Saturday Good Reads – August 1, 2026

My parents were both profoundly affected by the Great Depression. My father, graduating from high school, saw his hopes for college and a medical career disappear. My mother, whose family had been relatively well-to-do, was a child, her family reduced to a father hunting for food, her mother scrubbing floors in movie theaters, and days when there was nothing to eat in the house. You don’t “get over” an experience like that; you can come to terms with it, deal with it, and overcome it, but it leaves a deep impression. At the Coolidge Review, Alexander Field writes that the Great Depression did have a hidden economic miracle that almost no one realized at the time. 

Most of us watched or read about the testimony of Dr. Anthony Facui before a Senate committee on Wednesday. Or the non-testimony. My own Missouri senator asked if Dr. Fauci could tell them the color of his tie or of the rug in the room. Both questions were met with Fauci pleading the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. The fact is, he was caught. Even with the pardon he received from former President Joe Biden, answering any question truthfully about the COVID-19 issue would be setting off multiple grenades, including for his own reputation. The general news media, almost on cue, circled the wagons; they’re as culpable as Dr. Fauci is, and the insistence that he “did the right thing” is almost beyond belief. Reporters who dared to question the received wisdom paid the price. By the way, Racket News has unlocked all its articles on Dr. Fauci; it’s providing the coverage that our mainstream media should be.

 

The mayor of New York City released the names of all the properties the city was defining as “second homes” which would result in an additional annual property tax. Except the list was never quality-checked or, apparently, reality-checked. It turns out that a lot of the listings are not what the city thought they were, as a reporter for The Free Press discovered when his 81-year-old mother was socked with an additional $55,000 assessment on her house. It’s not a second home. She owns no second home. But someone in the city decided her property qualified. But never fear; there’s an appeal process – dense, opaque, and all online, almost especially designed to mystify elderly people. She navigated it, or actually, her son did it for her (article unlocked).

 

More Good Reads

 

Writing and Literature

 

Old-Souled Stories – Scott Bradford at Story Warren.

 

Narnia: There is no “Problem” of Susan – Jeremy Rios. 

 

The Good Death of Kate Montclair – Dwight Longenecker at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Life and Culture 

 

A Liturgy with a Pause – for the Killing – George Sinclair at The Gospel Coalition Canada.

 

Who Benefits the Most from AI Data Centers? – Georgia Tech at Futurity.

 

25 Movies That Actually Reflect the American Spirit – Around the Parnassus Campfire.

 

Twenty-One Years, by the Numbers – Brian Miller at Notes from an East Tennessee Farmer.

 

America 250

 

Samuel Brady: A Future Legend Goes to War – Eric Sterner at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Southern Pivot and the Battle of Camden in the Revolutionary War – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

The Tombstone Edition that Helped Galvanize American Independence – Neely Tucker at Library of Congress Blogs.

 

American Stuff

 

Katherine Lee Bates and the American Mythos – Tim Milosch at Front Porch Republic.

 

America’s Museum Erased Christianity – Lauren Cooley at the Institute for Faith & Culture.

 

Music

 

How Antonio Vivaldi Died in Obscurity and Conquered the World Two Centuries Later – Jason Clark at This Is the Day.

 

Poetry

 

“My Dearest Dust,” poem by Lady Catherine Dyer – Katie Hartsock and Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“Narcissus and Adonis,” Sonnet 3 by William Shakespeare – K.S. Bernstein at Apple Blossoms in a Mournful Wood.

 

The Outsider’s Blessing – poem by Jack Baumgartner at The School for the Transfer of Energy.

 

“Upon Julia’s Clothes,” poem by Robert Herrick – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Falling Slowly – Glen Hansard (1970-2026) and Marketa Irglova

Illustration: The Book Hunters (1907) by Gordon Grant (1875-1962), printed in Collier’s Magazine in 1909.

