Some Wednesday Readings - Sept. 2, 2026

Wendell Berry’s Affections – Gary Houchens at The Imaginative Conservative. 

Wendell Berry (1934-2026) – Jeffrey Bilbro at Front Porch Republic.

 

The Witness of Wendell Berry – C. Christopher Smith at Cultivating Communities.

 

The Swap Not Heard ‘Round the World: Ordering the Declaration’s Grievances – Rpbert Parkinson at The Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Highdays & Holidays of Old London – Spitalfields Life.

 

Your Guide to Dolly Parton’s Crime Movies – Olivia Rutigliano at CrimeReads. 

 

Photograph: Wendell Berry (1934-2026).

Saturday Good Reads - Aug. 2, 2026

Benjamin Franklin is rightly considered to be one of America’s founding fathers. But there was also his son, William, who had an entirely different take on the American Revolution. Danica Kirka ar Associated Press explains: “Ben Franklin chose America. Son William chose the crown. This civil war is a microcosm of revolution.” 

Hadrian’s Wall was built during the reign of the Emperor Hadrain. It stretches across the narrowest part of England – 73 miles from Newcastle on the east to Solway Firth on the west. Its purpose: keep the barbarian Picts in the north, separating them from Roman Britain. Jonathan Thomas at Anglotopia is walking the wall, and he’s providing daily updates. (He’s actually walking 84 miles, starting at the seacoast on the east.) 

 

Therapy culture has been shaping America for decades, and it has not excluded the church. Amy Mantravadi at Mere Orthodoxy reviews a new book on the subject, Resisting Therapy Culture: The Dangers of Pop Psychology and How the Church Can Respond by Matthew Loftus.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

The “Battle” of Fort Thicketty – Tom Elmore at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

This Connecticut Teenager Spied on the British During the American Revolution, Succeeding Where Nathan Hale Failed – Claire Bellerjeau and Tiffany Yecke Brooks at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

The Battle of Yorktown – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Faith

 

Don’t Be Ashamed to Be Old – Tim Challies.

 

In Praise of My Youth Pastor – Derek Rishmawy at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Writing and Literature

 

That’s the Deal. What Rankles You Most About AI Prose? – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

‘A selfish, ignoble person’ – the dark side of the Nobel prize-winner Mario Vargas Llosa – Nicholas Shakespeare at The Spectator.

 

American Stuff

 

The Real Covid Scandal Is Bigger Than Fauci – Sigrid Bratlie at The Free Press.

 

Ernest Hamwi and the Ice Cream Cone – Jonathan Hickman at Missouri Historical Society.

 

Spinning in His Grave? TR, Fauci, & the Bureaucratic Beast – Chuck Chalberg at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

British Stuff

 

The English are best – James Price at The Critic Magazine.

How I Became the Jason Arday Affair Scapegoat - Nathan Cofnas at The Wall Street Journal (story unlocked). 

 

Life and Culture

 

The DSA Strategy to Build Power – David Duhalde at The American Prospect.

 

The Mission Medley – Ennio Morricone (Live in Venice 2007)

 Illustration: An Old Man Reading, etching and dry point on laid paper (1642) by Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680). 

Some Wednesday Readings - Aug. 19, 2026

The Joy of Baseball – Daniel Darling at One Little Word. 

Know your rights as an author and don’t get scammed – Nathan Bransford.

 

Submerged memory: C.S. Lewis and the art of forgetting – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

Remembering Blaise Pascal’s Night of Fire – Emily Kleinhenz at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

On the third day: On the religious illiteracy of college students – The New Criterion. 

 

Child – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Britain: How taboos have stifled truth – Guy Dampier at The Critic Magazine.

 

Short Story, Deep Treasures: Biblical Allusion in “The Gift of the Magi” – John Savoie at Literary Matters.

 

Flashback: The Uses of a Novella – my post at the American Christian Fiction Writers blog.

 

Painting: Blaise Pascal about 1691.

Some Monday Readings – August 3, 2026

 

Glen Hansard Made Music Feel Alive – Spencer Klavan at The Free Press.

 

The Antiquarian Bookshops of Old London – Spitalfields Life.

 

A Brief History of Hold Music, From Early Patents to the Soundtrack of Customer Service Purgatory – Leo DeLuca at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

Why the Left’s Own Thinkers Predict New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani Will Fail – Aaron Renn.

 

All the Horrifying Things We Do to Our Books – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Local News Is Dying. This Kid Bought His Hometown Newspaper Anyway – Franne Block at The Free Press.

 

How Christopher Nolan’s Best Movies Expose The Odyssey’s Flaws – Samuel D. James at Digital Liberties.

