Book report for July 2026

The highlight of July, not Dr Essai’s favorite month, was John Ehle’s The Land Breakers, issued by New York Review Books, one of the most significant publishing ventures of the last 30 years. The doctor kept at his slow progress through These Truths, not because it is tedious or turgid, but because there is so much to think and make notes about. Jill Lepore has one of those expansive, encompassing intellects that is generational.

Purchases made from Dr Essai’s Bibliothèque generate a modest and totally aboveboard kickback to the good doctor, who pledges to apply all earnings to the betterment of the humane letters. As always, dear Jogglers, thank you so much for reading.

Completed

• The Best American Essays 2006, Lauren Slater (ed.). Standout pieces include Joseph Eptstein’s acute “The Culture of Celebrity,” “501 Minutes to Christ” by Poe Ballantine, David Rieff’s “Illness as More Than Metaphor” (about his mother, Susan Sontag), and Scott Turow’s warm and astute “Missing Bellow.”
• The Land Breakers, John Ehle. Very good novel about settlers trying to establish new lives in the North Carolina mountains in the 1780s. Now and again Ehle seems too intent on using every bit of the historical research he must have done, but he’s excellent at writing characters and there’s a long narrative of the hunt for a marauding bear so riveting it will elevate your pulse.

• Poor Charlie’s Almanac, Charles T. Munger. Munger made a phenomenal amount of money for and from Berkshire Hathaway, so of course he’s much lauded as an intellectual now. This collection of his writing, mostly written speeches or lectures, shows that he’s no dummy, but no writer, either. As an American Midwesterner, I think plainspoken Midwestern common sense is overrated. Though Munger does have a few valuable insights, you can glean them all from the last piece in this book. Skip the rest.

In progress

• These Truths, Jill Lepore.
• The Best American Essays 2007, David Foster Wallace (ed.).
• Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, Geoff Dyer.
• Lonesome Traveler, Jack Kerouac.
• Visions of Cody, Jack Kerouac.

Purchased

• Critical Thinking, Angus Fletcher.
• My Life as a Russian Novel: A Memoir, Emmanuel Carrère.