Commonplace #14
Some things that recently caught my interest
Navigating the passages between books and being
Dear friends,
It has been a couple of months since I sent out one of these but I figured it was time to share a few things of interest before heading into the holidays and the new year. I hope that you enjoy the links below. If you read or listen to something you enjoy, please be sure to give that person a follow or subscribe to their publication.
“Every human being lived behind an impenetrable wall of choking mist within which no other but he existed.” - Isaac Asimov, Second Foundation
Music:
My son David Long, recommends this album which I found very intriguing.
Links of interest:
Petya K. Grady shares the real reasons why you are not reading.
Katrina Donham writes a powerful essay on Fall, the Beautiful Season of Death.
Matthew Morgan writes a thoughtful piece on The Only Way to Read a Book.
gor provides sublime insight for when you’re choosing a life partner.
Lou Blaser shares with us some of the things she Learned This Year.
Naomi Kanakia reviews Peter Shull’s Why Teach? This is a great book I read in the summer and Naomi has done a great job explaining why it is such a good read.
Personal Reading:
I’ve highlighted one fiction and one nonfiction title as my top recommendations from this list.
Recommendations:
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. Eleven-year-old Reuben Land narrates his family’s journey across 1960s Minnesota and the Dakotas searching for his fugitive older brother, who has fled after a violent confrontation. Traveling with his asthmatic condition, his younger sister, and his devoutly faithful father—a school janitor who performs quiet miracles—Reuben recounts their odyssey with wonder and literary grace. Enger blends elements of Western adventure, family drama, and magical realism into a meditation on faith, loyalty, and justice. The novel’s luminous prose and mythic storytelling create a deeply American fable about love’s power to sustain us through impossible choices. I was gifted this book by my friend, Mary Roblyn, and I am so grateful she introduced me to this author. I give this novel my highest recommendation.
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann. In 1920s Oklahoma, members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation began mysteriously dying. Grann’s meticulous investigation uncovers a chilling conspiracy of murders targeting Osage people for their headrights. The book follows the nascent FBI’s first major homicide investigation, led by former Texas Ranger Tom White, revealing a systematic campaign of terror far more extensive than initially known. This true crime narrative exposes a dark chapter of American history involving greed, racism, and betrayal.
All the rest:
Prelude to Foundation by Isaac Asimov. Young mathematician Hari Seldon arrives on the imperial planet Trantor with a revolutionary theory: using mathematics to predict the future of human civilization. When his ideas attract dangerous political attention, he must flee through Trantor’s vast sectors while developing what will become psychohistory. This first chronological entry in Asimov’s Foundation series explores how Seldon’s grand vision began, blending political intrigue with scientific speculation as he encounters various cultures hidden within the galaxy’s capital world.
Forward the Foundation by Isaac Asimov. Set during Hari Seldon’s later years as First Minister of the crumbling Galactic Empire, this novel chronicles the personal and political challenges facing psychohistory’s creator. As Seldon works to perfect his science and establish the Foundation that will preserve civilization through the coming dark age, he faces assassination plots, political upheaval, and profound personal losses.
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. Carr investigates how internet use is fundamentally reshaping human cognition and neural pathways. Drawing on neuroscience, psychology, and history, he argues that the internet’s emphasis on skimming, scanning, and multitasking is eroding our capacity for deep reading, contemplation, and concentration. The book examines how different technologies throughout history have influenced thought patterns, suggesting that our always-connected digital lives may be diminishing our ability to think deeply and retain complex information.
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell. Artist and writer Odell makes a case for reclaiming our attention from the demands of social media and productivity culture. Rather than advocating complete digital withdrawal, she proposes redirecting our focus toward local communities, nature, and meaningful presence. Drawing on art history, environmental observation, and philosophy, Odell explores how attention is a form of resistance and how noticing the world around us—birds, trees, neighbors—can be revolutionary in an economy designed to capture and commodify our awareness.
Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy by James Williams. Former Google strategist Williams examines how persuasive design in technology undermines human autonomy and our ability to live according to our values. He argues that the attention economy doesn’t just distract us—it systematically interferes with our capacity to pursue what matters most. Drawing on philosophy and his insider knowledge of the tech industry, Williams proposes that we need new ethical frameworks and design principles to protect human freedom in an age where technology increasingly shapes our intentions and goals.