 

Rembrandt Began a Biblical Painting. Another Artist Finished it ‘Rather Crudely.’ Now, Restorations Have Revealed the Long-Lost Original – Ellen Wexler at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

Old Sarum – Hillfort, Castle, Cathedral to Rotten Borough – 1949 to 2026 – A London Inheritance.

 

Photograph: A view of Old Sarum by John H. Rhodes via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Monday Readings - July 27, 2026

 

Make do – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher. 

One Tool to Rule Them All – Brad Littlejohn at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Two Ways of Looking at a Sparrow – Alexander Fayne.

 

Britain: Tome policing – Bijan Omrani at The Critic Magazine.

 

The Year I Taught in Prison – Michael Connolly at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The Creatives Behind the Festival of Britain: Jacquetta Hawkes – A London Inheritance.

 

Don’t have blocks of time to write? Pockets work great! – Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

 

Sounds of the Forest – Timber Festival.

 

I Read All These Books and Boy Are My Lips Tired – Greg Sullivan at Sippican Cottage.

 

Christianity and the Three Cultures – Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Photograph: Jacquetta Hawkes (1910-1996) and J.B. Priestly (1894-1984) in 1960.

Some Thursday Readings – July 23, 2026

 

The Spider Taketh Hold with Her Hands, and is in Kings’ Palaces – Kilby Austin at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

“Idyll,” poem by Siegfried Sassoon and “There Is a Garden in her Face,” poem by Thomas Campion – – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Thirteen Ways of Looking at My Mother’s Bible – poem by Megan Willome. 

 

“When I consider how my light is spent,” sonnet by John Milton – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Talking about ‘The Nameless Isle’ – Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street. 

 

A Picture That Paints a Thousand Words – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Dumpling Pond: Legend, Folklore, and Local Memory in Greenwich, Connecticut – Lisa Figlioli at Journal of the American Revolution. 

 

The Bell and the Blackbird – poem by David Whyte.

 

George Cruikshank’s Summer in London – Spitalfields Life.

 

Eighteen Months, a Dark Teesside short story by Glenn McGoldrick, is free on Amazon today. I have a short review here. 

 

Illustration: At the Royal Academy (1835) by George Cruikshank.

“The Boundless Deep”: Richard Holmes on the Young Tennyson

It’s not exactly a confession, but I have the textbook I used for English in my senior year of high school, England in Literature. It’s not the one I actually used, but a copy I found at a used book fair. And I’ve also held on to the texts from my two courses in English Literature in college – the Norton Anthology of English Literature, published in 1962 and revised in 1968. I’d prefer not to think about how many editions have occurred since then (those recent is 2024). 

I pulled both texts from the shelf recently to see what poems were included from Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892). I’ve been reading The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science and the Crisis of Belief by Richard Holmes. Holmes cites Tennyson poems I’d never heard of, and I wondered how many of them had been included in those textbooks.

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

Foxy noses – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

“The Frog,” poem by Hillaire Belloc – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Close and Slow: ‘The Thought Fox’ by Ted Hughes – Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

Fifty – poem by David Whyte.

 

“To Rosamounde,” poem by Geoffrey Chaucer – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

“Restless Dead” by David Gatward

DCI Harry Grimm, somewhat “exiled” from the police force in Bristol to one in Yorkshire. And Yorkshire, even the idea of eating cheese with cake, is growing on Grimm. His team members are noticing the boss introduced as interim is sounding more and more like a local. 

Grimm is also very good at solving cases, tough, difficult, impossible cases. And he’s taken the step of making it permanent.

 

The call comes in. A sheep farmer, inf act the father of one of Grimm’s own team members, is reporting the theft of a prized herd. Since trouble, and cases, never arrives by itself, another case arrives – an elderly couple run off the run, and the wife has been killed.

 

David Gatward

The theft of the sheep will take the police team into barns and an auction yard, while the death of elderly woman will take them deep into a family’s passions and secrets – and possibly a ghost.

 

Restless Dead is the fifth DCI Harry Grimm mystery by British author David Gatward. It’s a bit different from the previous four, with a hint of the supernatural, which will eventually have a natural explanation. Mostly.

 

In addition to the DCI Harry Grimm series, Gatward has published children’s and teen fiction, taught creative writing sessions, worked as an editor, started a small publishing firm, and returned to writing when the COVID pandemic arrived. He grew up in the Cotswold’s and Yorkshire in England (including the town for the setting of Grimm Up North), and he’s also lived in Lincolnshire and the Lake District.

 

The DCI Harry Grimm novels are well-written stories, well thought out and developed with additional aspects added to over the series. They’re good stories, entertaining stories, with regular characters you care about and want to read more about.

 

Related: 

Grimm Up North by David Gatward.

 Best Served Cold by David Gatward. 

Corpse Road by David Gatward.

Shooting Season by David Gatward.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Revolutionary History: Gordon Wood’s Idea of America – Scott Spillman at The Point.

