"Winston and the Windsors" by Andrew Morton

In late October, we were back at the St. Louis County Library. We had previously attended the talk by mystery writer Elizabeth George; this time it was the British writer, Andrew Morton. 

Morton became an almost-household name in Britain in the 1990s when he wrote not just “a” book but “the” book about Princess Diana – the one she agreed to do. Diana: Her True Story nearly toppled the British monarchy – or at least Diana’s revelations seriously damaged the institution. 

 

Morton has since written books about Monica Lewinsky, Madonna, David and Victoria Beckham, Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie, and William and Catherine when they were still the duke and duchess of Cambridge. You might say he’s an A-List celebrity biographer.

 

But his more recent attention has turned from contemporary celebrities to those who are more historical. And that’s what we were there to hear him talk about –Winston and the Windsors: How Churchill Shaped a Royal Dynasty. 

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

Some Wednesday Readings

 

15 Things a Writer Should Never Do – Zachary Petit at Writer’s Digest.

 

Elitism is good – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

Czesław Milosz, 1946-1953: "Poet in the New World"

Poet Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) lived through some of the most tumultuous events of the 20^th century. His Polish parents having fled Poland during a political upheaval, he was born in Lithuania when it was ruled by tsarist Russia. Then came the Great War, the Russian Revolution, and the Russian Civil War. His family returned to Poland, and life seemed to settle down.  

He was 21 when he published his first poetry collection, Poem of the Frozen Time, in 1932. The next year, Hitler became dictator of Germany. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Milosz became part of the underground resistance. After the war, he joined the new communist government’s diplomatic corps and was stationed in Paris and then Washington, D.C. In 1951, he defected to the West.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Close and Slow: “The Journey” by Mary Oliver – Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street. 

 

Words we don’t say – poem by Franco Amati at Garbage Notes.

 

From “Ruined Abbeys” – poem by Peter Levi at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

The Shape of Someday – poem by Michelle Ortega at Everyday Poems.

 

“The Owl and the Pussycat,” poem by Edward Lear – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient & Modern.

 

Tell No One – poem by Elizabeth Wickland at Rabbit Room Poetry.

“Resolve: The Church That Endures Onward” by Luke Herron Davis

Over the past two years, Luke H. Davis has been publishing a series of books on church history, written for young people. First came Redemption: The Church in Ancient Times. It was followed by Reign: The Church in the Middle Ages; Reform: The Church at the Birth of Protestantism; and Renewal: The Church That Expands Outward.  

The final volume, covering the period from 1890 to 2023, is Resolve: The Church That Endures Onward. It’s written in the same easily readable and accessible style as its predecessors. Davis explains history by telling stories, imagined (or re-imagined) conversations and events in the lives of key figures in the church over the modern period. While many might lament the state of in the 20^th and 21^st centuries, Davis has a very different story to tell. 

 

This history includes chapters with familiar names – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Corrie ten Boom, Billy Graham, C.S. Lewis, Francis and Edith Schaeffer, and J.I. Packer. And it includes chapters with names well-known in their time but lesser known today, like Sammy Morris, B.B. Warfield, J.C. Ryle, Francis Grimke, Elisabeth Eliot, Eta Linnemann, and Benjamin Kwashi. Davis selects a key event in the lives of this Christians, dramatizing them to tell his stories. It’s a very effective way to introduce the subject (and people) to younger readers.

 

Luke H. Davis

He also includes chapters entitled "Fact Files" that highlight other well-known figures, like the great preachers and orators, persecuted Christians, and popular apologists.

 

Aimed as it is at younger readers, from beginning to end it also reminded me of the people and writers who have played a major or minor role in my own Christian faith, including, Billy Graham, C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, and J.I. Packer.

 

Resolve is a fitting conclusion to the church history series and a solid read as a standalone volume. Davis has poured some major effort into assembling these volumes, and we – young and old alike – are the beneficiaries.  

 

Davis teaches at Westminster Christian Academy in St. Louis and chairs the Bible Department there. He’s also taught at schools in Louisiana, Florida, and Virginia. He describes himself as “Presbyterian body, Lutheran heart, Anglican blood, Orthodox spirit,” all of which have served him well in writing the Cameron Ballack mysteries. He has published three Ballack mysteries, Litany of Secrets (2013), The Broken Cross (2015), and A Shattered Peace (2017), and the first book of a new series, Joel: The Merivalkan Chronicles Book 1 (2017). He blogs at For Grace and Kingdom.

 

Related: 

 

Redemption: The Church in Ancient Times by Luke H. Davis.

 

Reign: The Church in the Middle Ages by Luke H. Davis.

 

Reform: The Church at the Birth of Protestantism by Luke H. Davis.

 

Renewal: The Church That Expands Outward by Luke H. Davis.

