Saturday Good Reads

The most chilling story I read this week (and there are typically lots to choose from) was from the Chicago Tribune. Publishers are now hiring “sensitivity readers,” to determine if manuscripts they’re considering publishing might offend anyone. Specifically, they’re looking for racist, sexist, or “otherwise offensive” content. The people interviewed in the story – sensitivity readers – all think this is a good idea. Why does it feel like I’m living in an increasingly Soviet regime?

The British Library has an exhibition coming in October – “Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms.” It includes a viewing of the Domesday Book, commissioned by William the Conqueror and containing a wealth of information about England at the time of the Conquest.

Rod Dreher at American Conservative has a sobering column about where identity politics, political correctness, culture wars, and the intimidation taking hold in so many universities are headed. He quotes David Brooks: “Conservatives have zero cultural power, but they have immense political power.” And I included a second column by Dreher, on Vaclav Benda, a Czech I’d never heard of but who deserves to be better known.

Mike Duran considers playwright and author David Mamet’s conversion to conservativism (he began to understand the evil of the human heart). A lesson on the assassination of James Garfield. Eleanor Parker on the power of historical landscapes. And more.

Poetry

Salt Wife – Amy McCann at Image Journal.

Look Now, the Blessed Road – Robert Alan Rife at Altarwork.

On First Looking into an Abridged Homer – Denise Sobilo at The Imaginative Conservative.

Faith

Stations of the Cross at the Smithsonian American Art Museum – Victoria Emily Jones at Literary Life.

Every Day – Jeremy Lane at Altarwork.

Are Christians Really That Fragile?  This College Thinks We Are – David Rupert at Red-Letter Believers.

An interview with Bruce Hindmarsh on the Spirit of Early Evangelicalism – Thomas Kidd at The Gospel Coalition.

As I Lay (Nearly) Dying – Peggy Rosenthal at Image Journal.

Your Work is Not “Secular” – Scott Slayton at One Degree to Another.

American Stuff

The Garfield Assassination Altered American History, But Today It’s Largely Forgotten – Ken Ackerman at Smithsonian.

How James Fenimore Cooper Redefined “Pioneer” – Andrew Belonsky at The Millions.

British Stuff

Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms – Coming exhibition at the British Library.

How we made the Tower of London poppies – The Guardian (Hat Tip: Liz Mace).

Legends and Locations – Eleanor Parker at History Today.

Life and Culture

Enemies of the People and Vaclav Benda, Man of Conscience – Rod Dreher at American Conservative.

Human Nature – Mike Duran.

Art and Photography

Burnt Offerings – Tim Good at Photography by Tiwago.

James Boswell at the Art Workers Guild – Spitalfields Life.

Daffodowndilly – Susan Etole.

Writing

Publishers are hiring ‘sensitivity readers’ to flag potentially offensive content – Everdeen Mason at the Chicago Tribune.

If You Want to Write, You Have to get Started – Ann Kroeker.

Rare Historical Photos Colorized

Painting: Man Reading, oil on canvas attributed to Rembrandt Van Rijn (ca.1648).