Well, here we’ve come to the end of July, though for central Alabama we’re still a long way away from the worst of summer. I had an unusually high amount of audiobooks this month, and my fiction & nonfiction are now at a dead heat. My nonfiction reading was largely American Revolution related. I did pick up Tocqueville, but I was handling Walter Isaacs’ girthy biography of Ben Franklin at the same time. Regarding challenges, it was….not a good month, since the only challenge I made progress in was The Great Reread, revisiting Crunchy Cons.

The Harmony Club Little Free Library:

Some years ago an enterprising city councilman had the idea to drop former newspaper boxes across town for people to decorate and turn into Little Free Libraries. One sat outside The Harmony Club, which I’ve written about prior, and even after its savior DJ died and THC was sold, his former business partner kept tending to the LFL. Now said partner is moving to Atlanta, leaving me as the LFL’s unofficial custodian. It’s not an official LFL, in that no one pays to have it listed on a map of LFLs, but it’s there and gets…….some traffic. I’ve been doing monthly check-ins in the last few months to get ready for this new responsibility, but now it’s more serious. I may start spotlighting some of the box’s current residents in these monthly posts. It’s an interesting anniversary of sorts: two years ago yesterday was the last time we ever gathered at the Sidewalk, and now THC’s steward is moving on. The artwork on the box is a combination of the former steward and a local artist who used to leave bricolage near the the Harmony Club for DJ to admire.

America at 250?

As American readers may know, next year is the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. I’ve been planning for what I might do to honor the occasion, seeing as I wasn’t here for the 200th and probably won’t be here for the 300th. I was thinking of a multi-track series that would feature a course of reading across American history, a series of biographies, and a series of books touching on different elements of American culture, or different genres that have grown up from American roots, like bluegrass and jazz. My history reading this month has made me wonder if it wouldn’t be more appropriate to start that now, building up to the 250th across a year and retroactively including this month’s reading in that celebration.

The Unreviewed:
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, Walter Isaacson. Not sure why I haven’t reviewed this one yet. Distractions, I suppose. Will try to remedy that!
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, audible version. I enjoyed this, though not as much as Kenneth Branagth’s Magician’s Nephew.

New Acquisitions:
Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frank
(Gift) Evelyn Waugh title. (I forget, and it’s in my car. Definitely not Brideshead.)
(Gift) Close Encounters with the Third Kind, Steven Spielberg. Will probably save this for a SF-focused month.

Coming up in August:
August 20th is Dr. Ron Paul’s 90th birthday; Paul is the godfather of the American libertarian movement, and universally loved among libertarians despite our penchant for in-fighting. I played with the idea of going to his birthday BBQ (Tom Woods’ supporters received early invites), but tickets were a bit pricey, even considering the guest list. Plus, if I’m going to travel during the summer, it’s not going to be to a place that’s just as hot as Alabama. Anyhoo, I picked up a couple of his books with the intention of featuring them the week of the 20th.