Saturday Good Reads - Oct. 7, 2023

If you’ve never had a muffuletta sandwich from Central Grocery on Decatur Street in the New Orleans French Quarter, you have missed one of the great culinary experiences of life. The Italian grocery has been closed for two years, after a neighboring brick wall collapsed on its roof during Hurricane Ida and the rain flooded the place. But it’s back, and so is the muffuletta.  

I grew up between two distinct language cultures – the Brooklynesque of my mother’s family in New Orleans and the Deep South accent of my father’s family. I was the only member of either family that had no obvious accent; people often thought I was from the American Midwest. And I married into the Deep South accent, although my wife had very little of it herself. Experts are now saying that the iconic Southern accent is slowly disappearing. 

 

We have a friend who’s increasingly suffering with memory problems, and it’s a very hard thing for family and friends to watch and deal with a much-loved person who will likely not remember what happened yesterday. In a very long post which is a compendium of reflections and diary entries, Joseph Mussomeli at The Imaginative Conservative tells the 10-year-plus story of his wife’s Alzheimer’s disease. Fair warning: you will be in tears.

 

More Good Reads

 

Poetry

 

Happy New Year – Lisa Olstein at Literary Hub.

 

Village Home – Martin Rizley at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Writing and Literature

 

The power of a story – Mark at My book reviews/Thoughts of a Sojourner.

 

Life and Culture

 

The descent of man: The mainstreaming of misandry – Jess Gill at The Critic Magazine.

 

Political correctness contra aesthetics – Harry Clynch at The Critic Magazine.

 

Two Murders – and the Cost of Luxury Beliefs – Rob Henderson at The Free Press.

 

Art

 

Eleanor Crowe’s Everyday – Spitalfields Life.

 

Faith

 

The Christian Life Involves Dance, Not Drudgery – Bob Flayhart at GC Discipleship.

 

Why Learn Greek and Hebrew? – Rob Plummer at Desiring God.

 

A Case for Christian Optimism – Andrew Roycroft at Thinking Pastorally.

 

Dad, Where Are You Going? – Tim at Live for the Line. 

 

COVID-19

 

Anthony Fauci Was America’s Warmup Dictator and Footnote: I, Faucius – Matt Taibbi at Racket News.

 

British Stuff

 

Gillian Tindall at St. Bride’s – Spitalfields Life.

 

White Cliffs in the distance – Timothy Jacobson at New Criterion.

 

American Stuff

 

American Homer: Celebrating the bicentenary of historian Francis Parkman – Luke Nicastro at City Journal.

 

The Early Days of American English – Rosemarie Ostler at Lapham’s Quarterly.

 

Video: First Love – The McClures

Painting: St. John the Evangelist at Patmos, oil on canvas (circa 1618) by Diego Velazquez (1599-1660). 

Saturday Good Reads - Sept. 2, 2023

Years ago, when I spent eight months at St. Louis Public Schools, a phrase was often repeated by administrators, board members, consultants, teachers, principals, and sometimes even parents. The phrase was, “It’s for the good of the children.” It took all of two weeks, but I learned that whenever that phrase was used, the subject at hand was about anything but the good of the children. We have all kinds of phrases like that these days, and Matt Taibbi at Racket News looks at one of them: “Democracy.”Another one is “Follow the science.” Jason Blakely at Harper’s Magazine has some thoughts on that one. 

In Colorado, a 12-year-old schoolboy and his mother had to educate the teacher, the school administrator, and the school board that the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag did not arise out of slavery. Newsweek has this story, while Fox News reported it this way. It’s worth noting that the school board relented only after the story went viral. And Mark Maloy at Emerging Revolutionary War Era gives the historical background on the flag. 

 

For as long as they’ve existed, the Pulitzer Prizes have gone to American authors and writers. The Pulitzer board is considering changing that. Micah Mattix at Prufrock notes that the prizes aren’t what they used to be and instead are now allotted on the basis of politics. It’s not just the Pulitzers, of course. It’s everywhere, and it’s one reason I’ve stopped seeing literary prizes as a big deal. 

