Saturday Good Reads – March 14, 2026

Forty years ago, I was taking a course called “The Nature of Story,” and one of the books we read was Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It. Only 10 years old at the time, it was deservedly already a classic, and it would eventually be made into a movie with Brad Pitt, Tom Skerrit and Brenda Blethyn (who became Vera the detective on PBS Masterpiece Mystery).  The novel has just turned 50 years old, and Brandon McNeice at Front Porch Republic has a reflection. 

You may not know the name Philo Farnsworth, but he invented what was likely the most influential technology of the 20^th century – the television. In 1921, when he was 14 years old, he realized how images might be transmitted through electric current. And the rest, as they say, is history. Jason Clark at This Is the Day has a retrospective.

 

At Mere Orthodoxy, Nadya Williams interviews Mark Graham about his new book. The subject – the history of Christianity told in 30 key moments. 

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

Atlas of Independence: John Adams and the American Revolution by Chris Mackowski – review by Kelsey DeFord at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

Have You Seen the First Declaration? – Michael Auslin at Patowmack Packet.

 

Pontiac, taxes and mobs: The American colonists battle Parliament – Keli Holt.

 

The Siege of Boston, General Washington, and Phillis Wheatley – Patrick Hastings at Library of Congress Blog.

 

Isaiah Thomas and the Declaration of Independence – Sherman Lohnes at the Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Glories of Small Towns – K.E. Colombini at Front Porch Republic.

 

George Washington’s Warning About Religion Still Matters – Andrew Fowler at Real Clear Religion.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Misfits and Moral Injury: Why Shusaku Endo Matters Today – Brian Volck at Church Life Journal.

 

Wrestling Coach Bets on Tolstoy and Dante to Save the Classics – and Young Men – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Life and Culture

 

Science Has a Big Fraud Problem – Joe Nocera at The Free Press.

 

The Celtic Mind: How Adam Smith and Edmund Burke Saved Western Civilization – Bradley Birzer.

 

Iran

 

Two Days Over Iran – Michael Smith at Unlicensed Punditry.

 

Who’s That Source? Iran Edition – Jillian Butler at Racket News.

 

The Blood Libel Comes to Iran – Michael Oren at Clarity.

 

Jeffrey Sachs Is Trying to Fix The New York Times’ Coverage, One Email at a Time – Emily Kopp at Racket News.

 

Iran Can’t Hold the World Hostage – Matthew Continetti at The Wall Street Journal (unlocked).

 

Faith

 

All the Stars We Never See – Even Patrohay at Front Porch Republic.

 

American Stuff

 

Framing History: ‘I could not die in a cause more sacred’ – Melissa Winn at Emerging Civil War.

 

Poetry

 

“Two Sewing,” poem by Hazel Hall – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Learning by Poetry: Dans la Nuit – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

“The Homestead,” poem by Joseph Bottum – A.M. Juster and Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

I’m With You – Mari Frangoulis

Painting: Woman with Romance Novel, oil on canvas by Johann Baptist Reiter (1813-1890).

An offering from work

After Leviticus 1:1-4 

Work is that

five-day thing,

left behind

on the weekend

when we rest,

when we relax,

when we worship.

But not left

behind exactly,

because we’re

instructed to bring

our work, the fruits

of our work,

to worship, given

as an offering

to the Lord. 

Knowing it is

an offering

changes what

we understand

work to be.

 

Photograph by Josh Boot via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“God’s Indignation,” poem by Commodianus – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

Life with the Machines – Ian Harber at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

In the Desert of the Heart – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

 

“Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us,” hymn by Dorothy Ann Thrupp – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

The Growing Power of Willful Ignorance – Seth Lewis.

Poets and Poems: Seth Wieck and "Call Out Coyote"

We lived in Texas for five years. My job had me traveling all over the United States, but our home was in Houston. Texas is a big state, so we became familiar with only parts of it – southeast Texas, East Texas, Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, the border area near McAllen, and South Padre Island. I had to travel several times to West Texas, flying into Midland and then traipsing all over the Permian Basin oil country to write stories. Later I would become familiar with the Hill Country southwest of San Antonio.  

