Why I Read

Posted on May 22, 2026 by Roger

In the next handful of years, I will complete my goal of reading 5,000 books in my life. I thought it would be fun to create a list of those books I thought worth reading a second time (or, in many cases, a third or fourth time). Here’s that list.

Warning: I’m making no claim that these are the best books ever written or even the best books I’ve ever read. They’re just the books I want in my life again.

Note: I’m not done with this list yet. There may be future adjustments, additions, and subtractions. But here’s a start.

Douglas Adams (in order)

  • The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
  • The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
  • Life, the Universe, and Everything
  • So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
  • Mostly Harmless

Sir Robert Anderson

  • The Gospel and Its Ministry
  • The Silence of God
  • Forgotten Truths

Roger Angell (in chronological order)

  • The Summer Game
  • Five Seasons
  • Late Innings
  • Season Ticket

Charlotte Armstrong

  • A Dram of Poison

Isaac Asimov (in order)

  • Foundation
  • Foundation and Empire
  • Second Foundation

Rick Atkinson (in order)

  • An Army at Dawn
  • The Day of Battle
  • The Guns at Last Light

Jane Austen

  • Pride and Prejudice

Sir James Barrie

  • The Little Minister

Dan Barry

  • Bottom of the 33rd

Dave Barry

  • Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs
  • Dave Barry’s Only Travel Guide You’ll Ever Need
  • Dave Barry Slept Here
  • The Shepherd, the Angel and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog

Edward L. Beach

  • Run Silent, Run Deep

Richard Bissell

  • High Water

W.E. Bowman

  • The Ascent of Rum Doodle

Brendan C. Boyd and Fred C. Harris

  • The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading, and Bubble Gum Book

William Brinkley

  • Don’t Go Near the Water

Joe E. Brown

  • Your Kids and Mine

Bill Bryson

  • At Home
  • The Mother Tongue
  • Shakespeare

Bryan Burrough

  • Public Enemies

Raymond Chandler

  • The Big Sleep

Christopher Cokinos

  • Hope Is the Thing with Feathers

Michael Collins

  • Carrying the Fire

Paul Collins

  • Banvard’s Follly

James Tertius DeKay

  • Monitor

Charles Dickens

  • Bleak House
  • Our Mutual Friend

Arthur Conan Doyle

  • The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard
  • The Adventures of Gerard

Mark Dunn

  • Ella Minnow Pea

Walter D. Edmonds

  • Chad Hanna
  • Drums Along the Mohawk

Jasper Fforde (in order)

  • The Big Over Easy
  • The Fourth Bear
  • The Eyre Affair
  • Lost in a Good Book
  • The Well of Lost Plots
  • Something Rotten
  • First Among Sequels
  • One of Our Thursdays is Missing
  • The Woman Who Died A Lot
  • Dark Reading Matter

Jack Finney

  • Time and Again

David Hackett Fischer

  • Paul Revere’s Ride
  • Washington’s Crossing

Shelby Foote (in order)

  • The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville
  • The Civil War: Fredericksburg to Meridian
  • The Civil War: Red River to Appomattox

Esther Forbes

  • Paul Revere and the World He Lived In

Benjamin Franklin

  • The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

George MacDonald Fraser

  • Quartered Safe Out Here

William A. Frassanito

  • Antietam
  • Gettysburg
  • Grant and Lee

Paul Gallico

  • Adventures of Hiram Holliday

Bob George

  • Classic Christianity

John Graves

  • Goodbye to a River

John S. Gray

  • Custer’s Last Campaign

John Grisham

  • The Runaway Jury

James Norman Hall

  • Doctor Dogbody’s Leg

Richard Halliburton

  • The Royal Road to Romance

Thomas Hardy

  • Far From the Madding Crowd
  • The Return of the Native

Mark Harris

  • Bang the Drum Slowly

Ernest Haycox

  • Border Trumpet
  • The Earthbreakers

Herge (in order)

  • Tintin in the Land of the Soviets
  • Tintin in the Congo
  • Tintin in America
  • Cigars of the Pharaoh
  • The Blue Lotus
  • The Broken Ear
  • The Black Island
  • King Ottokar’s Sceptre
  • The Crab with the Golden Claws
  • The Shooting Star
  • The Secret of the Unicorn
  • Red Rackham’s Treasure
  • The Seven Crystal Balls
  • Prisoners of the Sun
  • Land of Black Gold
  • Destination Moon
  • Explorers on the Moon
  • The Calculus Affair
  • The Red Sea Sharks
  • Tintin in Tibet
  • The Castafiore Emerald
  • Flight 714 to Sydney
  • Tintin and the Picaros
  • Tintin and Alph-Art