 

One of the truisms I learned in school was that President Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg made barely a ripple when he gave it in November of 1863 at the dedication of the national cemetery. Supposedly, it was only succeeding generations who understood its importance.  I think I heard that truism repeated all the years I was a speechwriter, too. Gerald Lefurgy at Emerging Civil War points out that the truism may have less basis in reality that we thought.

 

More Good Reads

 

COVID-19

 

Who Best Avoided the COVID Religion? – Benjamin Tucker at The Epoch Times.

 

News Media

 

Disinfo-nation: the new censorship is here to stay – Peter Wood at The Spectator.

 

The big turn-off: Declining audiences is a big problem for journalism – Fred Skulthrop at The Critic Magazine.

 

Life and Culture

 

If American States Were Real People – As Generated by AI – Gary Rodgers at Dying Words.

 

A Requiem for Manners – Stephen Klugewicz at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

On Maui, ‘Climate Change’ Is Not to Blame – Lisa Shiffren at The Pipeline.

 

Fresh off a Supreme Court Win, the Praying Coach Takes the Field – Julia Duin at The Free Press.

 

Faith

 

Sometimes Creation Speaks for Us – Ashley Anthony ay Story Warren.

 

No Fear of Old Age – Tim Challies.

 

Writing and Literature

 

A Conversation with Katy Carl on Place, Fiction, and Contemplation – Seth Wieck at Front Porch Republic.

 

Boys need books: the gendering of publishing has gone too far – Myke Bartlett at The Critic Magazine.

 

Indie Publishers and Copyright – Dean Wesley Smith.

 

American Stuff

 

The True Story Behind Hacksaw Ridge – Cassidy Stephenson at CBR. 

 

Art

 

Drunkard or genius? Up close and personal with Frans Hals – Jose da Silva at The Art Newspaper.

 

Sancta Trinitas unus Deus – Gloriae Dei Cantores

 Painting: Woman Reading a Book, oil on canvas (1911) by Mary Cassatt (1844-1926).

Saturday Good Reads - Aug. 26, 2023

Two years ago this month, we watched a tragedy unfold in Afghanistan. The U.S. began withdrawing its troops, the Afghan army and government began collapsing faster than anyone thought possible, and chaos ensued for days at the airport in Kabul. A new book describes what happened, and how much is owed to the veterans organizations that stepped in to save Afghan allies and their families.  

I didn’t know that, in A Preface to Paradise, C.S. Lewis criticized T.S. Eliot. Privately, he had criticized Eliot’s poetry, and he had previously criticized The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. A luncheon in 1945 midwifed by their mutual friend Charles Williams did little to bridge the chasm between the two. But things changed in the 1950s, and Joel Miller has the story. Miller also has a followup: it was Eliot who published Lewis's A Grief Observed, submitted under a pseudonym. Eliot guessed the writer's identity and agreed to publish the book, but with a different pseudonym.

 

I read recently that cholesterol may not be the awful villain it was once thought. Ditto for fat in foods. And then we were told all kinds of official positions during COVID that turned out to be something less than science based. We’re supposed, to “follow the science,” but what science is that? David Warren at Essays in Idleness reminds us that scientific journal editors themselves have long believed much research is suspect. Matt Taibbi at Racket News describes the “misinformation” that plagued the response to COVID from the very beginning. 

 

More Good Reads

 

American Stuff

 

Talle de Noyer, Florissant – Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina. 

 

The Unmarked Memorial at the Mouth of Mobile Bay – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Civil War.

 

A six-decade march – James Piereson at New Criterion.

 

Making American History Dramatic Again – Jonathan Den Hartog at Real Clear History.

 

A Hat for a Coat: Revisiting the Famous Parley Between J.E.B. Stuart and John Pope – Kevin Pawlak at Emerging Civil War.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Blurbs – Janet Reid, Literary Agent.

 

Life and Culture

 

Planting Our Flag in the Real World: Parents Take the Postman Pledge – Matt Stewart at Front Porch Republic.

 

The Messi Effect: New Miami stars brings big business to MLS – Dan Hajducky at ESPN. 

