From Yellow Pads to Bestseller: John Grisham and the Publication of The Firm – Jason Clark at This Is the Day.
Computers Can’t Surprise – Richard Beard at Aeon Magazine.
The World of Charles Dickens – A.C.S. Bird at Story Warren on two children’s books.
10 Unforgettable Superbowl Commercials – Zach Schonfeld at History.
Brexit: Britain’s Forever War – Helen Thompson at History Today.
Even after his kingdom
is almost lost, his family
torn apart, his country
sundered in two, his
throne threatened,
the man grieves
the loss of the one
who set near-destruction
into motion, the son,
the favored son,
the golden child loved
and followed and
praised by so many,
he grieves what might
have been, he grieves
the tearing of,
the cost to
his own soul.
Photograph by Noor Hossain via Unsplash. Used with permission.
Sunday, Feb. 1
When Peter Walked the Stormy Sea – poem by Esther Roth.
5 Reasons You Need Sabbath Rest – Megan Hill at The Gospel Coalition.
Beauty Will Win – Trevin Wax at Story Warren.
I Stepped Outside – Melissa Edgington at You Mom Has a Blog.
“Day by Day,” song by Stephan Schwartz from Godspell – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.
I’ve known of at least four pastors who read fiction, only because they sent me notes about my own novels. It’s not something we expect, figuring they’re always reading the latest books on theology, church issues, and pastoral counseling. T.N. Suffield has some reasons why it is a good idea for pastors to read fiction.
It’s not a story that the mainstream media will cover, but there’s been a spate of articles about nurses posting on social media about ways to harm ICE agents or Trump supporters in general, including one nurse who posted a really vicious attack on the White House press secretary. That nurse was fired and de-licensed for what she said, so at least sanity prevailed. If you want to read these stories, you can google them; I have no interest in providing links other than to note that mental illness seems to have seriously infiltrated the medical community.
More Good Reads
America 250
Putting the American Revolution in Context by Transcription – Carolyn Osborn at Library of Congress.
Ulysses S. Grant, from Semicentennial to Semiquincentennial – ben Kemp at Emerging Civil War.
Advertising a Revolution: An Original Invoice to “The Town of Boston to Green and Russell” – George Bresnick at Journal of the American Revolution.
The Founding of Jamestown (1607) – Britain’s First Permanent American Foothold – Jonathan Thomas at Anglotopia.
Faith
Elites and the Evangelical Class War – John Ehrett at Mere Orthodoxy.
Minneapolis, ICE, and the Christian Response – Kevin Briggins at Informed Takes (Hat Tip: Mike Duran).
The Generational Narcissism of Always Thinking We Face the Biggest Crisis Ever – Trevin Wax at The Gospel Coalition.
News Media
One Must Have a Heart of Stone – John Hinderaker at Powerline.
Why Nobody Is Convinced by Footage – Samuel D. James at Digital Liturgies.
Writing and Literature
The Summons Our Blood Knows – Mark Botts at Front Porch Republic.
The Leaf Collector (a very short story) – Seth Lewis.
Grateful for the War – Yours Truly at Cultivating Oaks Press.
Nick Carraway & Charles Ryder: Observers of Delusion & Decadence – Dwight Longenecker at The Imaginative Conservative.
Why “Plot” Isn’t a Four-Letter Word – Lincoln Michel at Counter Craft.
Poetry
“The Boston Evening Transcript,” poem by T.S. Eliot – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.
Twigs – Sonja Benskin Mesher.
Open – David Whyte.
Tolkien’s Beowulf : A Man of the Twilight – Bradley Birzer.
British Stuff
Lost Portrait of Robert Burns by Scotland’s Greatest Painter Found After 220 Years – Jonathan Thomas at Anglotopia.
The Skater’s Waltz – Emile Waldteufel
The son, favored,
natural leader,
ambitious, the son
with his famous mane
of hair, escapes defeat
and gets his famous
mane of hair entangled
in an oak tree. He’s
caught, dangling,
defenseless. His
ambition and rebellion
have been brought
to this moment,
this humiliation
of one’s pride
entangled and
immobilized, until
it ends with archers
letting arrows fly.
His pride and
his ambition are
buried in a pit,
buried in stones.
Photograph by Andrew Shelley via Unsplash. Used with permission.
Some Friday Readings
Apostle! – a sonnet for St. Paul – Malcolm Guite.
“The Burden,” poem by Vasile Voiculescu – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.
“O Zion, Haste,” hymn by Mary Ann Thomson – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.
Recently, I read another reference, so I decided to find out what it was about. Noir novelists I knew about – Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane, writer usually associated with crime stories from the 1920s to the 1950s. And noir movies, movies like Notorious, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Maltese Falcon, Strangers on a Train, Laura, Double Indemnity, and Sunset Boulevard. (My favorite noir movie, though, was released in 1974 – Chinatown, with Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.
But noir poetry?
Yes, as it turns out.
To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.
Some Thursday Readings
“Ballet School,” poem by Babette Deutsch – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.
A Little Free Library – poem by Karen An-hwei Lee at Rabbit Room Poetry.
The film – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.
“Faithless Nelly Gray,” poem by Thomas Hood – Joseph Bottum at Pomes Ancient and Modern.
My senior year in high school, I discovered Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and his One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Cancer Ward, and The First Circle. In college, I took two semesters of Russian history, and I was glad I knew more about Russia’s past than most people. The professor was a great lecturer; he was also an unapologetic defender of the Soviet regime.
To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.
Some Wednesday Readings
Is Carney’s Davos sermon the way forward? – David Robertson at Christian Today.
Only Mozart – Joseph Sobran at The Imaginative Conservative.
How Holocaust Denial Became Mainstream – Simon Sebag Montefiore at The Free Press.
My wife started chatting with him first. And then he spoke to me one Sunday, saying he’d heard I was from New Orleans. He had relatives there, too, even though he was from St. Louis. We’d talk while on the Cybex machines, and he didn’t say much about his own life, other than he liked poetry as much as I did and he loved to visit New Orleans.
To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.
Some Tuesday Readings
The same – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.
The Poem That Outlived the Holocaust – Douglas Century a The Free Press.
“Comin thro’ the rye,” poem by Robert Burns – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.