James Herriot

  • All Creatures Great and Small

Holling Clancy Holling

  • Paddle-to-the-Sea

Helen Hoover

  • A Place in the Woods

Tony Horwitz

  • Blue Latitudes
  • Confederates in the Attic

David Howarth

  • 1066: The Year of the Conquest
  • Trafalgar: The Nelson Touch

Victor Hugo

  • Les Miserables

Scott Huler

  • Defining the Wind

A.J. Jacobs

  • The Guinea Pig Diaries
  • The Know-It-All

Paulette Jiles

  • Chenneville
  • Enemy Women
  • News of the World
  • Simon the Fiddler

John Keegan

  • The Fields of Battle

Steve Kluger

  • Last Days of Summer

David Lavender

  • The Way to the Western Sea

William Least Heat-Moon

  • Blue Highways
  • PrairyErth
  • River-Horse

C.S. Lewis

  • Surprised by Joy

Abraham Lincoln

  • Lincoln’s Speeches and Writings

Finlay J. MacDonald (in order)

  • Crowdie and Cream
  • Crotal and White
  • The Corncrake and the Lysander

John D. Macdonald

  • The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything

Alistair MacLean

  • The Guns of Navarone
  • Where Eagles Dare

Craig Massey

  • North of Copper Creek
  • That Family on Archer Street
  • The Warm Summer

Bill Mauldin

  • Up Front

Robert McCloskey

  • Homer Price
  • Centerburg Tales

John McPhee

  • The Crofter and the Laird
  • The Founding Fish
  • Irons in the Fire
  • Looking for a Ship
  • Oranges
  • Pieces of the Frame
  • The Pine Barrens
  • The Survival of the Bark Canoe

Alan Moorehead

  • The Blue Nile
  • Cooper’s Creek
  • The White Nile

Christopher Morlely

  • Parnassus on Wheels
  • The Haunted Bookshop

William and Mary Morris

  • Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins

Rob Neyer

  • Power Ball

Adam Nicolson

  • God’s Secretaries

Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall (in order)

  • Mutiny on the Bounty
  • Men Against the Sea
  • Pitcairn’s Island

Patrick O’Brian (in order)

  • Master and Commander
  • Post Captain
  • H.M.S. Surprise
  • The Mauritius Command
  • Desolation Island
  • The Fortunes of War
  • The Surgeon’s Mate
  • The Ionian Mission
  • Treason’s Harbour
  • The Far Side of the World
  • The Reverse of the Medal
  • The Letter of Marque
  • The Thirteen-Gun Salute
  • The Nutmeg of Consolation
  • The Truelove
  • The Wine-Dark Sea
  • The Commodore
  • The Yellow Admiral
  • The Hundred Days
  • Blue at the Mizzen
  • 21: The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey

Ellis Peters (in order)

  • A Morbid Taste for Bones
  • One Corpse Too Many
  • Monk’s Hood
  • Saint Peter’s Fair
  • The Leper of St. Giles
  • The Virgin in the Ice
  • The Sanctuary Sparrow
  • The Devil’s Novice
  • Dead Man’s Ransom
  • The Pilgrim of Hate
  • An Excellent Mystery
  • The Raven in the Foregate
  • The Rose Rent
  • The Hermit of Eyton Forest
  • The Confession of Brother Haluin
  • A Rare Benedictine
  • The Heretic’s Apprentice
  • The Potter’s Field
  • The Summer of the Danes
  • The Holy Thief
  • Eye Witness
  • The Prince of Light
  • Brother Cadfael’s Penance

Roger Tory Peterson

  • A Field Guide to the Birds (1947 edition)

Jean Piatt

  • Adventures in Birding

Joe Posnanski

  • Why We Love Baseball

Ernie Pyle

  • Brave Men
  • Home Country

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch

  • The Astonishing History of Troy Town

Van Reid (in order)

  • Cordelia Underwood
  • Mollie Peer
  • Daniel Plainway
  • Mrs. Roberto
  • Fiddler’s Green
  • Moss Farm

