Saturday Good Reads - June 13, 2026

Two hundred and fifty years ago, events were accelerating in Philadelphia. The drafting committee for the Declaration of Independence was itself being drafted. As it turned out, Thomas Jefferson wasn’t the only writer, although he’s the one who usually gets the greatest credit. The colony of Virginia not waiting for Philadelphia, drafted its own declaration of rights. The Continental Congress was already showing signs of political factions, with the Nationalists – those who wanted to jump directed to a unified national government – almost winning the day.  

Boston, of course, playing a hugely significant role in the coming of the American Revolution. The spark may well have been the Boston Massacre in 1770, when British troops fired on civilians. Then there were the Boston women who burned “Madame Suchong.” And a year before the Declaration of Independence, colonials battled the Redcoats at Lexington and Concord, just outside Boston. 

 

And if you ever wondered why colonial Americans wore in 1776, Lesley Kennedy at History has the story (and the pictures).

 

America 250

 

The Abandoned American Offensive After Yorktown: the Attack that Never Was – Joshua Shepherd at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Indispensable Virtues of the Indispensable Man – Joseph Prud’homme at Philanthropy Daily. 

 

News Media

 

When the Bottom Stories Are the Real News – James Meigs at The Wall Street Journal (unlocked).

 

Art

 

Idiots: On Munch and von Trier – Karl Ove Knausgaard at The Paris Review.

 

Doreen Fletcher in Her Own Words – Spitalfields Life.

 

Faith

 

The God of Small Churches – The Churchman’s Quill.

 

American Stuff

 

There Were Two Civil Wars, and We Weren’t Always Sure Which We Were Fighting – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Liturgy and Middle-Earth – Bradley Birzer at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Three Ways to Lose a Romance Reader – Jenn Windrow at Writers on the Storm.

 

Mercy and Forgiveness in Modern Literature – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Poetry

 

“Proud Maisie,” poem by Sir Walter Scott – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

164 – Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

“The Hollow Men,” poem by T.S. Eliot – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Englishman Visits St. Louis to Honor WWII Pilot – Nine PBS

 Painting: Gentleman reading in an interior, oil on canvas by Gabriel Deluc (1883-1916).