Reading a Novel that Stars Your Hometown.

 

My review of Litany of Secrets.

 

My review of The Broken Cross.

 

My review of A Shattered Peace.

 

My review of Tough Issues, True Hope by Luke Davis.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

‘My kid’s name resonated in that body’: Steve Nikoui’s interview after State of the Union outburst – Matthew Foldi at The Spectator.

 

Booknotes: Campaigns of a Non-Combatant by George Townsend – Civil War Books and Authors. 

 

People Hate Daylight Savings. Science Tells Us Why – Teresa Carr at Real Clear Science.

 

The Bull Pen at Bentonville – Bert Dunkerly at Emerging Civil War.

Poets and Poems: May Swenson and "Collected Poems"

“A characteristic of all poetry,” poet May Swenson once wrote, “that more is hidden it in than in prose. A poem, read for the first time, can offer the same pleasure as opening a wrapped box.” The pleasure, I suspect, was both in the anticipation and the discovery. 

Swenson (1913-1989) is considered a major poet of the 20^th century. She published nine collections during her lifetime; three additional collections were published posthumously. Her poems were widely published in literary journals and magazines. She received a bevy of awards, ranging from the American Introductions Prize in1955 to Guggenheim and MacArthur fellowships. For the last nine years of her life, she served as chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She also translated and published a volume of poems by Tomas Tranströmer.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Dust to Dust: W.H. Auden writes poetry for a world marked by death – Helen Rouner at Commonweal. 

 

Good Intentions – poem by Warren Bonham at Society of Classical Poets.

 

The English Epigram: Two poems from Walter Savage Landor – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Discovering a Forgotten Poet: J.V. Cunningham

Poet J.V. Cunningham (1911-1985) is almost unknown today. His poetry zigged when the fashion said zag; he was a formalist when modernism and free verse had triumphed. And yet, and a discussion of his poetry should always be followed by “and yet,” while he was still alive, his poetry was considered among the very best being published. 

His teacher and mentor Yvor Winters considered Cunningham to be one of the finest writers working in the English language. Critics said his poetry would still be read 50 years after his death. Others called him the most talented of his generation. But today he’s barely remembered.

Wiseblood Books has issued a new edition of Cunningham’s The Exclusions of a Rhyme: Poems and Epigrams, first published in 1960. 

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

"Elizabeth Bishop: A Very Short Introduction" by Jonathan Post

Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) fits the oft-believed stereotype of the writer or artist who becomes mor famous after her death than during her life. She has a towering reputation today as one of the finest American poets of the 20^th century – and she had a total of 90 poems published during her lifetime. 

As professor and author Jonathan Post points out in Elizabeth Bishop: A Very Short Introduction, her timing for fame – like the sense of timing in her poetry – was perfect. The end of her life occurred as feminism was going mainstream in American culture. It also helped that her poetry was approachable – you didn’t need a college degree to read and enjoy it, as Post says, calling her poetry “casually perfect.” 

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

Poetry as a Way of Ordering Experience: “The Music of Time” by John Burnside

“As music-making is a way of making sense of noise, of giving noise order,” writes John Burnside in The Music of Time: Poetry in the Twentieth Century, “so poetry is a way of ordering experience, of giving a meaningful order to lived time.” And that’s precisely what the author proceeds to do. Instead of what might be expected – a survey of twentieth century poetry – Burnside considers some of the great poetry of the last century and how it shaped and gave meaning to his own life. 

Burnside, a poet, novelist, and essayist considered one of the greatest living literary critics, has had, like most of us, a diverse life that needs some meaningful ordering. He studied English and European languages at the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology but worked as a computer analyst and software engineer for many years. He began to publish poetry in the 1980s and is now the author of some 16 poetry collections. He’s also a novelist, his most recent work being Havergey (2017), the story of man who experiments with time travel and ends up in a future Scotland – having missed the intervening plagues (like skipping 2020 and finding yourself in a post-coronavirus world).

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

“The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August” by Claire North

British author Claire North has something of a knack for writing science fiction novels that read like literary fiction.

She’s published five novels since 2014 and a trio of related novellas. That is, that’s the number she’s published using the pen name of Claire North. Her real name is Catherine Webb, and she published eight novels under than name from 2012 to 2010. Using another pen name, Kate Griffin, she published six novels from 2009 to 2013. 

That’s 19 novels and three novellas from 2002 to 2018, published under three names. It’s almost as if she’s a character in one of her stories.

One of her best known works is The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, published in 2014. The title alone is intriguing. The story is exactly that – what happens to Harry August, born shortly after World War I in a train station bathroom, his mother a servant girl who was the victim of rape and his father a war veteran and the heir of the manor where the servant girl was employed. Harry will be raised by the manor gamekeeper and his wife. Harry lives until late in the 20^thcentury, dying of multiple myeloma. 

