Saturday Good Reads – September 19, 2026

My wife and I have joke about PBS: When all else fails, do Downton Abbey or some variation on the theme. Reruns, fundraisers – it seems at times it all turns to Downton Abbey and the Crawley family. And now, for the true fan of the famed British television series, comes the spinoff to end all spinoffs – the 4,711-piece Official Downtown Abbey LEGO set, complete with 13 minifigures! And it’s only $349.99! 

Most of what we read about the Declaration of Independence focuses on the events leading up to it, the writing of it, or what it still means. Emily Sneff took a different approach and looked at how the Declaration was disseminated in the six months after its adoption by the Continental Congress.

 

What do you do when your entire life seems to have hit a wall, and you simply don’t have the will to go on? Marc Sims at Et Cetera takes that familiar experience and sets it in the context of Christianity.

 

More Good Reads

 

Faith

 

A Murderer Like Me – Missy Roepnack.

 

“Rise Up, O Men of God,” Hymn by William Pearson Merrill – Anthony Esolen at Word & Wong.

 

You Are Not Your Trials – Michael Kelley at Forward Progress.

 

America 250

 

Washington Resigns His Commission and Foreign Threats to the Republic – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Benjamin Rush – The Revolution’s Indispensable Doctor – Joseph Loconte at Acton Institute.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Samuel Johnson: “A Writer for Us All” – Henry Oliver at The Priory.

 

Belloc’s “Belinda” – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

British Stuff

 

Where have all the vicars gone? – A.N. Wilson.

 

In Search of Roman London – Spitalfields Life.

 

American Stuff

 

American Malls Were Once Packed – So What Killed Them? – Secret State Files (video).

 

Art

 

Art imitating life: Artist self-portraits in the SLAM collection – Emily Wasserman at St. Louis Art Museum.

 

Life and Culture

 

The Making of Roger Scruton – Dan Hitchens at First Things Magazine.

 

The death of biblical literacy – Gwion Wyn Jones at The Spectator.

 

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Artificial Intelligence – Teddy Macker at Front Porch Republic.

 

Poetry

 

“At Melville’s Tomb,” poem by Hart Crane – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Inside the once-hidden workshop of ‘The Muppets’ creator Jim Henson – Associated Press

 Painting: Man with a Book, oil on canvas by Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680), The Leiden Collection.

Saturday Good Reads - Sept. 12, 2026

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered beginning in 1947. A group of Bedouin shepherds discovered clay jars almost a thousand years old in desert caves. Jars kept being discovered into 1956. Selections from the scrolls are being exhibited this year at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. And Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative explains why the scrolls are so important to Western civilization. 

It happened back in the 1920s, a time of excess, prosperity, and broad disillusionment. America seemed to fall in love with vicious killers. And now, it seems to be happening again. Daniel Darling at The Daily Wire explains why America, or some subset of Americans, now worships its cold-blooded killers.

 

I have been bombarded by emails from people described as marketing experts, agents, editors, and book promoters, often with elaborate descriptions of my novels and how wonderful they are. Your heart might react a little, until you realize that all of these experts are likely derived from an AI application and the whole thing is a scam. Tim Challies explains how scammers are targeting Christian authors.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

The Poetry of American Independence – Steve Knepper and Brad Skow at New Verse Review.

 

Strange Bedfellows: Adams and Franklin – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

How Did the Nation Get Its Name? – Greg Daugherty at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

A Battle in Our Own Backyard – Molly McMurphy at Missouri Historical Society.

 

Washington’s Invalid Crops: Wounded Warriors Still Served the Revolutionary Cause – David Welker at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

Life and Culture

 

The Crucifixion of Patrick Clancy – Bethel McGrew at Further Up.

 

Homeschooling Is More Normal Than You Think – Tessa Carman at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Faith

 

Why we need to be students of the past / church history – Michael A.G. Azad Haykin at Historia ecclesiastica.

 

A Catechism on Technology – Darryl Dash at Dashhouse.

 

Writing and Literature

 

What is literary criticism, if not close reading? Art, Magic, and Common Sense – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

American Stuff

 

The Enduring Tragedy of 9/11 – Michael Oren at Clarity.

 

25 years ago, two strangers met in the twin towers and escaped on 9/11. What happened next? – David Smith at The Guardian.

 

On Escaping This Horrible Era – Matt Taibbi at Racket News.

 

The First Rough Draft of 9/11 History – Nicholas Clairmont at The Free Press. 

 

Poetry

 

“My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is,” poem by Sir. Edward Dyer – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“September 1913,” poem by Wiliam Butler Yeats – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

British Stuff

 

Tearing at the fabric – James Price at The Critic Magazine.

 

Shut Up and Dance – Movie Compilations

Painting: Hotel Room, oil on canvas (1931) by Edwad Hopper (1882-1967); Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.

Saturday Good Reads - Sept. 5, 2026

Since his death on Monday, people have been writing about Wendell Berry (1934-2026). Including me at Tweetspeak Poetry. Below are quite a few links – memories, remembrances, assessments. I’m reminded of Mark Twain’s words, “Let us endeavor so to live so that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry.” Wendell Berry was loved, and he left a deep mark. 

