The theme of the issue is “Making Room to Receive,” and you can access all the posts here.
Photograph by Jessica Fadel via Unsplash. Used with permission.
Author Yal Yannay had published a full biography of the man. But Avi Lanir – A Short Life Story: The Courage and Capture of an Israeli Fighter Pilot is not only a biography; it is also a history of Israel through 1973. And that’s because Lanir lived that history from his birth in 19340 to his death in 1973. Yannay also writes the story in the present tense, which places the reader right there in the midst of the narrative.
She weaves a complex story. You move through the 1940s, when Lanir had family members and relatives involved in both fighting for the British and working in groups like the Irgun against the British. As a teen, Lanir’s father is given a diplomatic post in the United States, and his son’s experience was very different from peers in Israel. (When the family returned to Israel, Avi was the only one of his friends who had a driver’s license, for example.)
Avi joined the military and specifically the Israeli air force. He not only loved his job; he was outstanding at it. He gradually became a squadron leader. He fought through the Six Day War in 1967, the three-year War of Attrition that followed, and then the Yom Kippur War in 1973. What becomes clear as you read is that Israel is never really not at war. Not during the lifetime of Avi Lanir, and not now.
Avi Lanir
Yannay, an author, writer, editor, and lexicographer, has done extensive research on Avi’s life. That includes ancestors, in-depth descriptions of military procedures and operations, and interviews with family members, including his widow, son, and daughter. What emerges is a complex man with both nerve and courage.
After his capture, some were concerned that the Syrians would realize just how much the pilot knew; it could have materially harmed Israel’s military defense. But those who knew him weren’t worried; they knew that Avi was one man who wouldn’t break. And they were right, no matter what torture methods were employed. The state of his body when it was returned showed just how horrific the torture was.
Avi Lanir – A Short Life Story is a remarkable account of a courageous man, and a story of how a country can always be at war.
Some Monday Readings
The Exhibition of Industrial Power and London Archaeology – A London Inheritance.
“The Good Riddle,” poem by G.K. Chesterton – Malcolm Guite.
You have spoken, and
it will be as you say,
as it has been before
time. You spoke life
into creation; you
anointed me before
time was born. There
is none like you, no
god like you. You
promise to me,
a mere man, a house
that will live forever.
I bow to your grace,
to your provision,
to your protection,
to your love,
to your love for me.
Photograph by Mila Young via Unsplash. Used with permission.
Some Sunday Readings
Two Wedding Aisles to Walk Down – Stephen McAlpine.
“To Heaven,” poem by Ben Jonson – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.
On the Lord’s Nativity – Cody Ilardo at Power & Glory.
American governments and politicians can engage some idiotic behavior, but the British are proving they’re masters at it. In the current Labor government, more than 6,000 people are employed in scanning social media posts. People are being arrested and given jail terms for pointing out the obvious. In Scotland, you can’t pray silently in your own home if you’re within a certain distance of an abortion clinic. (How do they know?) People are beginning to fight back, but the response of the highly unpopular government suggests this won’t end well. Writing in The Free Press, writer and journalist Dominic Green wonders if a new English civil war has already started.
Bradley Birzer, professor at Hillsdale College, has a new book on J.R.R. Tolkien coming out next year. In the meantime, he has an article at The Imaginative Conservative on how he grew up with the creator of hobbits, orcs, and ents. Read “My Life with Tolkien.” (And more Tolkien links are below.)
More Good Reads
America 250
Vanishing Ranks: Rawlings’ Rifle Regiment and the Struggle to Recruit for the Frontier – Tucker Hentz at the Journal of the American Revolution.
A Letter from William Prescott to John Adams – Phill Greenwalt at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.
The New Dominion: Virginia’s Bounty Land – Gabriel Neville at Journal of the American Revolution.
Writing and Literature
What Is Christian Literature? God’s Truth, Wherever You Find It and J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Against the World– Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.
Conjurer of Worlds: The writer who made fantasy history – Michael O’Donnell at The American Scholar.
Jane Austen’s first biographer – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.
Life and Culture
‘We’re All Just Winging It’: What the Gender Doctors Say in Private – Leon Sapir at The Free Press.
American Stuff
The Shrewd Doctrine That Launched American Dominance of the Americas – Jason Clark at This Is the Day.
Step inside the lost Native American city that rivalled medieval London – James Osborne at History extra.
Democrats, Press Gloss Over Original “Double Tap” Operations – Matt Taibbi at Racket News.
Poetry
In Memory of Luci Shaw: A Conversation with Ben Palpant – The Rabit Room.
The Shapes of the World – poem by David Whyte.
“Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare,” pom by Edna St. Vincent Millay – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.
“Stubbornness is essential”: An interview with Daniel Cowper – Jason Guriel at New Verse Review.
50 States of Generosity: Indiana – Sandra Heska King at Tweetspeak Poetry.
Rise with the Sun – City Alight & Tim Challies
Painting: Woman Reading, wood print (1881) by Erik Wrenskiold (1855-1938).
