Saturday Good Reads

It was published last March, but Matthew Teutsch at Public Books has a tribute to Ernest Gaines, the author of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman who recently died. It’s actually rather nice that it was published Whiles Gaines still could read it.

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902-1991) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978; he may have almost singlehandedly saved the Yiddish literature of Poland and Eastern Europe from extinction after the Holocaust. This week, The Los Angeles Review of Books published an essay by Singer, asking – and answering – the question, who needs literary fiction?

Those Nazi death camps were greater in number that many of us realize. We’re familiar with Auschwitz, Ravensbruck, Treblinka, and Bergen-Belson, largely because of the people who survived and were liberated by the Allied armies. But there were other camps that had virtually no survivors, and archaeologists are working at some of them. Elizabeth Svoboda at Scientific American has the story, including the opposition to the work that’s being stirred up.

Hector Dejean at Criminal Element takes a look at one of the most famous mystery novels of all time, The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley (1890-1957). It was published 100 years ago, and it remains an entertaining story. 

More Good Reads

Writing and Literature

Tolkien & Anglo-Saxon England: Protectors of Christendom – Bradley Birzer at The Imaginative Conservative.

Ibsen’s Soulcraft – Algis Valiunas at First Things Magazine.

The illusions of literary dystopias – Peter Hitchens at Standpoint Magazine.

History

9 Things You Should Know About the Armenian Genocide – Joe Carter at The Gospel Coalition.

Culture

Unending Descent and Hang ‘em High Chronicles – David Warren at Essays in Idleness.

Arise ye unwoke from your slumbers – David Cox at Standpoint Magazine.

Faith

Sehnsucht & the Intensity of Yearning – Mark Meynell at The Rabbit Room.

Is It Really More Blessed to Give? – Seth Lewis.

The Problem with “Spiritual but Not Religious” – David Qaoud at Gospel Relevance.

Poetry

Chasin’ Wild Horses – Bruce Springsteen at The Imaginative Conservative.

Quasimodo – Theresa Rodriguez at Society of Classical Poets.

British Stuff

Classics for the People – Edith Hall at Aeon Magazine.

Living Hope – Phil Wickham

Painting: Man reading, oil on canvas attributed to Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669).