I have great news! My book about the Ohio River’s racial legacy is in peer review at a major university press. This means experts in history, sociology, and public policy will give me advice how to improve it, including suggested topics and interviews, before it goes to press (likely 2026). Can’t say more than that at this time, but hope to have a full report for my fourth quarterly update. Thanks for your good wishes and notes of encouragement.

Here I am, reading from “Along the Ohio” Traveling America’s Dividing Line” at the 47th Appalachian Writer’s Workshop. I was fortunate to spend the week studying with the inimitable Jennifer Haigh, and to meet NYT Columnist and author Margaret Renkl in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. As a result, I’ve got an idea for a new historical novel.

When I write my Q4 update, I’ll have just returned from a motorcycle trip to Maine for the BMW Riders Association National Rally. Maine in late summer! I occasionally post my travels on Instagram, if you’re interested. Meanwhile, here are some book and podcast recommendations.

Me reading the Author’s Note of “Along the Ohio: Traveling America’s Dividing Line”

If you’ve been missing me on “the socials,” most of my online activity is at my two free email newsletters. I narrate every newsletter, so you can listen in the Substack app or in your favorite podcatcher.

So Much Reading

I’ve been writing more than reading this quarter, after all, books don’t write themselves. Here are a few new titles I’ve picked up for research. You can link through to read about them and purchase (non-affiliate link).

“If you haven’t read this book, it’s new to you.” ~ Ann Patchett

I have just discovered Patricia Highsmith, whose work may be more familiar to you as movies than as books. Highsmith drives you deep into the heads of sociopaths and has an ineffable talent for plot and pacing. I’m taking careful notes. Reading stories set in the 1950s shows how much has changed about our daily lives with technologies that watch, listen, and tell on us. We know this intellectually, but being immersed in that era really brings it home.

Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley have repeatedly been adapted for the screen, and the latter is now a Netflix series starring one of my favorite villain actors, Andrew Scott (Professor Moriarity in the Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock series). If you’ve only seen these movies, buckle up for the books, and if you haven’t seen the movies, read the books first!

Coincidentally, the NYT Books podcast just featured Tom Ripley in the July Book Club.

Podcasts I Love

Most of my listening choices fall into the cultural, social, and economic, and racial history categories. I’ve always been more interested in the downtrodden themselves than the people who stepped on them during their climb to “the top” or were “of the manner born.” Here are three shows to consider.

As a product of the seventies, I love this podcast by history teacher and “seventies-ologist” Amy Lively. For The Record: The 70s, examines the intersection of a wide variety of musical genres—pop, rock, country, country-pop, disco, punk, soul—with the historic events and decisions that helped shape our modern world. This one on Southern Rock is terrific.

Shameless plug for my own podcast, where I narrate my 981 Project newsletter. I publish twice a month. The first edition is focused on culture, history, trivia, book reviews, and roadside kitsch from all 981 miles of the Ohio River. The second edition is a trivia quiz from the region (and tons of fun).

The Reckoning is a nine-part series about Kentucky’s history with slavery and how that history connects to issues we face today. Loads of experts and thoughtful topics. It offers a searchable database of over 100 oral histories of formerly enslaved Kentuckians, as well as inquiry materials aligned to the Kentucky Academic Standards for Social Studies. Learn more

The Rest is History, with hosts with Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook is pure perfection. Reputedly the most popular history podcast in the world, its British hosts Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook have an irresistible chemistry. Both are trained historians who can address any subject in depth, with levity. Here’s one of my favorite culture episodes, Disco: Sex and Race in Seventies America, and another on Napoleon (first episode of a series).