One area I never visited was the Panhandle. I’d read about it, intrigued by an eccentric millionaire named Stanley Marsh 3 (not the third) who’d had the Cadillac Ranch sculpture erected along Route 66 near Amarillo. It’s High Plains country. Wheat is grown there, as are corn, soybeans, and cotton. Historically, it’s been a major source of natural gas.

 

Its geography and people form the backdrop of Call Out Coyote: Poems, the new (and first) poetry collection by Seth Wieck. I don’t say this lightly, but this collection is a marvel of language and love for a geography and its people. I was enraptured.

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

“To Keep a True Lent,” poem by Robert Herrick and “We Like March,” poem by Emily Dickinson – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Getting a feeling for the music of a poem – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

A Street Named Terpsichore

A flat tire introduced me

to the sirens and their mother.

Before I knew Terpsichore

as a muse or the mother of sirens,

I knew her as a street, relatively

residential, nineteenth century

homes, called shotgun houses, 

stringing each room in succession,

front to back, because properties 

were taxed on width, not depth.

Imagine a street of homes,

sometimes duplexes, with

living room-bedroom-bathroom-

bedroom-dining room-kitchen-

back porch, a long house shaped

the like barrel of a shotgun.

 

Terpsichore had sister streets, all

comprising the Faubourg Lafayette

and Lower Garden District of

the Big Easy. You walked streets

named Erato, Calliope, Clio,

Thalia, Melpomene, Euterpe,

Polymnia, and Urania, and 

Terpsichore (of course),collectively

issuing their siren calls to come

home. My personal favorite was 

Erato, named for the poetry muse,

because I had a flat tire in a station

wagon on the interstate right

at the St. Charles Avenue exit,

and I guided our car full of teenagers

bound for the French Quarter down

the exit ramp, carefully, parking 

on a street named Erato. I fixed 

the flat, not knowing that decades 

later, that Erato and her mother

Terpsichore would remind me

of a flat tire.

 

Tweetspeak Poetry has a prompt this week, involving the muses and their siren songs. 

 

Photograph: A shotgun duplex on Terpsichore Street in New Orleans.

Poets and Poems: Susan Rooke and “A Room Full of Ghosts”

Just recently, for some unknown and unprompted reason, a memory flashed from when I was eight or nine years old. I was visiting my grandmother in Shreveport for a summer week. I was sitting on the floor of her living room in the small frame house built by my grandfather and father. The front door opened, I looked up, and there stood what looked a younger version of my Aunt Rubye. I stared. She was equally taken aback; she was seeing the protective older brother she knew as a child.  

The entrance of my grandmother from the kitchen broke the spell. She introduced us. It was my Aunt Ruth, barely if ever mentioned by my father. They hadn’t spoken in almost 25 years, and they wouldn’t for almost another 20, when she was diagnosed with an inoperable cancer.

 

My memory had been shaped and created by something that had happened some 15 years before that surprise meeting, and it would open into an extended story of how a brother and sister had fallen out. I would come to understand that every memory was its own story, and it didn’t have to be a story I was personally part of until that front door opened.

 

What likely put me in mind of that memory was A Room Full of Ghosts: Poems of Remembering, the 2025 collection by Susan Rooke. 

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Identifying happenings – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Poetry Prompt: Meet Your Muse Terpsichore – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

What Did You Do Last Week? – poem by Erin Murphy at Every Day Poems.

 

“Mr. Flood’s Party,” poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Some Monday Readings - March 9, 2026

AI Doesn’t Reduce Work – It Intensifies It – Aruna Ranganathan and Xingqi Maggie Ye at Harvard Business Review. 

Grief Goes Hand in Hand with Gratitude: A Book Review of Marce Catlett by Wendell Berry  – Matt Wheeler at The Rabbit Room.

 

The Passage in The Lord of the Rings Tolkien Couldn’t Read Without Weeping – Trevin Wax at The Gospel Coalition.

 

Speaking Through the Ages: John Aubrey at four hundred – Peter Davidson at Literary Review.

 

Don’t Know Jack About the Other C.S. Lewis? – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

The Nature of Nostos – K.S. Bernstein at Apple Blossoms in a Mournful Wood.

 

Murders for March – Jeremy Black at The Critic Magazine.

 

“A Spiral Spiritual Climb into God” and Other Poems – Katie Andraskie at Katie’s Ground.