In late August, I wrote about how The Norton Anthology of English Literature shaped my understanding of poetry. It turns out I wasn’t the only one. Mark Bauerlein at Portico discusses his own Norton experience. 

 

The author of the blog Spitalfields Life took a walk along the Ridgeway, considered to be the oldest road in Britain. He wrote about the experience, and he took pictures, too. 

 

More Good Reads

 

Wendell Berry

 

Stewarding Land and Language – Jake Meador at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Love’s Shadowless Light – Jeffrey Bilbro at Front Porch Republic.

 

In Memory: Wendell Berry – Gracy Olmstead at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Wendell Berry’s Eternal Story – Paul Kingsnorth at First Things Magazine.

 

The Once and Future Wisdom of Wendell Berry – Rod Dreher at The Free Press.

 

Wendell Berry, writer and prophet, was extolled by many as a modern-day prophet – Yonat Shimron and Adelle Banks at Religio News Service.

 

Wendell Berry’s vision of a sacred world – Norman Wirzba at The Christian Century.

 

Why Wendell Berry mattered – Nate Hanrahan at The Spectator.

 

The Real Ideal – Paul Pastor at Front Porch Republic.

 

Remembering Wendell Berry – Gracy Olmstead at Granola.

 

A Voice for My Generation – Samuel Heard at Front Porch Republic.

 

Writing and Literature

 

We Still Need Fairy Tales – Ashley Hales at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Life and Culture

 

When Everything Is Forgotten – Joseph Orso at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Art

 

Riding the Waves of Stone Sea, St. Louis Art Museum’s Largest artwork – Emily Wasserman at St. Louis Art Museum blog. 

 

Movies

 

20 Years Later, ‘Amazing Grace’ Producer Says Wilberforce’s Story Still Resonates – Michael Foust at Crosswalk.

 

Poetry

 

“Last Supper,” poem by Elinor Wylie – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Derrick Porter, Hoxton Poet – Spitalfields Life.

 

Faith

 

How to Pray When You Fel Like You Pray the Same Thing Every Day – Courtney Reissig at Crossway.

 

Known by Heaven – Josh Groban and Lauren Daigle

 Photograph: Wendell Berry Reading by Ben Aguilar via The Berry Center.

Saturday Good Reads - August 29, 2026

This past Thursday was the 250^th anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn. The army of George Washington lost the battle – and the American Revolution was nearly strangled right at the very beginning. What saved Washington’s army was a group of soldiers known as the Maryland 400.  

I own a Kindle, and I have a lot of books on it. I’ve also been paring back my library of physical books; some 400 have already made their way to a school library. But I do love holding a book in my hands while I read. Matthew Adams at Mining the Riches agrees, and he says some things are worth holding on to.

 

Have you ever wondered how people predicted the weather before we had Accu-Weather? Signs in the sky? Aching bones? Meteorology didn’t begin coming of age until the mid-nineteenth century, but people had been predicting the weather long before that. Becky Little at History takes a look at the various ways people used to figure out what was happening or going to happen with the weather.

 

Faith

 

The Best Argument for Christianity – Kelly Keller at Story Warren.

 

Christian Obedience in Two Words – Michael Kelley at Forward Progress.

 

Surprised by Silence – Matthew Rubenstein at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

America 250

 

The 21-Mile Circle: American Revolution Heritage Sites in the English Midlands – Steve Willis at Journal of the American Revolution. 

 

Negotiating American Independence and Thwarting the Newburgh Conspiracy – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Poetry

 

Forming the Affections of Our Children – Paul Kearney at Front Porch Republic.

 

Chaucer Announces His Desire to Retire – poem by Paul Freeman at Society of Classical Poets.

 

“Farewell to Juliet,” poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and “Don Juan,” (excerpt) by Lord Byron– Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Life and Culture

 

The Trap: A conspiracy theory – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Chesterton & the “Great Religious Genius” of Doctor Johnson – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

British Stuff

 

Relics at St. Paul’s From Before the Fire – Spitalfields Life.

 

The England I Knew Is Gone – Carl Trueman at First Things Magazine.

 

The Farmers’ Choir – Britain’s Got Talent

Painting: Woman Reading, oil on canvas by Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667).

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). 

Saturday Good Reads – August 15, 2026

We have mobile phones, but we still have a landline. And according to caller ID, the most common caller we get on that line is someone I’ve grown rather fond of. His name is “Spam Risk.” He’s gotten crafty; he sometimes changes his name to “Medical Clinic,” or that of a local grocery chain, or just a location. But he is, and always will be, “Spam Risk.” He deserves his own short story or novel. But there might be hope for this unwanted intrusion; Gary Saul Morson describes it at The Wall Street Journal (story unlocked): A Modest Proposal to Deal with Spam Calls.  

It might be because I’ve lived a long time. But what I do not get, at all, is this fascination for and support of socialism. Perhaps it’s because I’ve read The Gulag Archipelago, and I remember when it was published. Ot the killing fields of the Kymer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s. Or the brutal suppression of the “Prague Spring” in Czechoslovakia in 1968. For those who think it could never happen here, well, they never thought it would happen in lots of places. Bradley Birzer, writing at The Imaginative Conservative, looks at the resurgence of socialism here.

