Saturday Good Reads – March 28, 2026

When I think about Paul Revere, I think of two things. First, he made a famous ride. And second, he was a silversmith. He was also an engraver, and the Library of Congress Blogs has a post containing several of them.  

Tim Challies has a thoughtful post about marriage. When you get married, you marry the whole person. If you see your spouse as a project, thinking in terms of improvement plans, you may have the wrong focus.

 

My wife and oldest son love the music of Rich Mullins. I will admit to a certain partiality myself. At Mere Orthodoxy, Songwriter and writer Andrew Peterson is interviewed about the singer who died almost 30 years ago.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

“…to the Liberty Safety and Peace of America: Cut the Gordian Knot…” – Phil Greenwalt at the Emerging Revolutionary War Era. 

 

Surprise Attack at Great Savannah – Drew Palmer at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Attack and Defense of the Chew House: British Professionalism at Germantown – Ben Powers at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Women’s Work: Women Who Shaped the American Revolution – Tanya Roth at The Saturday Evening Post.

 

Civilian Life in Revolutionary War Occupied Cities – Lauren Duval and Liz Covart at Bn Franklin’s World.

 

Lexington and Concord: The Shot Heard Round the World – Keli Holt. 

 

Faith

 

“Leaders are Readers” – T.M. Suffield at Nuakh.

 

When Saints Say “I Do” – Kyle Borg at Gentle Reformation.

 

Running Toward a New Life – A.A. Kostas at Front Porch Republic.

 

Life and Culture

 

‘LinkedIn speak’ is a disgrace – Barney Campbell at The Spectator.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Solving This Mystery Might Destroy You – Joal Miller at Miller’s Book Review on Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy.

 

Ships Passing in the Night: My Friendship with C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien – Joshua Budimlic at Iotas in Eternity.

 

Poetry

 

“There Was a Boy,” poem by William Wordsworth – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

“March,” poem by William Cullen Bryant and “London,” poem by William Blake – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

British Stuff

 

Charles Spurgeon’s Street Vendors – Spitalfields Life.

 

Yet Not I But Through Christ in Me – Boyce Collective Worship

 Painting: A Woman Reading, oil on canvas by Augustus John (1878-1961). 

Need wisdom? Just ask

After James 1:5-8 

Tests and trials in our lives,

what we call the bad times,

happen, driving us to seek

wisdom to know what to do.

How do we gain the wisdom

we need? It’s simple.

 

Just ask.

 

Ask in faith, ask without

doubt; doubt has no place

in your life because

you’ve left it behind

in your old life,

you dead life.

 

Just ask.

 

Wisdom will be poured,

a fountain, a fire hose, 

a river, a downpour,

because that’s who he is. 

 

Just ask.

 

Photograph by Artem Maltsev via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“Spikenard,” poem by Laurence Housman – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

The Bible isn’t a smartphone – T.M. Suffield at Nuakh.

 

“My Soul, Repeat His Praise,” hymn by Isaac Watts – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Glorious Defeat – poem by Seth Lewis.

Alan Jacobs Writes a Biography of “Paradise Lost”

We were in London in 2024, and I signed up for a London Open House tour that was right by our hotel. London Open House was a two-weekend event in which buildings not normally available to the public (or tourists) were open. Most, like this walking tour, required pre-registration.

 

The tour was fascinating. I had walked around these streets scores of times and never knew what had happened here. That rather ornate building around the corner – where Winston Churchill recorded all of his wartime addresses. That townhouse on a side street – the original building for the British Museum. That large stone mansion that backed to St. James’s Park – built by John D. Rockefeller as his London home. The rather nondescript office building across from the tube station – where Ian Fleming worked for MI-6 before he wrote the James Bond stories.

 

And right there, on a street named Petty France, was a Brutalist building housing the Ministry of Justice (it’s an ugly edifice; we call it the “Darth Vader Building”). At one corner is a small courtyard-like area. And right here, on this site, stood the house where then-blind poet John Milton (1608-1674) lived with his daughters and dictated the entirety of Paradise Lost. The only hint of this is the pub across the street, the one named the Adam and Eve. 