Foundation by Isaac Asimov. As the Galactic Empire crumbles, mathematician Hari Seldon uses psychohistory to foresee millennia of chaos and barbarism ahead. Unable to prevent the fall, he establishes the Foundation—a haven of scientists on the galaxy’s edge—to preserve knowledge and reduce the coming dark age from 30,000 years to just 1,000. Told through interconnected episodes spanning generations, this groundbreaking science fiction classic explores how a small group armed with scientific knowledge navigates existential crises and political machinations to fulfill Seldon’s plan.
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. Two retired Texas Rangers, Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call, undertake an epic cattle drive from the Rio Grande to Montana in the 1870s. This sprawling Western follows their crew of cowboys, including a young horse thief, a talented tracker, and various colorful characters, as they face natural dangers, hostile encounters, and personal reckonings across the American frontier. McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel transforms Western mythology into a meditation on friendship, mortality, and the costs of the frontier dream.
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. In 1974, the Allbright family moves to the Alaskan wilderness seeking a fresh start after the Vietnam War has left father Ernie traumatized and volatile. Told through teenage daughter Lena’s eyes, the novel chronicles their struggle to survive Alaska’s brutal isolation and beauty while navigating domestic violence and finding community among hardy neighbors. Hannah weaves a story about resilience, first love, and the costs of violence across the extreme landscape of Alaska’s last frontier.
The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads by Tim Wu. Columbia law professor Wu traces the history of the “attention industry” from 19th-century newspapers through modern social media. He examines how businesses have progressively developed sophisticated methods to capture, hold, and monetize human attention—from early advertising to television to smartphones. Wu explores the ethical implications of treating attention as a commodity, the cultural impact of attention harvesting, and recurring cycles of consumer revolt against increasingly invasive tactics, offering historical perspective on contemporary digital dilemmas.
Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov. The first Galactic Empire has fallen, and the Foundation faces new threats to Hari Seldon’s thousand-year plan. In two connected novellas, the Foundation first confronts the Empire’s last ambitious general, then encounters an unprecedented danger: the Mule, a mysterious mutant whose unpredictable powers lie outside psychohistory’s calculations. This second book in the trilogy raises the stakes dramatically, questioning whether even the most sophisticated mathematical predictions can account for individual genius or wildcard factors in history.
Streets of Laredo by Larry McMurtry. Set twenty years after Lonesome Dove, aging Woodrow Call accepts one final job: tracking the brutal outlaw Joey Garza across the Mexican border. As the Old West transforms into modernity, Call confronts his own obsolescence while pursuing a young killer who represents a new, more senseless violence. McMurtry’s sequel is darker and more elegiac than its predecessor, examining aging, legacy, and the death of frontier mythology itself.
Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov. The mysterious Second Foundation—secretly established by Hari Seldon as guardians of psychohistory—emerges as the key to defeating the Mule and restoring the Seldon Plan. This concluding volume of the original trilogy features psychological warfare between the two Foundations and the Mule, exploring themes of mental power, manipulation, and the ethics of guiding civilization. Asimov delivers intricate plot twists while examining whether humanity’s future should be controlled by hidden puppet masters, even benevolent ones.
Down the Long Hills by Louis L’amour. When a wagon train is attacked in the Wyoming wilderness, seven-year-old Hardy Collins and three-year-old Betty Sue Powell are the sole survivors. With winter approaching and hostile forces pursuing them, Hardy must lead the toddler across hundreds of miles of unforgiving frontier terrain to reach safety. Armed only with a rifle, a horse, and resourcefulness beyond his years, the boy draws on every survival skill he’s observed from adults. L’Amour crafts a taut survival tale that showcases courage, determination, and resilience in the face of overwhelming odds, proving that heroism isn’t measured by age but by heart.
The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation by Rod Dreher. Conservative writer Dreher argues that traditional Christians face mounting cultural hostility in post-Christian America and should adopt a strategy inspired by St. Benedict, who preserved Christian civilization during Rome’s collapse by establishing monastic communities. Rather than pursuing political power or attempting to win culture wars, Dreher proposes that believers focus on building resilient local communities, strengthening religious education, and creating intentional counter-cultural practices. Drawing on visits to Christian communities across America and Europe, he offers practical guidance for maintaining faith and transmitting values to future generations while living as committed minorities in an increasingly secular society.
