March 20 26 Newsletter | Take the Back Roads

 This newsletter was originally sent on March 20, 2026

Each month, I share new essays, books, and stories from the road.

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March on the Back Roads: New Roads, New Books, and What Comes Next Dear Friends, March has been a month of movement, across back roads, through good books, and into a more structured season of this work. Out on the road, I spent time in Hot Springs, Arkansas, exploring places that carry more history than they first let on. The Gangster Museum of America offered a glimpse into a past shaped by vice and ambition, while Josephine Tussaud’s Wax Museum stood as a quieter, more curious reminder of how we choose to preserve memory. I also stopped at St. Mary of the Springs, a place long associated with healing. I never made it inside, but I found something worth writing about just the same. As it turns out, the road rarely gives you exactly what you expect, but it almost always gives you something meaningful. 📚 The Reading Life The Bucket List Book Adventure continues to grow, with several meaningful additions this month: Paradise — Toni Morrison The Chosen — Chaim Potok The Shepherd of Hermas Each of these works, in its own way, wrestles with belief, identity, and the shape of a life well lived. Alongside these, I’ve begun organizing the larger body of reading into curated collections: 25 Books to Read in Your Lifetime 10 Books That Make You Think About Life And with that, the Rite of Fancy index is now live—bringing structure and accessibility to a growing library of reflections. 🪖Everyday Patriot This month also marks a shift in how I’m telling these stories. In addition to individual tributes, I’ve begun building curated collections: 10 Korean War Medal of Honor Heroes Americans Should Not Forget 10 Heroes from World War I You Don’t Want to Forget These lists serve as an introduction—an entry point into the larger work of remembering. They gather names that deserve attention and create a way to encounter these stories together, rather than one at a time. 🧭 A More Intentional Structure Across all of these projects, the focus this month has been simple: building structure. Bringing essays, books, and historical profiles into clearer alignment. Making it easier to explore. And creating connections between pieces that were never meant to stand alone. Because this work has always been about more than individual posts, it’s about the larger story they tell together. Thank you for reading, for following along, and for continuing to take the back roads with me. a.d. elliott Art and Other Odd Adventures