 

Willing If Asked – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

Illustration: John Aubrey (1626-1697). 

He needed the knowledge

After 2 Samuel 24 

Knowing better, having

experiences untold, 

he needed to measure

his power, he needed

an accounting of what

he controlled, forgetting

what that implied,

what happens when

you rely upon yourself,

your resources, your power

to account for your

security. He knew better;

it had happened before,

many times. He’s seen it 

with Saul, with Goliath

and the Philistines, with

Absalom, over and over

again, and still he did

what he set his heart

upon doing. And once

again, predictably,

he learned how actions

lead to destruction.

And in an instant.

 

Photograph by Cheryl Laithang via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Dante and the Companioned Journey –Malcolm Guite.

 

The strange death of Christian Scotland – John MacLeod at The Critic Magazine.

 

The State of the Church in Iran – byFaith.

 

The Chalice of Canterbury: A Call to Faithful Anglicans – Bishop Ceiron Dewar at The Crux of It.

 

Hard Stop – poem by James Matthew Wilson at First Things Magazine.

Saturday Good Reads – March 7, 2026

We know of several U.S. presidents who read poetry, but one in particular is known for his love of verse. And it won’t be a big surprise, given the man’s speeches. Marlena Figge at Society of Classical Poets has the story. 

We’ve visited Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, several times. It’s still rather amazing that this small town in mid-America became the site of one of the most famous speeches of the 20^th century. And now there’s a museum dedicated to the man who gave it, sitting below a church bombed during the London Blitz and reconstructed at the college. This week marked the 80^th anniversary of the Iron Curtain speech by Winston Churchill. John Rossi at the Imaginative Conservative has the story.

 

Maybe it’s because we live here, but I think we often forget the impact the American Revolution had on the world. And in many ways, it’s still having an impact. Naturalized American Richard Bell (he’s a native Brit) at American Heritagetakes a look at some of that impact in “They Turned the World Upside Down.” 

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding by Joseph Ellis – review by Timothy Symington at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

“You express a Desire to become acquainted with our American Ladies” – Phill Greenwalt at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

When Some Americans First Lost Their Constitution – Ray Raphael at Journal of the American Revolution. 

 

The Fortress Washington Built Overnight – Jonathan Horn at The Free Press.

 

 “Remember, it is the fifth of March, a day ever to be forgotten; avenge the death of your brethren” – Rob Orrison at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Trumbull: Connecticut’s “Revolutionary” Governor –Andrew Fowler at Real Clear History.

 

British Stuff

 

The Treachery of Sr. George Downing – A London Inheritance.

 

Faith

 

A Perilous Salvation – Andrew Klavan at The New Jerusalem.

 

The Language of Joy: The Lure of Three Insatiable Letters – Ethan Jones at Front Porch Republic.

 

Walk Away from the Sea – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Still Got It: Authors Who Thrive as Super Agers – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

My Wife Read One of Admiral David Dixon Porter’s Romance Novels So You Don’t Have To – Neil Chatelain at Emerging Civil War.

 

Poetry

 

Atmosphere in Eight Lines – Maryann Corbett at New Verse Review.

 

“Water,” poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson and “A Musical Instrument,” poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Steingraber the Poet – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

 

Life and Culture

 

Welcoming the Shadow Brother – Mel Livatino at Front Porch Republic.

 

Light of World – We the Kingdom

Painting: Andreas Reading, oil on canvas by Edvard Munch (1863-1944).

Where to place your heart?

After 2 Samuel 24 

It’s a choice: where

to place your heart,

your hope, your confidence?

You have a multitude

of possibilities, of answers:

money, investments, 

property, possessions,

knowledge, experience,

reputation, family, health,

and more. He made his

choice, because of his power,

his influence, his span

of control. He forgot

the words of Joshua,

as for him and his house.

 

Photograph by Jamie Street via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“The Messiah: A Sacred Eclogue,” poem by Alexander Pope – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

“Lord, in This Thy Mercy’s Day,” hymn by Isaac Williams – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

A Thousand Lives – poem by Seth Lewis.