Girl Soldier and Other Poems by Liza Libes. Libes’ debut collection explores Jewish identity, romantic loss, female experience, and coming-of-age in modern New York City through nineteen carefully curated poems. Drawing on her post-Soviet immigrant background and training in English and Comparative Literature, Libes blends lyrical meditation with narrative verse, moving from childhood memories and family relationships to sharp examinations of art, womanhood, and contemporary culture. The collection resists easy categorization, combining confessional storytelling with intellectual range as it tackles universal questions about memory, desire, and navigating contradictory roles in the twenty-first century through personal particulars.
Guns of the Timberlands by Louis L’amour. Clay Bell has spent six years fighting Indians, rustlers, and wilderness to build his B-Bar ranch into the prize of the Deep Creek Range. When ruthless Eastern speculator Jud Devitt arrives with fifty tough lumberjacks, determined to harvest Bell’s valuable timberland for railroad ties, everything Clay has worked for is threatened. Backed by corrupt judges and politicians, Devitt is accustomed to getting whatever he wants through intimidation and force. But Clay Bell and his loyal cowboys refuse to surrender without a fight. L’Amour’s classic Western pits cattlemen against lumberjacks in a confrontation exploring land ownership, natural resource use, and frontier justice.
A Time for Mercy by John Grisham. Attorney Jake Brigance returns to Clanton, Mississippi, five years after his famous defense in A Time to Kill. When the court appoints him to defend sixteen-year-old Drew Gamble, who shot and killed a local deputy sheriff, Jake faces his most divisive case yet. As he investigates, Jake discovers disturbing secrets about abuse and terror in Drew’s home that complicate the seemingly straightforward murder. With the town demanding swift justice and the death penalty, Jake’s fierce commitment to saving the boy threatens his career, finances, and family’s safety. Grisham delivers trademark courtroom drama exploring complex questions of justice, mercy, and morality in small-town America.
The Idea Machine: How Books Built Our World and Shape Our Future by Joel J Miller. Miller argues that books are humanity’s first and most enduring information technology—not merely containers for words, but dynamic “idea machines” that have fundamentally shaped civilization. Tracing book culture from ancient Athens through monks and militaries to rebellions, the Renaissance, and modern implications, he demonstrates how books externalize thought, preserve ideas across time, and enable complex cognitive engagement beyond natural human limits. As reading declines and concerns about artificial intelligence and social division mount, Miller contends that understanding the book’s history offers essential patterns for navigating our future. More than a history of books as objects or literature, this is an examination of how book technology transformed societies, facilitated political revolutions, shaped private interiority, and remains vital even as it seems threatened by obsolescence. The book celebrates humanity’s most lasting tool for thinking while warning against abandoning it.
Sparring Partners by John Grisham. Grisham’s first novella collection features three distinct legal tales. In “Homecoming,” Jake Brigance helps a disgraced lawyer who fled town after stealing clients’ money attempt reconciliation with his dying ex-wife and daughters. “Strawberry Moon” follows death row inmate Cody Wallace through his final three hours before execution, focusing on a visit from an elderly pen pal who sent him books for years. The title story, “Sparring Partners,” chronicles feuding brothers Kirk and Rusty Malloy as they struggle to maintain their father’s failing law firm while their disbarred father—imprisoned for killing their mother—schemes to buy a pardon and return. Office manager Diantha Bradshaw must navigate the chaos and decide whether to save the corrupt firm or herself.
*You can click on the title of any book to purchase your own copy. These are affiliate links from Bookshop.org, earning me a very small commission for any purchase you make.
Video:
My friend Samuél Lopez-Barrantes and his partner, Augusta Sagnelli, started a publishing house. You can watch more about it here.
AI Usage Policy: I have updated my AI usage policy. You can read it in its entirety at the link below.
Matthew’s Lifetime Reading List ← Click that link to see everything I have read since 1997!
Here’s to the books that take us beyond the shelf and into deeper waters,
Matthew Long is a writer and retired sailor living in rural western Tennessee.
Beyond the Bookshelf is a reader-supported voyage. If these literary explorations have enriched your journey, I’d be grateful for any support you can offer. Whether it’s the price of a coffee or a book, your contribution keeps wind in our sails and ensures these navigations through literature remain free for all readers. Thank you for being part of this crew.
Affiliate links: You can click on the title of any book mentioned in this article to purchase your own copy. These are affiliate links from Bookshop.org, earning me a very small commission for any purchase you make.
So much good stuff here Matthew. Thank you.
Thanks for the recommendation to Petya K. Grady. That was a really interesting article.