Some Monday Readings – Aug. 21, 2026

In Search of Northanger Abbey: Farleigh Hungerford Castle – Nancy Bilyeau at English Historical Fiction Authors. 

At the Zoo – Adam Smith at Ford Forum.

 

The Restless Odysseus in All of Us – Luke Sheahan at National Review.

 

Storytelling with Martin Shaw – Frank Mulder at Plough.

 

Why Is Nothing Original Anymore – E.J. Larow at After Progress.

 

The Man Called Ishi: Story of the Yahi’s Final Survivor – Brian Clark at This Is the Day.

 

Review: An Underappreciated Victory; Bernardo de Gálvez’s Mississippi River Campaign Against the British in 1779 by Stephen L. Kling, Jr. and Kristine L. Sjostrom – Phil Greenwalt at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

See 16 Stunning Images from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards – Carlyn Kranking at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

“Consecration Day” – William Merriman at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

Photograph: The existing buildings and part of the ruins of Farleigh Hungerford Castle, via English Heritage.

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 Monday Readings - July 20, 2026

Rehabilitating Time: Memory & the Writing Life – Daniel Sundahl at The Imaginative Conservative.

Charity That’s Just Ducky – Annie Nardone at Cultivating Oaks Press.

 

At Waltham Abbey – Spitalfields Life.

 

Want More Babies? We Need More Friends – Robert Henderson at City Journal.

 

“The people here are liberty mad…” Nicholas Cresswell and the American Independence – Rob Orrison at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Archaeologists Found a 2,000-Year-Old Garden Beneath a Church. It May Be the Site of Jesus’s Tomb – Michael Natale at Popular Mechanics.

 

The Hazards of Public Life – Jeffrey Bilbro at Plough.

 

Up the Hudson and Into the Heart of America – Megan Pidcock at The Wall Street Journal (unlocked). 

 

How a Chance Meeting Gave Me Some Tools to Help Mr. Wild Dog and Rejuvenated My Dream – Katie Andraski at Katie’s Ground.

 

St. Pancras Church and the Loss of the Steamship City of Boston – A London Inheritance.

 

Painting: The Beeches, oil on canvas (1845) by Asher Brown Durand (1796-1886), part of the Hudson River School, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Some Monday Readings - July 6, 2026

The ex-Dominion – David Warren at Essays in Idleness. 

The untold story of Brexit – David Shipley at The Critic Magazine.

 

No Faith Worth Defending – Carl Trueman at First Things Magazine.

 

Where Did Lincoln Deliver the Gettysburg Address – Allen Guelzo at The Golden Thread. 

 

Fake World: Everything You Think Is a Lie – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review on Philip K. Dick’s The Penultimate Truth.

 

Journey’s Jonathan Cain releases patriotic rock anthem, reveals meaning of ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ – Leah MarieAnn Klett at The Christian Post.

 

“We Always Leave Things Unfinished” – Alexander Sorondo at Big Reader Bad Grades.

 

St Bartholomew the Less, the Chapel and Parish Church of St Barts – A London Inheritance.

 

The age of Friedman – James Piereson at The New Criterion.

 

Photograph: Author Philip K. Dick (1928-1982).

Some Monday Readings - June 22, 2026

If the First Apocalypse Doesn’t Get You, the Second One Will – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review on the novels of R.C. Sherriff. 

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

 

Robert Besley, the Clarendon Typeface, and the Longbow – A London Inheritance.

 

McDonald’s is bringing back fried apple pie for America’s 250^th birthday – Colleen Cabili at Quartz.

 

The Surprising Ways Fatherhood Changes Men – Sarah Campisi Hallier at The Epoch Times.

 

Solstice Stories – Padraig O Tuama at Poetry Unbound.

 

When Writers Don’t Respond – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

Photograph: The writer R.C. Sherriff (1896-1975).