Theodore Roosevelt

  • Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail

Damon Runyon

  • Blue Plate Special

Witold Rybcznski

  • Home: A Short History of an Idea

Louis Sachar

  • Holes

H.F. Saint

  • Memoirs of an Invisible Man

Charles M. Schulz (in order)

  • The Complete Peanuts: 1950-1952
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1953-1954
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1955-1956
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1957-1958
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1959-1960
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1961-1962
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1963-1964
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1965-1966
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1967-1968
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1969-1970
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1971-1972
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1973-1974
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1975-1976
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1977-1978
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1979-1980
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1981-1982
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1983-1984
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1985-1986
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1987-1988
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1989-1990
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1991-1992
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1993-1994
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1995-1996
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1997-1998
  • The Complete Peanuts: 1999-2000
  • The Complete Peanuts: Comics & Stories

Sir Walter Scott

  • The Bride of Lammermoor
  • The Heart of Midlothian

Dr. Seuss

  • The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins
  • Green Eggs and Ham

William L. Shirer

  • The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

Renald Showers

  • There Really Is a Difference

Nevil Shute (in publication order)

  • Marazan
  • So Disdained (also titled The Mysterious Aviator)
  • Kindling (also titled Ruined City)
  • Ordeal (also titled What Happened to the Corbetts
  • An Old Captivity
  • Landfall
  • Pied Piper
  • Pastoral
  • Most Secret
  • Vinland the Good
  • The Chequer Board
  • No Highway
  • A Town Like Alice
  • Round the Bend
  • The Far Country
  • In the Wet
  • Slide Rule
  • The Breaking Wave (also titled Requiem for a Wren)
  • Beyond the Black Stump
  • On the Beach
  • The Rainbow and the Rose
  • Trustee from the Toolroom
  • Stephen Morris

Eric Sloane

  • The Cracker Barrel
  • Our Vanishing Landscape
  • The Second Barrel

Joshua Slocum

  • Sailing Alone Around the World

H. Allen Smith

  • Low Man on a Totem Pole

E.E. Somerville and Martin Ross

  • The Irish R.M

C.R. Stam

  • Acts Dispensationally Considered

Edward Steers, Jr.

  • Blood on the Moon

William Steig

  • Yellow and Pink

John Steinbeck

  • Travels with Charley
  • Winter of Our Discontent

Robert Louis Stevenson

  • Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes

George R. Stewart

  • Names on the Land

Peter Svenson

  • Battlefield: Farming a Civil War Battleground

Josephine Tey (in publication order)

  • The Man in the Queue
  • A Shilling for Candles
  • The Franchise Affair
  • To Love and Be Wise
  • The Daughter of Time
  • The Singing Sands

James Thurber

  • James Thurber: Writings and Drawings (an anthology by the Library of America)

Thomas Henry Tibbles

  • Buckskin and Blanket Days

Ian W. Toll (in order)

  • The Pacific Crucible
  • The Conquering Tide
  • Twilight of the Gods

Amor Towles

  • A Gentleman in Moscow

Mark Twain

  • Life on the Mississippi
  • Following the Equator
  • The Innocents Abroad
  • Roughing It

Robert Traver

  • Anatomy of a Murder

Albert Uderzo and Rene Goscinny (in publication order)

  • Asterix the Gaul

William Hazlett Upson (in order, although I’m not sure it matters)

  • Botts Begins
  • Botts Abroad
  • Botts Breaks Hollywood
  • Botts and the Queen of the North
  • Botts Goes to War

Elizabeth von Arnim

  • Christopher and Columbus

William W. Warner

  • Beautiful Swimmers

Bill Watterson (in publication order, although I’m not sure it matters)

  • Calvin and Hobbes
  • Something Under the Bed is Drooling
  • Yukon Ho!
  • Weirdos from Another Planet
  • The Revenge of the Baby-Sat
  • Scientific Progress Goes “Boink”
  • Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons
  • The Days are Just Packed
  • Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat
  • There’s Treasure Everywhere

E.B. White

  • One Man’s Meat

Ronald C. White, Jr.

  • Lincoln’s Greatest Speech

T.H. White

  • The Goshawk

Connie Willis

  • To Say Nothing of the Dog

William Wilson and Judy Jones

  • An Incomplete Education

Owen Wister

  • The Virginian

John Wyndham

  • The Day of the Triffids
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Lake Dardanelle State Park

Posted on May 20, 2026 by Roger

Lake Dardanelle is a 34,300-acre reservoir created by damming the Arkansas River. The state park has two sections, a smaller one on a bay along the north shore that is entirely campground/picnic area/marina, and a larger one near Russellville that is pretty much the same thing, only larger. And it has the visitor center. That’s the section I visited today.

