Saturday Good Reads

Twenty-six-year-old missionary John Chau attempted to bring the gospel to the Sentinelese tribe, and died in the attempt. The world’s news media heaped scorn upon Chau. Doug Bock Clark at GQ looked at what happened in a different way, and a very different story emerged than the usual caricatures and cartoons that pass as news stories today.  See The American Missionary and the Uncontacted Tribe.

As something of an Anglophile and frequent visitor, it’s beyond disheartening to watch the news from Britain. Brexit is more than a controversy; it’s an upheaval, the likes of which haven’t been seen in a long time. And it affects more than politics, political parties, and big banks and corporations. David Martin Jones at Quadrant writes about Brexit and the decline of the English novel. I’ve read a couple of the Brexit novels, and I’m afraid Mr. Jones is spot on.

Some really good poetry was published this past week, and a favorite was the poem by Zak Schmoll on “The Anniversary of Tolkien’s Death.” Schmoll recently started a new web site, and if you’re a Tolkien fan, you’ll like Rebuilding Hollin, I also found a new poetry site this week, The Society of Classical Poets.

More Good Reads

British Stuff

Britain’s not-so-evil empire – Daniel Bring at Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

It's All About Context: Deciphering Old English – Annie Whitehead at Casting Light upon the Shadow.

Faith

“Are You Alone Wise?”: Luther’s Answers for Today’s Protestants – Onsi Kamel at Mere Orthodoxy.

Why I’m Still an Evangelical – Amy Medina at Everyone needs a little Grace in their lives. 

Were the Earliest Christians Only Concerned about Oral Tradition? – Michael Kruger at Canon Fodder.

Poetry

Glittering Loneliness: Philip Larkin and His Parents – Alan Jenkins at The Times Literary Supplement.

Learning to Read “the Book in Front of Us” – Jeffrey Bilbro at Front Porch Republic.

Poetic Resurrection – Barbara MacKenzie at Signed…BKM. 

All in the Moment – Martha Orlando at Meditations of My Heart.

Sea Psalm – Jerry Barrett at Gerald the Writer.

Turning 50 at the Oracle of Death – Christopher Bakken at Johns Hopkins University Review.

Erringtide – Joe Spring.

Photography

The Photography of Margaret Bourke-White – Alan Taylor at The Atlantic. 

American Stuff

Willie Preston: “Who Thinks of Victory Now?” – Sarah Kay Bierle at Emerging Civil War Blog.

Still Singin’: The Great American Songbook – Eric Miller at Front Porch Republic.

“Judiciously Designed and Vigorously Executed”: The March to the Dan River – Daniel Davis at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

Writing and Literature

12 Habits of Writers – Rachel Toor at Jesus Creed.

“Beowulf” and the Mystic Songs of Memory – Paul Krause at The Imaginative Conservative.

In 1973, My Fiancé’s Mother Was Murdered by Her Husband – Stephanie Kane at CrimeReads.

How to Write the Perfect Five-Paragraph Essay – Rion Amilcar Scott at The Millions.

Vladimir Grygorenko: Uniting Earth to Heaven 

Painting: Man Reading a Newspaper, watercolor by Henry Louis Stephens (1863). The newspaper’s headline reports the Emancipation Proclamation.