Poets and Poems: Dave Brown and "I Don't Usually, But"

I can’t recall when it began, but some years back, I discovered myself thinking of things that hadn’t been even a small blip on my radar when I was younger. I know it started before I retired. One morning, I woke up, fixed my breakfast, and started reading the obituary page in the newspaper. Regularly. Like, every day. I wouldn’t read each entry, but I’d scan the names, looking for people I might now or had heard of.

 

Eventually I started finding names I knew. People I had worked with. Former executives I’d written speeches for. People I knew from church. It was unsettling. I remember my mother, who for as long as I could remember had faithfully attended her annual high school class reunion. She finally stopped, explaining quietly that only three people were left. 

As you move into old age, you receive regular reminders of your own mortality, and not only from newspaper obituaries. As poet Dave Brown has discovered and written in I Don’t Usually, But, things that were never paid much attention to before take on meaning. 

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

4711 – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

“Tall Nettles,” poem by Edward Thomas – Sally Thomas ay Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Poet Laura: Written in March – Donna Hilbert at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

“Sally in Our Alley,” poem by Henry Carey – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“Tears of the widower” and “The lesser griefs,” from In Memoriam by Alfred, Lord Tennyson – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

“The Pembroke Castle Murders” by Stephen Puleston

A minister is found dead inside his church in the Welsh town of Pembroke, killed with some kind of hammer. As DI Caren Waits and her team at the West Wales Police Service investigate, they discover that nothing is ever what it seems, even the world of a minister. 

The minister had inherited a large estate from an elderly aunt. He had a half-brother and half-sister, who now stood to inherit. A fellow minister had been passed over for an appointment as cathedral dean. A local man had accused the minister of molesting his son. The suspects seem like they’re falling out of the trees.

 

In the meantime, Waits herself is waiting on the outcome of legal negotiations with her dead husband’s “second” wife, a woman who bore him a child. Waits herself has a young son. The woman has made a claim on the dead husband’s estate. The detective had had no idea of this second family.

 

Stephen Puleston

The investigation has almost too many suspects. Promising leads evaporate. Alibis seem airtight. And then the lawyer handling the estate is himself murdered, followed soon by a third death.

 

The Pembroke Castle Murders is the fourth of the DI Caren Waits series by Welsh writer Stephen Puleston. It’s a solid police procedural story, with Waits and her team plugging away, pounding the pavement, and tracking down ever lead. And in the end, they stage a rather thrilling trap.

 

Puleston publishes three series of Welsh police detective stories. Detective Inspector Ian Drake is with the North Wales Police Service, Detective Inspector John Marco is with the South Wales Police Service, and now Detective Inspector Caren Waits is with the West Wales Police Service. The author originally trained and practiced as a; solicitor/lawyer. He also attended the University of London. He lives in Wales, very close to where his fictional heroes live and work.

 

Related:

 

The Paxton’s Tower Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

The Tenby Harbour Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

The Swansea Marina Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Written in Blood.

 

My review of A Time to Kill.

 

My review of Another Good Killing.

 

My review of Brass in Pocket.

 

My review of Worse than Dead.

 

My review of Against the Tide.

 

My review of Devil’s Kitchen.

 

My review of Dead Smart.

 

My review of Speechless.

 

My review of A Cold Dark Heart.

 

My review of A Cold Dark Heart.

 

My review of Dead and Gone by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Time to Die by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Stone Cold Dead by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Looking Good Dead by Stephen Puleston.

Poets and Poems: Emily Patterson and "The Birth of Undoing"

In her 2022 collection, So Much Tending Remains, poet Emily Patterson reflected on the first two years of her daughter’s life. In her new collection, The Birth of Undoing, she’s written something of a prequel, what came before those first two years.

 

Sitting in the waiting room at the fertility clinic, surprised “you knew the rules before you ever walked in” (don’t look at women leaving; keep accidental eye contact brief; don’t bring a toddler with you). The ultrasounds. Imagining what the child looks like at eleven weeks. The physical discomfort (Patterson draws a “self-portrait as not the giantess”), the beginnings of labor. Then she considers those first hours after birth.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

“Sweet and Low,” poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

In My Dream of Emily Bronte – poem by Andrea Potos at Every Day Poems.

 

Where to Store Secrets That Don’t Belong to You – poem by Heather Cadenhead at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

The night cometh – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader. 

Time Will Tell: Collected Poems by David Middleton – review by Richard Wakefield at New Verse Review.