Some Monday Readings - May 18, 2026

A Realist Outline of History – Joseph Woodard at The Imaginative Conservative. 

Why Read? Reading, print culture & liberal democracy – Roosevelt Montas at Commonweal Magazine.

 

God vs. Machine: How to Handle the Rise of Religious Objections to AI in the Workplace – Kit Eaton at Inc. Magazine.

 

David Copperfield: A Hero Beside the Point – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

“Octopus’s Garden” – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know: Lord Byron’s Memoirs – Jason Clark at This Is the Day.

 

Case Study: 80-Year-Old Author Crushes It! – Dave Chesson at Kindlepreneur.

 

“Language matters: On the media’s anti-American animus – The New Criterion.

 

Fuel for Another Disappointment – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

Consider the Small Town – Melissa Edgington at Your Mom Has a Blog.

 

St. Irenaeus on Christian Memory & Tradition – Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative.

Painting: George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824).

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 - May 4, 2026

Tolkien, Chesterton, & the Sloth of England – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative. 

Who Really Wrote Philip K. Dick’s Best Novel? – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Plato’s Cave and the Rise of the Highly Educated Radical – Jacob Howland at The Free Press.

 

The Greatest Sentence Ever Written? – Christ Mackowski at Emerging Revolutionary War Era. 

 

Celebrating 15 Years with the Kettle On – Every Day Poems – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Illustration: The Declaration of Independence. 

Some Monday Readings - April 20, 2026

 

Reading is magic – Sam Kriss at Numb at the Lodge. 

Tales from the road: The dead of Falling Waters, a forgotten Gettysburg Campaign battle – John Banls’ Civil War Blog.

 

No, Books Are Note Remotely Too Expensive – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

A New Wild West in Jackson, Louisiana – James Taylor Foreman at The Dispatch.

 

A Week of Tears. A Week of Storms – Katie Andraskie at Katie’s Ground.

 

Publishing has an AI problem – Alexander Larman at The Critic Magazine.

 

Learn the Hard Way – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

How Big Pharma (Successfully) Targeted Women – Matt Bivens at Racket News.

 

A Christian Philosophy of Education – Howard Merken at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Photograph: The Falling Waters historical marker.

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.

Some Monday Readings - April 6, 2026

How ‘Tiny Shortcuts’ Are Poisoning Science – Thomas Plumper and Eric Neumayer at The MIT Press Reader. 

The Bills That Destroyed Urban America – Joseph Lawler at The New Atlantis.

 

A Truck Driver Spent 20 Years Building a Miniature Model of New York City. Then, It Went Viral – Sarah Cascone at Artnet.

 

Selma Hall, Jefferson County, Missouri – Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina.

 

Spies and Lies: The Rosenbergs and America’s Atomic Secrets – Jason Clark at This Is the Day.

 

Ancient Splendor: Roman Art in the Time of Trajan – St. Louis Art Museum (video).

 

Editor, Do Your Work! – Tery Whalin at The Writing Life.

Photograph: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.

 

Some Monday Readings - March 30, 2026

The Death of Rabelais – Benjamin Myers reviews the play by Jane Scharl at Fare Forward. 

Dostoevsky is blunt and dreary – so why has he gone viral? – Henry Oliver at The Times of London.

 

There is a House in New Orleans – James Tylor Foreman at The Metaphor.

 

Substack Has Revived the Serial Novel – A.A. Kostas at Compact.

 

Britain: The revolt against the public – Holly Marshall at The Critic Magazine.

 

It Only Takes One – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

Late 20^th Century Sculptures in the City of London – A London Inheritance.

 

Belief and wonder – Padraig O Tuama at Poetry Unbound.

Illustration: Francois Rabelais (1482/1494-1553).

Some Monday Readings

Publishing’s Little Secret: It’s All Gambling – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

Nothing is more practical than falling in love – Joy Clarkson (Hat tip: Amelia Friedline). 

 

John Dempsey’s Street Portraits – Spitalfields Life.

