Saturday Good Reads - May 23, 2026

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were political enemies, and often bitter ones at times. After Jefferson left the presidency in early 1809, he and Adams began a correspondence that, while it didn’t heal all the old political wounds, it did create a mutual respect. But as Marianne Holdzkom at the Conversation points out, they still disagreed about the American Revolution’s meaning even as they lay dying. And they both died on July 4, 1826, the 50^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which is usually connected to Jefferson, but which Adams played a hidden hand in.

Charles Dickens was famous for his “night walks,” in which he roamed the streets of London when he couldn’t sleep. He discovered that his own restlessness was mirrored in the restlessness of London, and he came upon scenes and people which inspired some of his stories. In 1860, in his magazine All the Year Round, he published an account of his might walks. It was later included in his collection The Uncommercial Traveler.

 

Speaking of Dickens, Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review – not the biggest fan of Dickens – gave another of the man’s works a go. He read A Tale of Two Cities, and he discovered a hidden architecture within the story.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

Why Haldimand and Washington Fought Different Intelligence Wars – Ryan Wagner at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Preamble Before the Declaration – Jonathan Horn at The Free Press.

 

The People’s Declaration – Michael Auslin at The Patowmack Packet.

 

Captain James Wood, Diplomat – Eric Sterner at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

Benjamin Franklin and the Franco-American Alliance – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Writing and Literature

 

To vex the world: Jonathan Swift’s Frustrated Humor – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

American Stuff

 

Battle of Antietam: Clash in the Cornfield – Michael Haskew at Warfare History Network.

 

News Media

 

A Miscarriage of Journalism at The New York Times – Roy Altman at The Free Press.

 

Faith

 

A Veil Before the Eyes of the Enemy: On Tolkien, Foolishness, and the Ordinary Means of Grace – Caleb Wait at Modern Reformation.

 

Life and Culture

 

Some Conservative Thoughts on the Left of Today – Bradley Birzer at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

British Stuff

 

Museums in England largely oppose proposal to charge admission for foreign tourists – Gareth Harris at The Art Newspaper.

 

Poetry

 

“Ode to the Confederate Dead,” poem by Allen Tate – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

There Is a Fountain – The Village Chapel Worship

Painting: Reading Girl, oil on canvas by Franz Eybl (1806-1880).

Abraham and Rahab

After James 2:14-26 

The writer cites

two examples

of faith with works:

first, Abraham,

who demonstrated

he would give up

what was most

precious if that’s

what God asked;

and Rahab, who

hid the spies,

risking arrest

and death if 

they were found. 

One would 

sacrifice his son,

the other would

sacrifice her

freedom and life.

Both showed faith 

in action; both

showed faith

plus works.

 

Photograph by Gabriel Lamza via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“None Other Lamb,” poem by Christina Rossetti – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

The Trouble Underneath – Seth Lewis.

 

One Step Becomes a Three-Day Walk – Timarie Friesen.

I Am Haunted by the Civil War

I grew up in the Deep South of the 1950s and 1960s. Social change wasn’t only in the air; it was in the streets and, more importantly, in the city buses, the dime store lunch counter, and the public schools. The Civil War had ended a century before, but it seemed like it was still being fought in the civil rights battles that competed for newspaper space with the growing war in Vietnam. 

The school board of Jefferson Parish in suburban New Orleans, anticipating the racial integration of schools, had segregated the high school student populations by gender – boys went to one school, girls to another. The first year of integration saw riots, fights, and protests, the more violent ones at the boys’ high school but including the girls’ school to a lesser degree. Federal marshals became an in-school presence.

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

“The Graduate Leaving College,” poem by George Moses Horton – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“The Old Swimmin’ Hole,” poem by James Whitcomb Riley – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

The Hawthorn – poem by David Whyte.

 

“On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness,” poem by Arthur Guiterman – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

"To Those Who Speak" by Luke Adam Hawker

Luke Adam Hawker is a designer who made the leap to full-time art in 2015. His background is architecture and design, and in his art, he works to connect places and people. His limited-edition prints can be found at several locations in London, including the Royal Opera House, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Old Royal Naval College, and Battersea Power Station. 

Hawker has also published three books. Together (2021) is a graphic novel that turned into a surprise bestseller. The Last Tree: A Seed of Hope (2023) is a fable about a world without trees. This year, he published To Those Who Speak, a much more personal story that’s less a story and more of a non-fictional account with quiet, profound illustrations. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Ceci n’est pas un Monet – Spencer Klavan at The New Jerusalem.

 

What AI Can’t Know – John Horvat at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Brexit is not the cause of Britain’s woes – James Piereson at The New Criterion.

 

Gratitude, Not Glory: Why Lincoln Rejected Triumph at Gettysburg – Andrew Lang at The Coolidge Review.

Poets and Poems: Ayala Zarfijian and “A Corner in the World”

“The war endures in you,” writes poet Ayala Zarfjian, “It lingers in your capillaries, / in your arteries, / in your veins. / The war is a river that bridges the past to the present.”  The war she’s speaking about is World War II and the part of the war that made it unlike any other – the Holocaust. If you’re Jewish, the Holocaust is not something that’s ever over. 

That’s the theme that threads through every poem in Zarfjian’s collection A Corner in the World. She wrote the poems specifically for her father, who survived the Holocaust while most of the family perished. Zarfjian has written them so that the stories they tell, and the people they’re about, will not be forgotten, that the Holocaust itself will not be written off as someone’s crazy conspiracy theory but the real destruction of people, millions of people, that tragically, horribly happened.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

An Overness – poem by Anna Friedrich at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

Eve Letter: Home Economics – poem by Kathryn Weld at Every Day Poems.

 

“The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” poem by William Butler Yeats – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Vogue exploring – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

Some Monday Readings - May 18, 2026

A Realist Outline of History – Joseph Woodard at The Imaginative Conservative. 

Why Read? Reading, print culture & liberal democracy – Roosevelt Montas at Commonweal Magazine.

 

God vs. Machine: How to Handle the Rise of Religious Objections to AI in the Workplace – Kit Eaton at Inc. Magazine.

 

David Copperfield: A Hero Beside the Point – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

“Octopus’s Garden” – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know: Lord Byron’s Memoirs – Jason Clark at This Is the Day.

 

Case Study: 80-Year-Old Author Crushes It! – Dave Chesson at Kindlepreneur.

 

“Language matters: On the media’s anti-American animus – The New Criterion.

 

Fuel for Another Disappointment – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

Consider the Small Town – Melissa Edgington at Your Mom Has a Blog.

 

St. Irenaeus on Christian Memory & Tradition – Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative.

Painting: George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824).

What did they see?

After James 2:14-26 

I wonder about

the early days,

when followers

of the Way were

growing in number,

growing in geography,

fueled by the Spirit.

But what did 

the people around

them see? Preachers

of philosophies and

new things and 

new gods were 

a dime a dozen;

they were all over

the culture. What

made the Way 

different? It was

because of what

these believers

did, how they

cared for the

the widows,

the orphans,

the rejected,

the sick, the poor,

the shunned – 

all those people

ignored and

left as road kill

by the world.

People watched,

they saw, they

understood, they

acted, wanting

that for themselves.

 

Photograph by Tahamie Farooqui via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

A Sonnet for Ascension Day – Malcolm Guite.

 

Won’t Somebody Think of (Having the) Children – Stephen McAlpine.