Saturday Good Reads

This past week was the 156^th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, considered one of the finest speeches in American history. In 1876, at the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in Washington, D.C., Frederick Douglass paid tribute to both Lincoln and the speech.

Seth Lewis is an Alabama boy, who did something of a reverse migration – he left America and settled in Ireland. And he has some observations on what it’s like to be an immigrant.

Audiobooks are all the rage, but few people realize how difficult they are to record and produce. Tim Dowling at The Guardian talked with some of the stars of the “recorded book.”

The election season has long been upon, and it seems it never stops. Even before the impeachment hearings began by the House Intelligence Committee, most of us were already suffering impeachment fatigue. Bruce Ashford has some advice on how Christians can see through a politician’s distortion techniques (these actually can apply as well to how the news media cover news) and Michael Kelley discusses three commands the election season gives Christians the opportunity to obey (and it’s not bad advice for non-Christians as well).

More Good Reads

Poetry

Memory, Love, and Eternity in Tennyson’s “In Memoriam” – Paul Krause at The Imaginative Conservative. 

For When My Sons Yell at God – Jacob Stratman at Kingdom Poets.

Life is Sweet – Gleb Zavlanov at The Chained Muse.

‘Theatre,’ ‘Opera,’ ‘Sculpture’ and Other Poems – Michael Coy at Society of Classical Poets.

Torso – V.P. Loggins at First Things Magazine.

Culture

Empathy is Tearing Us Apart – Robert Wright at Wired.

Robots to the Rescue? – Stephen Michael Crane at Orbiter Magazine.

Putting on Avatars, Putting on Christ: Reflections on “American Democracy in the Internet Age” – John Shelton at Mere Orthodoxy.

On the Soviet virtue of cruelty: How the Great Truth Dawned – Gary Saul Morson at New Criterion.

American Stuff

The history of Arlington National Cemetery – Hugh Earnhart at Farm and Dairy.

The Roots of American Polarization – John Horvat at The Imaginative Conservative.

Faith

The Garden Unguarded – Matthew Cyr at The Rabbit Room.

Who’s Afraid of John Calvin? Answer: Thomas Jefferson - Miles Smith at Mere Orthodoxy.

Why C.S. Lewis Wouldn’t Write for Christianity Today – Dan DeWitt at Theolatte.

Writing and Literature

Look, Latin Is Not Useless, Neither Is It Dead – Nicola Gardini at Literary Hub.

Lessons: The Less-Traveled Road to Getting a Book Published – Matthew Duffus at The Millions.

Blessed Assurance – CityAlight

Painting: Woman Reading at a Desk, oil on canvas by Thomas Anshutz (1851-1912).