 

Everyone Gets Rejected – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

The View from the Garden at 120 – A London Inheritance.

 

The Good Shepherd – short story by Jason Clark at This Is the Day.

 

Paul Kingsnorth’s Against the Machine – Churck Chalberg at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Top: The cover of Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth.

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). 

Some Monday Readings

A Splendid Poem: Richard Garland’s Epic Flight – James Marten at Emerging Civil War. 

Mythologizing the Mythmakers: Tolkien’s “The Notion Club Papers” – Bradley Birzer at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Burnham and Grant: American Jeremiahs – Geoff Russ at Modern Age Journal.

 

The Killer and the Harlot: Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

It’s Never Too Much. It’s Only Not Enough – Greg Sullivan at Sippican Cottage on a childhood friend.

 

The idea of a college – David Butterfield at New Criterion.

 

Reform can’t make Britain Christian again – Jimmy Nicholls at The Critic Magazine.

Some Monday Readings

The Wonder of The Comedy: How to Read Dante – Jason Baxter at The Imaginative Conservative. 

A Shakespearean History of Traffic – Callan Davies at The Shakespeare Stage.

 

The Multibillion-Dollar Foundation That Controls the Humanities – Tyler Austin Harper at The Atlantic.

 

Don’t Count Your Chickens – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

Updike without a paddle – Bruce Bawer at New Criterion on Selected Letters of John Updike.

 

Ten Odd Facts About Hanel’s “Messiah” – Terez Rose at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Illustration: Dante holding a copy of The Divine Comedy at the entrance of hell, with the terraces of Purgatory and the spheres of heaven. Fresco by Domenico di Michelino (1465).

Some Monday Readings

The Pretti Case Exposes a Dangerous Lie – Walter Hudson.

 

From Yellow Pads to Bestseller: John Grisham and the Publication of The Firm – Jason Clark at This Is the Day.

 

Computers Can’t Surprise – Richard Beard at Aeon Magazine.

 

The World of Charles Dickens – A.C.S. Bird at Story Warren on two children’s books.

 

10 Unforgettable Superbowl Commercials – Zach Schonfeld at History. 

Brexit: Britain’s Forever War – Helen Thompson at History Today. 

Some Monday Readings

The Day NY Publishing Lost Its Soul – Ted Gioia at The Honest Broker. 

The Beautiful Mess of Steinbeck’s East of Eden – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Weimar America & A Smoldering World – Rod Dreher’s Diary.

 

Erich von Daniken and the modern paranoid style – James Snell at The Critic Magazinbe.

 

An apology and a revelation – Lancia Smith at Cultivating a Writer’s Life.

 

The nature of nature writing – Padraig O Tuama at Poetry Unbound.

 

How to Deliver a Legendary Speech – Yuri Bezmenov at How to Subvert Subversion.

 

MLK’s Final Act of Faith – Jonathan Eig at The Free Press.

 

Letters from Triune: ‘Fat,’ ‘lazy,’ and the high price of whisky – John Banks’ Civil War Blog.

Some Monday Readings - Dec. 2, 2024

St. Hedwig’s: A Clean, Well-Lighted Place – Rod Dreher at The European Conservative. 

The John le Carre Advent Calendar – Tom Gauld at The Guardian.

 

An Education in Thanksgiving – Rachel Alexander Cambre at Law & Liberty on Wendell Berry’s Hannah Coulter. 

 

Advent Sunday: Christina Rossetti – Malcolm Guite.

 

Finding Order in the Pieces – John Wilson at First Things Magazine.

 

Britain Votes for Death – The Four Discoursemen. 

 

Crossing the Thames at Woolwich – A London Inheritance.

 

Connect Before You Ask – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

A Look Back at the Battle of Franklin – Emerging Civil War.

 

Plainsong – poem by Donald Platt at The New Criterion. 

 

Top illustration: Christina Rossetti.