I just finished reading Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America by Heather Cox Richardson, 2023, 256 pages. A very helpful short history about America’s journey to the chaos of 2025 with examples of the kinds of people power action needed now to save our democracy.

I just finished reading Constantine’s Sword: The Church and The Jews by James Carroll, 2001, 616 pp. I think this is an important and timely history, and, as they say, if you don’t know the history, you’re likely to repeat it. If “Never Again” means anything, maybe that includes know this history.

Want an entertaining read? I listened to this novel on Audible: “Remarkably Bright Creatures,” a novel by Shelby Van Pelt, 2022. Basically, my book group made me read it, but I have to admit it was entertaining.

Last week I finished reading “Who on Earth was Jesus: The Modern Quest for the Jesus of History” by David Boulton, 2008, 406 pp. I found it a very readable survey of the historians’ — not theologians’ — searches for the young man called Jesus.

Just last night, I finished reading One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict, by Israeli scholar of history Benny Morris.

You may not know it but you want to read this book now: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad, 2025, 187 pp.

Julie Schumacher Cohen writes in The National Catholic Reporter today, March 26, that Catholics are called to defend free speech and peaceful protest here in the US. I would only add that we all should do so against the repression by ICE and other agencies. www.ncronline.org/files/2025-0...

Recently I finished reading — or rereading— “The Quiet Rebels: The Story of the Quakers in America” by Margaret Hope Bacon, 1999. Interesting to see the different phases of Friends’ history in America.

Last week I finished reading “Where Tyranny Begins: The Justice Department, the FBI, and the War on Democracy” by David Rohde, 2024, 304 pp. Good Reads describes it: “How Donald Trump subverted the law and Merrick Garland misjudged the need to hold him accountable before the 2024 election.”

60 years ago today (1965), 2 US Marine Battalions waded ashore at Da Nang Vietnam ready for battle to begin the American War.
See p. 364, Without Honor by Arnold Isaacs, 1984.

I just finished reading Andrew Bacevich’s first novel, Ravens on a Wire, 2024. He’s written 16 nonfiction books. This novel takes place in the US Army in West Germany in 1976 in just 11 days. Entertaining, informative, and deals with some post-Vietnam War ethical issues. Try it.

I just finished “reading” the novel The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger, 2023, read by CJ Wilson on Audible. So, I’m ready for my book group chat. A murder mystery set in the 1950s.

I recently finished reading “The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual” by Jennifer C. Berkshire and Jack Schneider, 2024. Very helpful by describing why public school systems are so important to a democratic society but are under attack now and what we can do to defend them.