 

Paradise Lost is one of the works that everyone wants to say they’ve read but hope no one asks for details. The fact is that it is one of the great works of English literature, cited by many as equal to or greater than Shakespeare and Chaucer. It’s also one of the greatest poems written in any language.

 

But as Alan Jacobs points out in Paradise Lost: A Biography, the work is also something else, a kind of cultural bellwether. 

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

“Sugaring,” poem by Raymond Holden and “Lay of the Trilobite,” poem by May Kendall – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Henry Hart’s Seamus Heaney’s Gifts – Matthew Ryan at Literary Matters.

 

Missing You – poem by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

 

Flannery’s Music – poem by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell at Rabbit Room Poetry.

Some Wednesday Readings

Leaving Home to Save It – Michael Toscano at Mere Orthodoxy. 

What Happens When You Pay Ex-Gang Members to Stop Crime? Ask Chicago – Olivia Rheingold at The Free Press.

 

Eavesdropping on Tolkien – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The model writer – Gary Saul Morson at The New Criterion reviews Pushkin: A Writer’s Biography by Yuri Lotman.

 

Tolkien, Technology, Ideology, and Love: A Lecture at Hope College – Bradley Birzer.

 

Cuba’s Useless Idiots – James Kirchick at The Free Press.

On Tolkien Reading Day - Kelly Heller at Story Warren.

Photograph: Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837).

Poets and Poems: Marjorie Maddox and "Hover Here"

Watching kites in the sky. Bounding on a bed. A boy goes fishing. Washing clothes. A housemaid makes beds at a motel. Mowing a lawn. Adopting kittens. Veterans march in a Memorial Day parade.  

Common, familiar activities and events. These are the kinds of things we do in our lives and work that become part of the background of daily life. We take them for granted. We smile at the memory. But politics and foreign policy and newspaper headlines and online viral sensations soon crowd them out. We pay more attention to our smart phones than to the real life happening around us. If we happen to look up and notice, we immediately start to think about new content for Instagram or TikTok. 

 

In a very quiet and gentle way, poet Marjorie Maddox says look around. Her latest collection, Hover Here: Poems, should probably bear that as a subtitle. She doesn’t speak with loud or demanding images and words. That’s not her style, not to mention that loud and demanding soon crowds out understanding and reflection. 

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

Some Tuesday Readings

Uninhabited – poem by Emily Patterson at Every Day Poems.

 

“Dear March – Come in,” poem by Emily Dickinson – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Three Lenten Sonnets – Andrew Peterson at The Rabbit Room.

Some Monday Readings

Publishing’s Little Secret: It’s All Gambling – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

Nothing is more practical than falling in love – Joy Clarkson (Hat tip: Amelia Friedline). 

 

John Dempsey’s Street Portraits – Spitalfields Life.

 

Everyone Gets Rejected – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

The View from the Garden at 120 – A London Inheritance.

 

The Good Shepherd – short story by Jason Clark at This Is the Day.

 

Paul Kingsnorth’s Against the Machine – Churck Chalberg at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Top: The cover of Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth.

When the bad times come

After James 1:1-4 

When the bad times come,

and they will come, as night

follows day, don’t quake,

don’t t collapse, don’t withdraw

into yourself. Instead, consider

the joy of the bad times,

for they serve a purpose.

 

The bad times are a test,

a test of faith. Don’t be

surprise at the idea

of a test, because a test

serves to strengthen,

forcing us to use muscles

and resources previously

ignored or discounted.

 

The testing of bad times

produces steadfastness,

perfecting and completing

your faith. You will learn

that you lack nothing.

 

Photograph by Anthony Tran via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Preach Like a Poet – Stephen Witmer at Desiring God.

 

The Abuja Affirmation: A Global Definition of Anglican Identity – Adam Carrington at Mere Orthodoxy.