Saturday, December 4, 2021

Saturday Good Reads - Dec. 4, 2021


“America’s major institutions have gone woke the same way that someone goes bankrupt: slowly, then all at once.” Gabriel Rossman, a professor at UCLA (he must have tenure), offers a lesson at CityJournal on the sociology of organizations. 

T.S. Eliot is best known for his poetry, but he was also a prolific editor, critic, essayist, and letter writer. In his review of The Collected Prose of T.S. Eliot (eight – count them – eight volumes!) at the Wall Street Journal, Joseph Epstein says that Eliot was not only a poet, but that he defined what poetry of the era should be

 

When I was a young teen, spy movies and novels, led by Ian Fleming’s James Bond series, were all the rage, especially among boys. Underneath all the glitz and glamor, we probably knew that the spy business was nothing like it was being portrayed. Still, we ate up The AvengersMission ImpossibleI Spy, and The Man from UNCLE, not to mention ThunderballGoldfinger, and From Russia with Love on the big screen. In 1965, developed by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, there emerged a parody of all this spy stuff on television that I wouldn’t miss for anything – Get SmartOlivia Rutigliano at CrimeReads has the story on Agent 86, the spy with a mobile phone in his shoe.

 

More Good Reads

 

Life and Culture

 

Secular Revolution & Religious Revival: A History Lesson – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

The talent and labor of Stephen Sondheim – Jay Nordlinger at New Criterion.

 

British Stuff

 

Queen Elizabeth II offers clear, personal sermon -- even while absent from public stage – Terry Mattingly at Get Religion.

 

The Thames of Old London and Sights of Wonderful London – Spitalfields Life.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s masterpiece is finally appearing: 'March 1917: The Red Wheel, Node III, Book 3' – Robert Kaplan at Spectator World.

 

Et tu, Harvard Business Review? – David Murray at Pro Rhetoric. 

 

What Accounts for the Lasting Appeal of Dune? – Michael Dirda at Literary Hub.

 

Poetry

 

These last days – Kathleen Everett at The Course of Our Seasons.

 

The Forgotten Poetry of John Martin Finlay – Micah Mattix at The Spectator.

 

Ruby’s House – Martin Rizley at Society of Classical Poets.

 

The Monastic and Intellectual Ethos of Gerard Manley Hopkins – Greg Peters at The Scriptorium.

 

Faith

 

Giving Thanks for Prosperity and Adversity – J.K. Wall at Gentle Reformation.

 

The Chosen and the Tradition of Apostolic Fan Fiction – Patrick Gray at Church Life Journal.

 

American Stuff

 

Death of a 'curly-headed, blue-eyed boy' at Hollow Tree Gap – John Banks Civil War Blog.

 

The Confederates may have lost the Civil War due to one inept officer – We Are the Mighty.

 

News Media

 

Notre Dame Cathedral's 'woke' rebuild plan: Why the glaring lack of mainstream news coverage? – Clemente Lisi at Get Religion.

 

Andrea Bocelli – Amo Soltanto Te ft. Ed Sheeran 



Painting: Man Reading, oil on canvas by 
Rene Janssens (1870-1936)

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