Saturday Good Reads

Parnell Hall was almost 75 years old, and his health was failing. What he needed was a lung transplant, but at that age, he was not a good candidate. Still, he was in overall good health, so he was put on a waiting list. While he waited, he finally got around to doing something he had put off for 15 years – he finished writing a thriller manuscript. 

I can remember telling a friend a work that you couldn’t understand why people didn’t like GMOs until you read Wendell Berry. In return, I received a blank look. Berry is an icon in organic agriculture, regional fiction, back-to-small communities circles. He’s also a fine poet. Mary Harwell Sayler at The Poetry Editor has an article about his poetry.

Leftist protestors are becoming increasingly fond of displaying a symbol – the guillotine. Small replicas have shown up in front of the White House, the home of Jeff Bezos, the former CHAZ autonomous zone in Seattle, and in the Portland protests. Cathy Young at Arc Digital has a timely reminder of what the guillotine represents – and how it ultimately came to be used against the crowd who celebrated it.

More Good Reads

Writing and Literature

Chekhov’s 2020 Vision – Kyle Smith at New Criterion.

Why I Walked Away from War and Peace…Forever – John Maher at Literary Hub.

Life and Culture

The Demolition of the Western Mind – Louis Markos at The Imaginative Conservative. 

Treasures of Knowledge: Family Reading Time as the Foundation for Home Education – Sally Clarkson at Plough Books.

Punctual Pleasures…and Necessities – David Deavel at The Imaginative Conservative.

Making Sense of Evil: Exhibition on Hannah Arendt – Daniel Johnson at The Critic.

Poetry

Before the Plague – Daniel Kemper at Society of Classical Poets.

Chief Who Listens to the Poor – Afua Kuma at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

The Robin and the Oak Tree – Seth Lewis.

American Stuff

What Domed the Crew of the CSS Hunley? – Dwight Hughes at Emerging Civil War.

Hill and North Main Streets, Hannibal, Mo. – Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina.

British Stuff

The Globe at Borough Market – A London Inheritance.

The future of Britain’s stately homes – Eleanor Doughty at The Critic.

What if Henry VIII’s son by Katherine of Aragon survived? – Suzannah Lipscomb at UnHerd.

News Media

Media Gaslighting – Maggie’s Farm.

Faith

When Peace is Like a River – Amber Thiessen at In the Vine.

This is the Record of John by Orlando Gibbons, performed by George Clifford

Painting: The Old Man Reading, oil on canvas by Ivan Kulikov (1875-1941).