 

Has the patriot economy’s moment finally arrived? – Amber Athey at The Spectator.

 

Faith

 

So, What Did Jesus Think about the Old Testament? – Michael Kruger at Canon Fodder.

 

Days Like Blackberries – Seth Lewis.

 

A hand on my shoulder: Meeting the man who led my Dad to Jesus – Andrew Roycroft at Thinking Pastorally.

 

They Will Never Understand How Much I Love Them – Jacob Crouch.

 

The Death of Church and Pub – Carl Trueman at First Things Magazine.

 

And for our 50^th anniversary: Annie’s Song – John Denver 

 Painting: Man Reading a Newspaper, oil on board by August Friedrich Siegert (1820-1883). 

Saturday Good Reads - Aug. 12, 2023

In 1978, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn did the impossible – he gave a commencement address that was remembered for years afterward. Entitled “A World Split Apart,” the speech took both the Soviets and the West to task for what was happening in world culture. No surprise, but the American news media hated it – he pointed the finger at them as well as other Western institutions. Jeremy Kee at The Imaginative Conservative says there is still much we can learn from that speech. 

John Klar at Front Porch Republic provides an updated version of the old story, “The City Mouse and the Country Mouse.” Unfortunately, it’s more than a just a story.

 

For years, Ryan Burge has been doing in-depth surveys and research into the state of religion in America. At his column on Substack, he provides a summary of four of the most dramatic shifts in the past 50 years. The most significant: the collapse of the Protestant mainline denominations.

 

There’s a story unfolding in New Orleans that most of the news media knows about but is looking the other way. It’s Missouri v. Biden, in which several states sued the federal government over claims of censorship of social media – with social media’s assistance. Matt Taibbi at Racket News has two stories: “In Landmark Censorship Case, Judges Grill the Feds” and “’F-Bomb This’: The Biden Administration’s Brutal Censorship Faceplant.” You would think that this kind of censorship case, which began with Missouri’s Solicitor General, might be covered by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. And you would be wrong.

 

More Good Reads

 

American Stuff

 

CSS Alabama Opens 1863 with a Bang: Part 1  and Part 2 – Dwight Hughes at Emerging Civil War. 

 

Disney used to hate gambling. Now it’s doing a $2 billion sports betting deal – Peter Kafka at Vox. 

 

A Contemporary Reaction to the Massacre at Fort William Henry, August 10, 1757 – Emerging Revolutionary War Era. 

 

Writing and Literature

 

How Scientific and Technological Breakthroughs Created a New Kind of Fiction – Joshua Glenn at Literary Hub. 

 

The Faith of Men of Letters – George Panichas at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

A Scrappy Defense of the Novel – John Wilson at Prifrock.

 

COVID-19

 

Anthony Fauci’s Deceptions – David Zweig at The Free Press.

 

Poetry

 

Four Love Poems – James Tweedie at Society of Classical Poets.

 

 Sun and moon – Kathleen at The Course of Our Seasons.

 

News Media

 

Jen Psaki’s MSNBC propaganda hour – The American Spectator.

 

Faith

 

My Coldest Night and Warmest Truth – Michaela Challies.

 

The World’s Easiest Theological Question – Michael Kruger at Canon Fodder. 

 

Where Have All the Theologians Gone? – Mark Jones at Reformation 21.

 

British Stuff

 

George Cruikshank’s London Summer – Spitalfields Life. 

 

Simple Gifts – Gloriae Dei Cantores

Painting: Seated Boy, or Poor Student – Victor Manzano (1831-1865). 

Saturday Good Reads - July 22, 2023

COVID-19

Matt Taibbi, Michal Shellenberger, and several others, who used to be journalists at what we call the national news media or mainstream media, have been doing independent journalism for some time – the kind of journalism that used to be common in the United States. Taibbi and Shellenberger were two of those involved in reporting on the Twitter files, which showed the U.S. government was not above attempting to censor any and all who disagreed with it (especially on the subject on the Hunter Biden laptop, which turned out not to be Russian disinformation, despite the FBI’s best efforts to convince us otherwise). 