 

Family history is rarely handed down intact, or even handed down at all. I was told a few things about my paternal grandfather, for example, mostly about the crazy songs he liked to sing and the expressions he used. A story about my great-grandfather, however, was handed down, an epic Civil War story. I based my novel Brookhaven on that story. Except the handed-down story turned out to be almost entirely wrong. But the reality told another kind of story – about a father who lost two sons and a son-in-law in the Civil War and was terrified that his youngest would be called up, so he took steps to protect that son as long as he could. At Front Porch Republic, N.P. Curtin writes about the importance of family stories, and keeping the family history alive.

 

More Good Reads

 

Life and Culture

 

On visiting Auschwitz – Andy Owen at The Critic Magazine.

 

Art

 

How to Wreck a Museum – Caitlyn Flanagan at The Free Press.

 

The Gallery in Our Minds – Jeffrey Streeter at English Republic of Letters.

 

American Stuff

 

Booknotes: Researching Your Civil War Ancestor – Civil War Books and Authors.

 

Anthony Fauci’s Vaccine Deceptions – Vinay Prasad at The Free Press.

 

This High School Wouldn’t Fix Its Antisemitism Problem – Rupa Subramanya at The Free Press.

 

America 250

 

The Road to Yorktown – Kelu Holt at Just Enough History. 

 

The Hessians Were Supposed to Quickly End the American Revolution. Instead They Endured Years of Battles and Suffered Thousands of Casualties – Greg Daugherty at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

Writing and Literature

 

The Brothers Karamazov in a Nutshell – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Exogenesis, Alexandria, and the Renewal of Language – Tessa Carman at Front Porch Republic.

 

Why We Still Read Novels – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

British Stuff

 

Tom Vowden, Stained Glass Conservator – Spitalfields Life.

 

Faith

 

No Screens at Church – Rebecca Skabelund at Front Porch Republic.

 

When Did the Church Begin? – Anthony Faggiano at Reformed Dogmatika.

 

Poetry

 

“The Shooting of Dan McGrew,” poem by Robert Service – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

“If I Could Tell You” by W.H. Auden – Read by Tom O’Bedlam

 

Painting: Reading at a Table, oil on canvas by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Saturday Good Reads – August 8, 2026

Given the number of movies, plays, poems, and novels about the man, you would think that the entire planet knows King Arthur was obviously a real person. The actual story is that proof has never been found that the man existed. St. Gildas, a monk writing about 540 A.D., mentions an earlier figure named Vortigern who won a battle against the Saxons. That account was picked up by others, including the Venerable Bede about 731 A.D. in the early 1100s, Geoffrey of Monmouth blew those accounts up, giving us Arthur, Merlin, and the start of the legend as we’ve come to know it. At History Today, Ken Dark makes the case for Arthur as a real person. (And I know for a fact that Guinivere looked exactly like Vanessa Redgrave, and the 1968 movie “Camelot” proved it.) 

He may be the most successful writer you never heard of. Japanese author Seishi Yokomizo sold 55 million books in his lifetime, almost all detective stories. Then World War II started, and the Japanese government wouldn’t allow him to publish, because Western influences were considered verboten. After Japan’s defeat, Yokomizo was once again free to publish. And his books are finally being translated into English.

 

It may be one of the most unusual reversal stories I’ve read in a while. A young woman enters Columbia University as a liberal, and her experience transformed her into a conservative. 

 

More Good Reads

 

Life and Culture

 

The Banality of Disruption – Glen Sproviero at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The Morning Leonard Cohen Explained Antisemitism – Steven Karras at Steven’s Substack.

 

The Wendell Berry Moment – Daniel Vollaro at Front Porch Republic.

 

Writing and Literature

 

I Prefer Not To: Literary Laments in the Age of AI Dead Letters – Barbara Castle at Front Porch Republic. 

 

Literature as Part of Life – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

Dostoevsky Rediscovered – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

America 250

 

The Declaration of Independence in Richmond – Bert Dunkerly at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Jefferson & the Crucible of Peaceable Coercions – Geoff Smock at the Journal of the American Revolution. 

 

British General Benedict Arnold, Goerge Washington and the Nadir of the American Cause – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

American Stuff

 

White Haven: U.S. Grant’s St. Louis, Missouri Home – Patrick Young at The Reconstruction Era.

 

Historian blasts Smithsonian’s activism shift after first visit in over a decade: ‘Completely different place’ – Kiera McDonald and Andrew Mark Miller at Fox News.

 

Poetry

 

Village – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

The Beautiful Invisible: Jan Twardowski’s Poetic Lessons on Loving in Solitude – Grzegorz Ignatik at Church Life Journal.

 

“The Thrush,” poem by Edward Thomas – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

You’re Still You – Josh Groban (from Ally McBeal)

 Painting: Woman Reading, oil on canvas (1943) by Albert Reuss (1889-1975).

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.