m pretty sure I’m going to do it, but am undecided on how I will approach reviews: I’m leaning toward doing the series segments approach I took with California Diaries, but Roswell High does not lend itself as easily to segmentation: even if I lump the books together by who the big bad is (because there are three, and they segue to one another easily) it doesn’t quite work because they’re not evenly distributed.

BookTube Highlight:

This isn’t a book reviewer, but rather something created based on literature.

I was disappointed that when they had Gimli go “AND MY AXE!” he was not wielding an electric guitar. Also, when they said “bow” as in ..baʊ, and not “bow” as in boʊ.