 

These journalists were able to obtain the transcripts from an ongoing chat session held in 2020 between the four scientists who were assessing the origin of COVID-19 for what would be deemed the definitive study. Their initial conclusions pointed to the escape of an engineered virus from the Wuhan lab in China, but they quickly discovered that Francis Collins of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and even Nature Magazine were frowning on that, believing it would lend credence to wild conspiracy theories. So, the four scientists in their chat room fretted, worried, discussed, commiserated – and ultimately gave Collins and Fauci what they wanted. Follow the science!

 

·      New Covid Documents Reveal Unparalleled Media Deception.

·      “In Their Labs”: Fifteen Illuminating Passages in the Proximal Origin Chats and Emails.

·      Covid’s Origins and the Death of Trust.

·      “The Guy Isn’t Totally Wrong”: The Curious Case of Covid-19 Scientists and Senator Tom Cotton.

 

And if you think The New York Times doesn’t try to right the record, it published a story headlined “A Positive Covid Milestone.” Down in the 17^th paragraph of the story, you’ll discover that COVID deaths were over-calculated by about 30 percent. When I was in journalism school, we called that burying the lede. And my journalism teacher would have awarded me an automatic F for doing it.

 

Life and Culture

 

Ambiguity and Belonging in Oklahoma – Benjamin Myers at Front Porch Republic. 

 

Digital IDs are coming and they’re worse than you think – Ricky at Council Estate Media. This is a report about the UK, but don’t think the lessons are being lost in the US. China, apparently, has much to teach us.

 

In 2018, Martin Gurri published The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium, which goes a long way in explaining why no one trusts institutions any more. At City Journal, he’s writing about one of the most curious developments of 21^st century American culture: How the establishment Left, once such a champion of freedom of speech (think ACLU), has now embraced government control of digital speech. .

 

In Defense of Libraries – Philip Bunn at The London Lyceum.

 

A good movie gets smeared – Bethel McGrew at World Magazine.

 

Faith

 

Man Cannot Live on Feeds Alone – Trevin Wax at Desiring God.

 

14 Lesser-Known Details about J.I. Packer – Leland Ryken at Crossway.

 

The Local Church We All Need – Lara d’Entremont.

 

How Were the Books of the Bible “Chosen”? – Michael Kruger at Canon Fodder.

 

Poetry

 

Poem Found: New Orleans, September 2005 – Martha Serpas at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

Good Friday, Revisiting Glamis – James Sale at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Art

 

Arms – Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

American Stuff

 

One of the best Thanksgiving memories my family has is the time (about 1992) we went to Lake of the Ozarks for what was an exceptionally cold holiday. We stayed at Lodge of the Four Seasons (no connection to the Four Seasons hotel chain), enjoyed a lavish Thanksgiving buffet, swam in a heated pool, competed in bowling, took walks, and enjoyed a movie in the lodge’s theater (well, my wife and oldest son enjoyed the movie; the younger son and I found something else to do, as he was not yet a fan of movie theaters). The Lake of the Ozarks has developed in a major way since then; it gained national fame (infamy?) on Memorial Day 2020, when tens of thousands crowded in for the holiday as the country was locked down for COVID (the number of cases that resulted: 2). Max Meyer at The Free Press went to the lake, and he says “Welcome to the MAGA Hamptons.”

 

“What these heroic souls of the 5^th Regiment began, we must complete”: Booker T. Washington’s Address – Sarah Kay Bierle at Emerging Civil War.

 

The Chicago Mob Vs. the World’s Fair – Anika Scott at CrimeReads. 

 

Writing and Literature

 

Blood Meridian is Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece – Aaron Gwyn at The Spectator.

 

British Stuff

 

Nicholas Hawksmoor’s Churches – Spitalfields Life. 

 

Whole Lotta Love vs. Beethoven 5^th Symphony – 2 Cellos

Painting: Forbidden Literature, oil on canvas by Felix-Henri Giacomotti (1828-1909).