Harry will be born of the same parents 15 times. And each life will be different. Harry is a Kalachakra, which is actually a real term – a Buddhist term for time cycles. In this story, the Kalachakra are a tiny number of people who are born numerous times, usually forgetting their previous lives after a few rounds. Harry is one of an even smaller number of Kalachakra; he’s a mnemonic and remembers everything, usually be the age of six. 

The Kalachakra has a place to gather – the Cronus Club, with no headquarters but premises in every major city. Their locations change; members come and go, die and are reborn. It takes Harry two or three lives to understand and accept what happens. He also discovers he can alter his own circumstances by making different choices and anticipate and plan for what he knows will happen.

Claire North, aka Catherine Webb

Somewhere about the eight life in the 20^thcentury, Harry begins to see things happening that shouldn’t. Certain inventions are happening a few years earlier than they should. Other Cronus lube members notice, too. And then some start dying and are not reborn. Someone, some Kalachakra, is playing the system. And Harry decides to find out whom, and put a stop to it before he and his remaining brethren (and sisters) are destroyed. 

Webb’s other works under the Claire North pseudonym are Touch (2015), The Sudden Appearance of Hope (2016), The End of the Day (2017), 84K (2018), and the three Gamehouse novellas (The Serpent, The Master, and The Thief). She works as a theater lighting designer and lives in London.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August ranges across history, philosophy, religion, World War II, Cold War politics, and 20^thcentury technology. It has the added element of suspense, as Harry discovers, tracks, and gradually closes in on his quarry (it takes two or three lives to do that). And when it’s done, we’re left with a rather imaginative, creative, and dazzling read.

Top photograph by Martin Bjork via Unsplash. Used with permission.

“East End Vernacular” by The Gentle Author

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon during our most recent trip to London, we traveled the tube from our hotel in Westminster to the Liverpool Street Station in London’s East End. We walked up Bishopsgate from the station to Brushfield Street, and then to the Spitalfields Market, filled with booths of art, clothes, food, and more. After lunch, we walked down Commercial Street to Christ Church and then over to Brick Lane, following the street south to Whitechapel and the Whitechapel Gallery. It was a beautiful day to see a part of London we had never previously visited.

The inspiration for this visit was a blog, one I’d been visiting for some time called Spitalfields Life. Who actually writes the blog posts is something of an online mystery – the writer is known as “The Gentle Author” and lives somewhere on Brick Lane, writing wonderful blog posts about London’s East End – its people, its history, its streets, and its contribution to life in London. And the writer publishes books.

The latest is East End Vernacular: Artists Who Painted London’s East End Streets in the 20^th Century, and what a beautiful book it is.

“Vernacular” refers to the commercial, work-a-day, working class associations of the East End. This is a region of London that included factories, warehouses, working class residences, and the slums of Whitechapel. The people who lived here worked in the factories and on the docks, markets and small commercial establishments. And while artists before the 20^th century had drawn and painted scenes there (including James McNeill Whistler), it was the indigenous artists of the 20^th century who found the region’s spirit and soul.

The names won’t necessarily be familiar to American or even British ears. Nathaniel Kornbluth. Pearl Binder. Brothers Harold and Walter Steggles. Grace Oscroft. Cyril Mann. Roland Collins. Dorothy Bishop. Geoffrey Fletcher. Peri Parkes. Leon Kosoff. And quite a few more. Most if not all of them were born and grew up in the East End. Some worked in their fathers’ shops. Many held full-time jobs, squeezing in what they could paint from a bedroom window.

The artists were often self-taught or came under the guidance of local arts organizations. Often the “big boys” in London art would take notice, and many of the works would find their way to the Tate, the Royal Academy, and various exhibitions. The Whitechapel Gallery often played a critical role in bringing these artists to wider public attention.

Like any good curator, The Gentle Author has been selective, choosing some outstanding works. What the included paintings share is simplicity in form and color (some are reminiscent of the works of Edward Hopper) and common themes of streets, buildings, and scenes that are often still familiar (I recognized a few from my brief afternoon journey) even though the artists often knew that the area was changing and wanted to capture it before it disappeared.

The Gentle Author has published of numerous books by others about London’s East End, including A Hoxton Childhood, Brick Lane, Travellers’ Children in London Fields, East End, and The Boss of Bethnal Green, among others. Others include Spitalfields Life, The Gentle Author’s London Album, and Cries of London (links to all of the books can be found on the Spitalfields Life web site).

You can scroll through posts at Spitalfields Life and see examples of many of these artists. But to see them together as a published collection like East End Vernacular is something rather marvelous.

Top painting: Old Houses in Bow by Grace Oscroft (1934).