Saturday Good Reads – Nov. 14, 2026

When I was working on my master’s degree (we’re talking some 40 years ago now), I took a graduate course entitled “History of the Early Christian Church.” I read a lot that semester; our texts weren’t so much history or theology books as they were original writings from the first two of three centuries of Christianity, stopping short of St. Augustine. The readings included some of the New Testament books, but we also read epistles and sermons by Polycarp and Clement, the epistle to Diognetus, The Shepherd of Hermas, and a whole slew of the group known as the “early Church fathers.” The New Testament sticks to the writings of the apostles: Michael Kruger asks what do we do with the non-apostolic New Testament books? 

Serious literary writers are likely a little bit dumbfounded, but this year’s Booker Prize was awarded to M John Harrison for his novel The End of Everything. It is the first time the prize has ever been awarded to a science fiction novel. I can tell you that I have read some extraordinarily fine science fiction novels over the years. 

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

The Forgotten “Rabbi of the American Revolution” – Michael Fruend at Real Clear History.

 

The Sentinels of Freedom & Liberty: America 250 – Allen West at The Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics.

 

When Savannah Fell to the British – Jim Sanderlin at Real Clear History.

 

Art

 

New installation takes thematic approach to postwar, contemporary art collection – Ines Santos at St. Louis Art Museum.

 

Faith

 

Christianity Today and the Sin of Centrism – Nicholas McDonald at The Bard Owl.

 

Mission Impossible – Andrew Kerr at Gentle Reformation.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Being Before Seeing: Annie Dillard’s Real Frontier – Jody Benson at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

On the State of “The State of Literature” – Lincoln Michel at Counter Craft.

 

Writing Scams Are Reaching a Whole New Level of Awful – Jane Friedman.

 

British Stuff

 

Evensong at Southwell? – Tom Jones at The Critic Magazine.

 

Poetry

 

“The Harp Song of the Dane Women,” poem by Rudyard Kipling – Adam Roberts at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

A Boy, Running – poem by Medha Singh at Literary Matters.

 

“The Pulley,” poem by George Herbert – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Autumn Haunts – poem by Cynthia Erlandson at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Music

 

Vivaldi and the Human Passions in Music – Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Life and Culture

 

The charges against Michel Houellebecq are absurd and dangerous – Ben Sixsmith at The Critic Magazine.

 

America Against America: Observations from the CCP’s Grey Eminence and Xi’s Consigliere – Yuro Bezemov at How to Subvert Subversion. 

 

Come About May -- Zaggie 

Painting: Portrait of St. Simon. 0il on canvas by El Greco (1541-1614).

He thinks he forgives sins?

After Luke 5:17-26 

The questions, the grumbles

start immediately. Who is

this blasphemer who thinks

her can forgives sins? This

is outrageous, I don’t care

how many paralytics he

heals. Only God can forgive

sins!

 

He hears the murmurs,

he reads the thoughts.

He speaks. So that

the world knows that

he holds the power

to forgive, that power

of God, he tells the man,

the paralytic, to rise

and take his bed home.

And the man rises,

the man picks up his bed,

the man walks home.

 

And they were awed.

And they were amazed.

 

Painting: Christ and the Pharisees, Cathedral of Tours, France.

Some Friday Readings

 

Christianity Under the Progressive Gaze – Kyle Borg at Gentle Reformation.

 

“Supernatural Love,” poem by Gjertrud Schnackenberg – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

“Lead On, O King Eternal,” hymn by Ernest Shurtleff – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

On Naming the Dead – Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

The Early Poetry of Catherine Abbey Hodges

It’s something of a truism to say a poet is in love with words and language. I mean, if you’re serious about writing poetry, you have to at least like words and language, right? But part of that love is also a love for how words and language are use to fit together, or oppose other words, or the sounds they make, the feelings they evoke, the flow that creates something both recognizable and different.  

Those were my thoughts as I read through two earlier poetry collections by Catherine Abbey Hodges, Tweetspeak Poetry’s reigning Poet Laura (I used the word “reigning” deliberately; our Poet Lauras do not merely hold office). I had read her most recent collection, Empty Me Full, and found myself moving toward consideration of the big questions of life. Then I read her first two collections, Instead of Sadness (2015) and Raft of Days (2017), and I discovered a poet who loves using words and language.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

“The Dark Hills,” poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

“Lile an Usurp’d Town,” sonnet by John Donne – K.S. Bernstein at Apple Blossoms in a Mournful Wood.

 

“The Roundel,” poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Windowsill Posies – poem by Seth Lewis.

 

2 Corinthians – poem by Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

Finding Story Ideas in an Unexpected Place

Sometimes, you find story ideas in the least likely places. 

The first inspiration for my historical novel Brookhaven was the family Bible. It had been passed down from my great-grandfather to his youngest son, my grandfather, then my father, and then to me. For decades, it existed in the condition my father and I received it – wrapped in an old brown paper grocery bag and tied with twine. 

 

I’d paid most attention to the family records, six pages of births, deaths, and marriages. I’d removed the wrappings and checked those pages not long after my father gave it to me. The writing was all in one hand, my great-grandfather’s, and the writing had begun to fade. To preserve the records, I typed them into a document.