 

The Walls Have Ears – Mark Rothschild at Accidental Wisdom.

 

Congress Establishes the Board of War and Ordnance – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

The Festival of Britain and the South Bank – 75 Years Later – A London Inheritance.

 

Britain: How the Southport riots broke Starmer’s government – Mike Jones at The Critic Magazine.

“A Summer Shadow” by H.L. Marsay

The summer is unusually and rather miserably hot for York in northern England. Detective Chief Inspector John Shadow of the York Police is attending a cricket game. Cricket happens to be about the only sport he enjoys watching. And being outside has the advantage of catching whatever cool breezes might unexpectedly arise. His detective sergeant, Jimmy Chang, is there as well. 

And the during a break in the game, the elderly man who’d been serving as scorekeeper is discovered dead in the scorekeeper’s shed. And rather gruesomely murdered, in fact. At first glance, Shadow wonders who could possibly have wanted to kill an elderly man who was simply keeping score.

 

 H L Marsay

As Shadow and Chang will learn in A Summer Shadow, the ninth DCI John Shadow mystery by H L Marsay, the list of suspects is longer than one might initially think. It turns out that the man, a retired city planning officer, had something of a habit of expecting bribes from developers, and then, after retirement, expecting payment from people he was blackmailing. It almost becomes a case of who isn’t on the list of suspects.

 

It’s a fast-paced, entertaining story, with enough twists and turns to keep a slalom skier on constant alert. The case takes on an entirely different turn when a skeleton is discovered in the basement of the former newspaper building – and it might possibly be related to the death of the cricket scorekeeper.

 

A member of the Crime Writers Association, Marsay lives with her family in the city of York in England. She’s also published The Secrets of Hartwell trilogy and The Lady in Blue mysteries. 

 

A Summer Shadow shares a number of characteristics with its eight predecessors – a DCI who is curmudgeonly on a good day, an irrepressible detective sergeant who keeps his bubbly charm intact no matter what his boss throws at him, and a stop at one if not several York restaurants. It’s great fun.

 

Related: 

A Long Shadow by H L Marsay.

A Viking’s Shadow by H L Marsay.

A Ghostly Shadow by H L Marsay.

 A Roman Shadow by H.L. Marsay.

A Forgotten Shadow by H L Marsay.

A Christmas Shadow by H L Marsay.

A Stolen Shadow by H.L. Marsay.

A Saxon Shadow by H L Marsay.

Betrayal at the Old Hall by H L Marsay.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Calvin Coolidge, Christianity, & the American Founding – Nathaniel Urban at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Why did police handcuff Henry Nowak? – Andrew Tettenborn at The Spectator.

 

Soiled Work – Adam Gustine at Comment Magazine.

 

Ground Zero in the Reading Crisis – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Whistler in Wapping – Spitalfields Life.

Some Monday Readings - May 11, 2026

Revolting England – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Not-so-bookish thoughts about book clubs – Kelly Belmonte at Bandersnatch Books.

 

Serious Reading Was Always a Minority Sport – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Back When the Pulitzer Meant Something – Liel Leibovitz at The Free Press.

 

When You Hear Crickets – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

The Spitalfields Roman Woman – Spitalfields Life.

 

The Royal Festival Hall at 75 – A London Inheritance.

 

The Gratitude Shift – Melissa Edgington at Your Mom Has a Blog.

 

Photograph by Clay Banks via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Monday Readings - April 13, 2026

Joe the Hero – Mark Oppenheimer at The Dispatch. 

A Wonder Is What It Is – Nick Offerman at WNYC reads ‘A Warning to My Readers’ by Wendell Berry.

 

The Man Who Read Everything: Letters of Harold Bloom and six poets – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

The BBC needs competition – James Hodgkinson at The Critic Magazine.

 

The Easter Rising – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

 

Redundancy in action – poem by Franco Amati at Garbage Notes.

 

Two Critical Author Actions – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

St. Mary’s and the Putney Debates of 1647 – A London Inheritance.

 

Cockney Ding Dong – Spitalfields Life.

 

Photograph: Critic Harold Bloom.

Saturday Good Reads – April 4, 2026

King Charles III will not issue an Easter message this year, according to Buckingham Palace. He did, however, issue one for Ramadan. A sign of the times? In The Wall Steet Journal, Brit Louise Perry writes that Christendom is no more, and not just in Britain (article unlocked). Canada, for example, has a new hate crime bill which seems to target Christians. Some in Britain have noted that, while the Anglican church seems close to collapse, there is a revival underway. Rhys Laverty at The Critic Magazine says the reports of revival in Britain are not premature, but it’s a phenomenon mostly associated with evangelical and Catholic churches. 

