Saturday Good Reads

Chris Naffziger is a St. Louis photographer who roams the metropolitan area, and mostly the city of St. Louis, chronicling the maintained, revived, decaying, and abandoned architecture of the area. I’ve learned a lot about what our city is and what it was, just by studying Chris’s photographs. A recent series was a focus on an area of North St. Louis, not far from downtown, called Wells Goodfellow, and the link today shows an old abandoned factory, the Leschen Wire Company, which published a book about its business in 1907 (Chris links to the archive). We often don’t think about industrial history as “history,” but it is.

Tim Challies talks about what J.R.R. Tolkien did so well that we do so poorly. David Rupert asks whether the church needs to be relevant, or does it need to be true. And two of links for writing don’t have anything to with writing; Martha Orlando ponders “stats” and Dan Balow utters a word many authors hate – “platform.”

And the video for today is the recreation of a choir singing in Haggai Sophia during the Medieval period, when Constantinople (now Istanbul) was still under Christian control.

British Stuff

How did the tube lines get their names? – John Elledge at CityMetric.

Faith

What Tolkien Did So Well, What We Do So Poorly – Tim Challies.

Does the church need to be relevant or does it need to be true? – David Rupert at Red-Letter Believers.

Poetry

Everyday Pilgrimage – Jay Cookingham at Soulfari.

Sunday Psalm – Jerry Barrett at Gerald the Writer.

Surviving – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

Returning – Andrea Skevington (Hat Tip: Malcolm Guite).

Life and Culture

I have an orchard – Doug Spurling at Spurling Silver.

'The Poky Little Puppy' And His Fellow Little Golden Books Are Turning 75 – Lynn Neary at National Public Radio.

A ridiculous job description? Or an honest job description, for a ridiculous job? – David Murray at Writing Boots.

Art and Photography

Scary Tree – Tim Good at Fine Art America.

Wells-Goodfellow #23, Leschen Wire Company  and Part 2 – Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina.

Inert – Susan Jones.

Writing

“Stats” that Matter – Martha Orlando at Meditations of My Heart.

Author Platforms Can Destroy Your Life (aka Making Money from Friends) – Dan Balow at The Steve Laube Agency.

How to Compose the Perfect First Draft – Ann Kroeker.

Icons of Sound: Cappella Romana in a virtual Hagia Sophia - Cherubic Hymn in Mode 1

Painting: Woman Reading, oil on canvas by Edouard Manet (1879); Art Institute of Chicago.