Saturday Good Reads

A favorite web site (which, if you’ve seen these Good Reads before, won’t surprise you) is The Imaginative Conservative, an online journal that follows the thinking of Russell Kirk, T.S. Eliot, Edmund Burke, Robert Nisbet, and other “imaginative conservatives.” One of its founding editors is Bradley Birzer, who reaches at Hillsdale College. He writes regularly about J.R.R. Tolkien and his works, and he has two recent articles that are excellent: St. Augustine and J.R.R. Tolkien and Fate and Will in Tolkien’s ‘Beowulf.’ Another regular contributor is Dwight Longenecker, who often writes about T.S. Eliot’s poetry. He’s been looking at Four Quartet, and has an article on Listening to “Little Gidding”. 

A recent Democratic candidate debate dropped a not-entirely-unexpected bomb by Beto O’Rourke, the former Texas congressman, who supported stripping tax exempt status for religious organizations holding conservative (or traditional) views on marriage. The debate was in Los Angeles, and the audience applauded his comments. O’Rourke’s focus was on churches, but there are likely more than a few orthodox synagogues and Muslim mosques also holding traditional views on marriage. The mainstream news media reported it and quickly went on to other things, but it’s not likely to be forgotten come the 2020 election. Read Rod Dreher at The American Conservative on Democrats Vs. Traditional Christians.

More Good Reads

British Stuff

Fore-Deck as Front Porch – Charlie Nash at Front Porch Republic.

The Coffee Houses of Queen Anne’s London – David Fairer at English Historical Fiction Authors.

Writing and Literature

Celebrating Elmore Leonard’s “Rules for Writing” – Dwyer Murphy at CrimeReads.

The Art of the Book Review – Thomas Kidd at The Gospel Coalition.

Did Hill Street Blues Rip Off Ed McBain's 87th Precinct Series? – Paul Abbott at CrimeReads.

The Poet in the Pulpit: On the Brilliant, Homely Homilies of Gerard Manley Hopkins – Jim Milliot at The Los Angeles Review of Books.

Poetry

Until Dawn – John Blase. 

Richard Wilbur, C.S. Lewis, and the Imaginative Power of Poetry – T.M. Moore at the Society of Classical Poets.

The Odd Immortality of John Crowe Ransom – James Matthew Wilson at Forma Review.

Faith

A Monk of the Secular Age – Patrick Geary at Humanities / NEH.

Born to Rule Himself: Recovering a Lost Dream for Men – Greg Morse at Desiring God.

Life and Culture

Elites Against Western Civilization – Joel Kotkin at CityJournal. 

There is No Wealth but Life: Rootedness in an Orphaned World – Jake Meador at Mere Orthodoxy.

The Freedom We Must Never Take for Granted – Os Guiness at the Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics.

How America Went to War Against Itself – George Stanciu at The Imaginative Conservative.

The changing face of abortion in the US – Jesse Johnson at The Cripplegate.

3 Awful Features of Roman Sexual Morality – Tim Challies.

Rhonda Vincent & The Rage: Orange Blossom Special

Painting: Young Boy Reading, oil on canvas by Moise Kisling (1891-1953).