We are assaulted with so much news these days that the temptation is to turn it off. All of it. And yet so much if it is accepted narrative masquerading as news. We slip into our respective siloes to make sense of it all. Joe Duke at Front Porch Republic argues that there’s a better way then listening only to echo chambers.

 

On Easter, Christians around the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Michael Kruger at Canon Fodder went looking for the best evidence of the resurrection.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

These 7 foreigners helped win the American Revolution – Claire Barrett at Military Times.

 

A Brief Introduction to the Slaving Empire of Henry Laurens – Greg Brooking and George Burkes at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

“Remember the Ladies” – 250 Years Later – Christ Mackowski at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Don’t Call Them Pirates – Jonathan Horn at The Free Press.

 

Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Life and Culture

 

The State of the Internet 2026 – Austin Gravley at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

American Diner Gothic – Robert Mariani at The New Atlantis.

 

American Stuff

 

Gratitude, Not Glory: Why Lincoln Rejected Triumph at Gettysburg – Andrew Lang at The Coolidge Review. 

 

Route 66: The Road of Endless Possibilities – Elena Scherr at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Orwell, Lewis, and Us: What Contemporaries Share Without Seeing – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

British Stuff

 

The Tower of Old London – Spitalfields Life.

 

Poetry

 

“Far Over Misty Mountain Cold,” by J.R.R Tolkien – Andrew Henry at The Saxon Cross.

 

The fruit of laughter – poem by Amelia Friedline at Innocence Abroad.

 

His Mercy is More – Matt Boswell and Matt Papa

 Illustration: A man reading a book, by David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690).

Saturday Good Reads – March 14, 2026

This past week marked the 250^th anniversary of how the occupying British army suddenly evacuated Boston. On March 13, 1776, after having awakened to the shocking site of American cannon overlooking the city, The British started moving 9,000 troops, and a considerable number of Loyalists, to ships in the harbor.  Kevin Pawlak at Emerging Revolutionary War Era, and Jonathan Horn at the Free Press, describe what happened. 

It’s almost bewildering, and painful, for me to watch some of the craziness going on in Britain right no. Police officers arresting people for tweets. Grandmothers sent to prison for defending their country. A government packing the House of Lords with handpicked supporters. A church that seems in the final stages of disintegration. A prime minister whose answer to dissent and opposition is canceling elections. It’s a classic case of “gradually, then suddenly.” Lou Aguilar at The American Spectator discusses the fall of Britain – and the warning for America.

 

On March 12, I reviewed Call Out Coyote, the new poetry collection by Seth Wieck. It’s a wonderful collection. This week, Wieck was interviewed by writer Elizabeth Stice at Orange Blossom Ordinary (which I wonder if it’s a take-off on the old fiddler’s song, “Orange Blossom Special”).

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

A Republic, NOT a Democracy – Bradley Birzer at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The Boston Massacre – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

A Venezuelan Connection – Nathan Provost at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Coup D’oeil: William Washington at the Battle of Cowpens – Lee McGee at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Boston Tea Party – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Life and Culture

 

I Regret Having Children vs. “I love being your mom” – Yuri Bezmenov at How to Subvert Subversion.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Selling Books During War – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

Literary Tools – Micah Mattix at Portico.

 

Iran

 

Beware the Dangerous Bedtime Story – Clarity with Michael Oren.

 

Poetry

 

“A Psalm of Life,” poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“In the Seven Woods,” poem by William Butler Yeats – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Afterwords – Benjamin Myers at Plough.

 

Requiem, too – Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Operative words: On the career of Henri Coulette – Boris Dralyuk & Michael Caines at The New Criterion. 

 

The Poet’s Vision – Ryan Wilson at New Verse Review.

 

Faith

 

Legacy Over Platform: Six Things That Will Outlast Your Sermons – John Kelly at New Churches.

 

Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet – Joslin & Henry Mancini

Painting: A man reading a letter, oil on canvas by Adriaen Van Ostade (1610-1685).

Some Wednesday Readings

The Nobody Inn and Radical and Dissenting Newington Green – A London Inheritance. 

Warch Pakistan Closely: The Other Front in the Iran Crisis – John Spencer at Urban Warfare. 

 

Why Movies Suck – Andrew Klavan at The New Jerusalem.

 

In Praise of Poetry and Form – Steven Knepper at Kirk Center.

 

British Culture Under Attack – By Its Curators – Joanna Williams at City Journal.

 

Saint Patrick’s Breastplate – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Splendour of Fire, Speed of Lightning: Learning from St. Patrick – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

 

“We had a great time here on St. Patrick’s Day” – Bert Dunkerly at Emerging Civil War.

 

St. Patrick – a sonnet by Malcolm Guite.

 

A Booster Dose of COVID White Pills – Yuri Bezmenov at How to Subvert Subversion.

 

Photograph: Statue of St. Patrick by Rashmi via Unsplash. Used with permission.