The desire to build
a house for me is
a noble one, coming
from your heart, the heart
after my own. But it is
not yet time to build
my house, and when it is,
you will not build it.
Instead, I will build
a house for you, a house
that you will live in
forever. Your desire
to build a house for me
will be fulfilled, but
by your son, your own son,
and I will establish
his kingdom forever.
For now, I will build,
not you but me.
Photograph by Syed Ali via Unsplash Used with permission.
Some Friday Readings
The Tune of Things: Is consciousness God? – Christian Wiman at Harper’s Magazine.
“First Sunday,” poem by Sally Thomas – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.
“The King Shall Come When the Morning Daws,” hymn by John Brownlie – Anthny Esolen at Word & Song.
“Annunciation,” poem by John Donne – Malcolm Guite.
Thanks in Advance – poem by Seth Lewis.
The Bible Is on Trial in Europe – Kara Kennedy at The Free Press.
We arrived early one May morning. It turned out to be Ascension Day, a public holiday in the Netherlands. We’d reserved seats for a shuttle bus, but as we neared the city center, everything looked like an early Sunday morning. Many shops were closed; little traffic was moving on the streets. Our shuttle driver dropped us off across the canal from the hotel; he decided the street wasn’t wide enough to accommodate his (very small) bus.
We had a lot of luggage. I mean, a lot of luggage. Even then, we didn’t really travel; we migrated.
To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.
Photograph: The Prinsengracht Canal in Amsterdam, via Unsplash.
Some Thursday Readings
A Genuine Petrarchan Note on William Wordsworth’s Ecclesiastical Sonnets – poem by Tom Riley at Society of Classical Poets.
“The Moons” by Grevel Lindop – Malcolm Guite.
Burdens – poem by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.
A king goes out to cheer his men on the night before battle – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.
Top 10 Dip into Poetry – Tweetspeak Poetry.
Poetry
The largest single category of my 2025 books is, as it has been for several years, poetry. I read a considerable number of really fine poetry collections, and my reviews end up at Tweetspeak Poetry. If I had to pick one, it would likely be an older one – Autumn Journal by Louis MacNeice.
Three books about poetry that I enjoyed are Dante’s Divine Comedy by Joseph Luzzi; An Axe for the Frozen Sea by Ben Palpant; and Ambiguity & Belonging: Essays on Place, Education, & Poetry by Benjamin Myers.
Fiction
I OD’d on Wendell Berry year, reading three of his numbers (not to mention his Mad Farmer Poems). Without question, I enjoyed Remembering, The Memory of Old Jack, and Marce Catlett: The Force of a Story. Berry is still writing, and I’m hopeful I haven’t seen the last of the Port William novels.
Foster by Claire Keegan is a short novel that packs a powerful wallop; her 2021 novel Small Things Like These is also rather amazing. And the (longish) short story Abscond by Abraham Verghese is a wonder. I also read an older short novel, A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr, that was published in 1980 but speaks to us today.
Art and Architecture
Art continued to be an interest, and three books I would not only say were among the best I read overall but I also wouldn’t hesitate to recommend. Van Gogh’s Ear by Bernadette Murphy explains how the author researched and tracked down the real story of his ear (and his art). Christopher Gorham’s Matisse at War is meticulously researched and focuses on Henri Matisse and what he and his family did during World War II. And Russ Ramsey followed his wonderful Rembrandt Is in the Wind with the equally good Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart.
I’m not a major (or even minor) reader of books about architecture, but one I read this year that was excellent was Forgotten Churches by Luke Sherlock. (It probably helped that I had visited some of the ones cited in the book.)
Civil War
Last December, my historical novel Brookhaven was published by T.S. Poetry Press. The research that went into it – nine pages of bibliography – was extensive. But publishing a historical novel doesn’t mean the research stops. Two books about the Civil War I read this year and I really liked were Glorious Courage: John Pelham in the Civil War by Sarah Kay Bierle and Fred Grant at Vicksburg by Albert Nofi. (I reread Brookhaven, too, and I highly recommend it.)
Mystery
Willliam Kent Krueger’s mysteries have been around for many years, and I’d read his more literary novels. I finally read Iron Lake, the first in the Cork O’Connor mysteries, and then the second, Boundary Waters. I’ve bought the third and can’t wait to read it. (There are some 20 or so in the series.)
I also liked London Blue, the latest in the Lord and Lady Hetheridge mysteries, and Tides of Death by Luke Davis, the first in the DI Gareth Benedict series. I also reached the current end of the Pete Brasset mysteries featuring DI James Munro (Ruse), and the current end of the Hillary Greene mysteries by Faith Martin (No. 21, entitled Murder on the Train). And I enjoyed Suffer the Dead by Rhys Dylan, the fourth of 21 in the DCI Evan Warlow mysteries.
And that’s the list for 2025.
Top photograph by Olena Bohovyk via Unsplash. Used with permission.
Some Wednesday Readings
At the Savoy Chapel – Spitalfields Life.
“Oh I could raise the darken’d veil,” poem by Nathaniel Hawthorne – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.
Dropped without Joy – Alexander Fayne on the poet R.S. Thomas.
