Saturday, February 16, 2019

Saturday Good Reads


Earlier this week, we finished watching The ABC Murders on Prime Video, starring John Malkovich as Agatha Christie’s famous detective Hercule Poirot. It was a dark version of the original story, with an origin for Poirot that wasn’t in the author’s books. But it was an excellent production. 

I must have been 10 or 11 when I started reading mystery stories by Agatha Christie. She wrote some 66 mystery novels and 14 short story collections, and even three collections of poetry. But it’s her novels for which she’s best remembered. Today, the Christie mysteries are classified in the genre of “cozy mystery.” Lucy Foley at CrimeReads argues for a different classification, that the stories told by the grande dame of mystery are anything but cozy. She makes a good case.

There’s a lot of talk about socialism these days, and a lot of talk about green new deals and whether it’s less about green and more about socialism. Michael Kruger at Canon Fodder looks at what is being criticized – capitalism – and asks whether capitalism is really based on greed, or whether it comes from something else. At Christianity Today, Eric Miller reviews a new book about theology and capitalism that takes on what the author calls “finance-dominated” capitalism.

In the Department of "Best Laid Plans Oft Go Awry," Jan Askonas at The New Atlantis has a longish discussion of what happened when algorithms replaced people in curating news and social media. And the short answer is - a fostering of tyranny.

More Good Reads

Art and Photography


In London, a Sculptural Offering to Gods Old and New – Justin Hopper at Image Journal.

Poetry

A Song to the Mansions of Heaven – Nicholas Samaras at Image Journal.

George Moses Horton – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

Cuckold – Joe Spring.

All the Hollowed Shells – James Matthew Wilson at The Imaginative Conservative.

Life and Culture

The Machine Stops – Oliver Sacks at The New Yorker.

Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction – Mairead Small Staid at The Paris Review.

American Stuff

Andrew Jackson: Our First Populist President – Jeff Taylor at The American Conservative.

Defining America – Mark Malvasi at Imaginative Conservative.

Faith

On the Road with Thomas Merton – Fred Bahnson at Emergence Magazine.

Embracing the Dignity of Human Life – Zak Schmoll at Entering the Public Square.

How to Handle Temptation at Work – David Winters at the Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics.

British Stuff

Meet My Friend Selina – Tim Challies.

Writing 

9 Reasons to Quite Writing – Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent.

Tumbling Tumbleweeds: Sons of the Pioneers with Roy Rogers
(from the 1944 movie Hollywood Canteen)



Painting: Oil Woman Reading, oil on panel by Jan Lievens (ca. 1628-1633).

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