A couple of weeks ago, fueled by an idea and some energy, I wrote this title and then failed to write the article itself. Since then, I’ve read more books and seen more flowers, but I need to quit stalling and to get writing. Summer is only two days away.

My original idea was to write about three books I read one after another. Although the three books differ widely, I like each one a great deal and they seem to make a perfect, if motley, trio for these times.

First Book Sarah Kendzior published The Last American Road Trip: a Memoir in 2025.* 2025: after Covid-19, after fires and floods, after the Supreme Court overrode Roe v. Wade, after Trump was inaugurated again and DOGE came to town. Between her trenchant observations about American history and society and her mordant humor, this crackerjack writer ripped me to emotional shreds. Actually, Kendzior (a journalist and expert in conspiracies) got me at her book’s title. If you have read this blog for awhile, you know that I love road trips. I especially love them when Tom and I find some back of beyond place that is short on people, but serene and beautiful beyond words. Kendzior and her family have traveled some of the same roads as Tom and I, but also many that were new to me. As a researcher and journalist, Kendzior provides a world of well-documented information about skullduggery and violence throughout (and ongoing) in our American story. Because I procrastinated, it has been about two months since I read this book and I do not have it at hand. What I recall most strongly is Kendzior’s fierce love for her children. This love drives her family through the country: the morass we are in and the beauty that remains. This book was not an easy read for me. However, I ended up feeling that Kendzior and I were fellow travelers. Like Paul Simon’s, “America”  written almost sixty years ago, we’ve “…come to look for America.”

Second Book After the intense reading work of The Last American Road Trip, I needed something lighter. I usually go for a middle grade book for relief, but that didn’t happen this time. Tom had been guffawing over the latest Carl Hiaasen book, Fever Beach, which was also published in 2025. I am not typically a reader of comic novels. However, I’ve read and enjoyed more than fifteen of Hiaasen’s comic novels–adult and middle grade. I like Hiaasen’s constant and passionate call to save (what’s left of) Florida’s natural ecosystem. Beyond that, I enjoy his own mordant take on human nature. Bottom line: This novel was so slapstick, raunchy, and fun that I laughed aloud. My anxiety about the daily bad news even lessened a notch. Not going to share the plot of the book, but I will mention that there is a crowd of right-wing ninnies who get into crazy situations at fictional Fever Beach and elsewhere. Side Note: When I just wrote that some of the novel’s characters were “right-wing ninnies,” I chose words that were much milder than I really feel. “Stupid” and “idiots” are what I really wanted to write. I am sorry to say that in our fevered times, some of the crazed and feckless  book characters remind me of real people I read about in the news.

So, I traveled the country with Kendzior and found some comic relief with Hiaasen, but I needed more.

Third Book My local library offers several shelves of free used books.Those shelves are next to the doors I usually exit, so I find plenty of free middle grade books. About a month ago, I found one of my favorite books on a shelf: In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson written by Bette Bao Lord in 1984. With this latest read, I think I have read this book at least four times. This isn’t much of a feat. The book is quite short and the intended audience is for children in the middle elementary grades. This book is neither heavy nor slapstick. This book is full of humor, kindness, and empathy. The story tells of Shirley Temple Wong and her parents who have emigrated from China to New York City in 1947. World War II is over at last. It is the Chinese Zodiac Year of the Boar, and as fate or luck has it, also the year Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American Major League baseball player: exciting times for a young newcomer to Brooklyn. The rereading of this tale of immigrants and New Yorkers, baseball and hope, cleared my mind and helped sooth my troubled heart. Words can be true and powerful even in a little kids’ book.

Flowers (and  their allies) I love reading, but even books aren’t enough to make me feel like things are quite right with the world. I need a walk with Tom in some back of beyond place that is short on people, but serene and beautiful beyond words. Turns out, we’ve found such a place 63 miles from where I am sitting in my chair writing these words. On April 23, 2026 Tom and I drove to the Trillium Walk, part of the G. Richard Thompson Wildlife Management Area. This was our fourth spring hike along the Trillium Walk. I do not have words, but I do have some photos (below).

Today I look to people, books, and nature to help me get through these challenging times. Also good food cooked with love, the gym, and, yes, TV. I am getting through and I hope the same for you. Today, for some reason, I feel more hopeful about our country than I have for many months. I thought of some words from Tolkien’s Return of the King and send them out to you:

Then suddenly Merry felt it at last, beyond doubt: a change. Wind was in his face! Light was glimmering. Far, far away, in the South the clouds could be dimly seen as remote grey shapes rolling up, drifting: morning lay beyond them.

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*I usually provide internet links to most of the people, books, and other information I refer to. This time I provided only four links because I was annoyed with AI elbowing in everywhere.  Information about the people and books I mention in the article are all easily accessible on  the internet.