 

When I finally had the Bible conserved in 2022, I learned from the conservator that the volume had been printed about 1870 and was one of hundreds of thousands generally sold by door-to-door salesmen. These Bibles became popular after the Civil War, especially for the family records sections. So many families had lost loved ones that these Bibles offered a way to commemorate the people who’d died.

To continue reading, please see my post today at the ACFW blog. 

Photograph: A page from the family Bible's records. 

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Klavan’s Law – Andrew Klavan at The New Jerusalem.

 

It took 100 years for someone to point out what van Gogh had hidden in his ‘Café Terrace at Night’ – Annie Reneau at Upworthy.

 

Lament for the Rohirrim – J.R.R. Tolkien via The Imaginative Conservative.

Muriel Rukeyser: Protester, Political Activist, and Poet

I’d never heard of the poet Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980). Okay, I may be a cretin, but in my defense, she died while my poetry diet was generally confined to the British crows (Romantics, Victorians, Moderns), and the famous American poets like Edgar Les Masters, Sara Teasdale, Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg.  

Two years ago, Library of America has a sale, and included were a slew of volumes of “selected poems” for their American Poets Project. Among the many poets included were collections by Sandburg, Anne Stevenson, John Berryman, Edna St. Vincent Millary, John Greenleaf Whittier, Edith Wharton, and many others. One of those “others” was Rukeyser.

 

Muriel Rukeyser: Selected Poems was published in 2004. The list price for a new copy on Amazon is $20. LOA still has it on sale for $7.00. I bought the LOA volume, along with several other books and avoided shipping costs. Copies of her collections, collected poems, and selected poems are still in print; the benefit of the LOA version is that it provides a concise introduction to her poetry ,and it was edited by poet Adrienne Rich (1929-2012).(I’d previously read Rich’s poetry. I’m not a total cretin.)

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

3 – Contingencies – poem by L.L. Barkat at Every Day Poems.

 

“Crossing the Bar,” poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Crawling Down Wombat Holes: Australia Poems – Lucas Smith at The Sprawl of Quality.

“The French Vendetta” by Simon Michael

London barrister Charles Holcombe finds himself in an unusual situation. He’s between cases; no courtroom, no one to defend, no thinly disguised anti-Semitism to ignore. 

He’s on vacation.

 

Charles and his wife Sally take their young daughter Leia for a holiday to Paris and southern France. They’re offered free lodging in southern France; a house in a small village. They’re enjoying their stay so much that Charles begins to think he might want to buy a second residence in this beautiful part of the country.

 

That is, until he gets knocked out one night and finds himself imprisoned in a cellar. And he finds himself in a different kind of trail where his own life is at stake.

 

Simon Michael

And it’s all tied to what happened during World War II, when the area was a center of resistance activity to the Germans and the Vichy government. What happened during a crackdown after an attack by the resistance was believed to be understood, and the villagers had a long memory. Charles will have to find out what really happened; his life and the lives of others are at stake.

 

The French Vendetta is the eleventh novel in the Charles Holborne legal thriller series by British author Simon Michael. I don’t know how he doesn’t, but Michael produces one engrossing novel after another, somehow topping each previous story with one that’s even better. The French Vendetta is not only a good mystery; it’s also one of the best novels I’ve read this year.

 

Michael studied law at Kings College, London University and was called to the Bar in 1978. He worked primarily in the field of criminal law until the late 1990s, when he focused his practice on clinical negligence. He began writing in the 1980s and resumed it when he retired from legal practice.

 

The Charles Holborne novels have become one of favorite crime / mystery series. 

 

Related:

 

My review of The Brief by Simon Michael.

 

My review of An Honest Man by Simon Michael. 

 

My review of The Lighterman by Simon Michael.

 

My review of Corrupted by Simon Michael.

 

My review of The Waxwork Corpse by Simon Michael.

 

My review of Force of Evil by Simon Michel.

 

My review of The Final Shot by Simon Michael.

 

My review of Nothing But the Truth by Simon Michael. 

 

My review of Death, Adjourned by Simon Michael.

 

My review of The Fall Guy by Simon Michael.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Why I’m Not Interested in Aliens – Adam Smith at Plough.

 

Spiritual Yearning in an Age of Secularization – David McPherson at Public Discourse.

 

Free Speech Will Survive – Matt Taibbi at Racket News.

 

Jacob’s Island, Bermondsey – A London Inheritance.

The paralyzed man

After Luke 5:17-26 

They bring the man,

paralyzed, on a makeshift

bed, carrying him,

seeking a way to the one

who heals, trying but

failing to break through

the dense crowds in and

surrounding the house.

One of them points

to the roof, and they

carry him up the stairs,

pushing aside tiles,

dust and debris falling

into the room below.

The widen the hole

and lower the man

into the room below.

And the one who heals

marvels at their faith,

and he responds, simply:

“Man, your sins are

forgiven.”

 

Illustration: Jesus heals the paralytic man at Capernaum, drawing (1780) by Bernhard Rode (1725-1787).

Some Sunday Readings

 

Can Science Explain Sparkling Rivers? – T.J. Holland at Sacramentality. 

 

‘Young Man, You Look Miserable’ – David Mathis at Desiring God.

 

What Led to Christianity Today’s Crisis? – Daniel Williams at Politics of the Cross.

 

Five Counseling Missteps and the Holy Spirit’s Help – Deepak Reju at Desiring God.