It feels like the park was shoe-horned in at the last minute to give public access to Lake Dardanelle before all the lots were built up. The only “wild” area is a narrow strip of woods between the highway and the picnic/camping area. There’s a trail down the middle of this strip, but it’s neither particularly quiet or scenic.

It does provide a nice view of the lake. Mount Nebo is the flat-topped mountain in the left distance.

Here’s a closer view. You can see the Mount Nebo State Park visitor center on the top of the mountain if you could enlarge the photo enough and know where to look.

Probably the most exciting thing about the park is indoors. The visitor center has several large tanks with native fish. On this day, it also had a large group of obnoxious school children running around screaming, so I didn’t stay long. One lad, not paying attention to where he was going, nearly collided with me. He looked up and saw the binoculars around my neck, said a loud “Oooo!” and began reaching for them. Then he saw the look on my face and walked away.

I walked around the picnic area to get in my miles for the day and then headed for home.

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Mount Nebo State Park

Posted on May 20, 2026 by Roger

By the time you reach the top of Mount Nebo, you’ve already done the most interesting thing to do in the park — drive the road up the mountain. It twists back and forth through 11 hairpin turns that are steeper than anything I’ve driven anywhere else. The road is left over from the 1890s when the mountain was a resort reached by horse-drawn coach. For some odd reason, I’ve never taken a picture of it, but pictures wouldn’t do it justice.

The mountain is flat topped and pretty much covered with cabins. The overlooks on either end of the mountain are cool, although the trees on the west end have gotten so high that they block much of the view. Here’s the east end view I took today.

And the view from behind the visitor center with Lake Dardanelle below. I don’t know what’s with the sign, but I felt compelled to obey.

One of the coolest things I’ve seen at Nebo was the huge flock of Snow Geese that hang out in the middle of Lake Dardanelle in the winter. This shot was taken in February, 2024. That’s a tremendous number of geese — in the 10s of thousands, I’d guess.

Not that this has much to do with Mount Nebo State Park, but here’s a shot of a tiny bit of that same flock of geese taken from the lakeshore just a few days before I took the above photo.

Back to today’s visit. The two round peninsulas that jut into Lake Dardanelle each have a section of Dardanelle State Park on the near shore. The further section is where I headed next.

Here are some more photos of the park taken on past trips. I’ve hiked the rim trail three times. It’s a 3.5 mile loop around the edge of the summit, often on a ledge below the rim.

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Mount Magazine State Park

Posted on May 20, 2026 by Roger

Mount Magazine is the highest point in Arkansas — 2,753 feet. There’s a short trail to the summit from the lodge. I didn’t walk it this time, but I’ve done it before. There are also scenic overlooks all around the rim, but today when I went to get my passport stamped, while still scenic, they didn’t overlook much. A dense fog blanketed the valleys much of the time. Not only was this beautiful, but it kept things nice and cool — just a skosh above jacket weather.

I’d left home early and got to the visitor center just minutes after it opened. I got my passport stamped, took my picture by the sign, and stopped at a couple of the overlooks.

Looking southwest into the Petit Jean River Valley.

The view to the north from the Cameron Bluff overlook.

A few minutes later, this same view looked like this.

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Reed’s Bridge Battlefield Heritage Park

Posted on May 18, 2026 by Roger

The history of the battle that took place here can be read on the markers at the bottom of this post. I’ll just add that it all seems a bit silly. The Union marched toward Little Rock. The Confederates burned the bridge across Bayou Meto and forced them to stop. The Union army backed up a ways, waited for the Confederates to leave, then moved forward again and took Little Rock. What remains is a seven-acre park with a cannon and a few markers. An old farm has been reconstructed on the site — to educate school children, I imagine.

This is pretty much the entire site. Bayou Meto is just beyond the trees to the left.

It looks like this. If I had a choice to try to get across it when people were shooting at me or wait a few days until the people left, I’d wait.

I walked the perimeter, saw everything there was to see, and spent maybe 15 minutes. Since it’s 45 minutes from my house, of course I was going to visit sometime, but I wouldn’t make a greater effort than that.

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