Saturday Good Reads – Oct. 31, 2026

It’s Halloween, and we have several good reads for the day: Bradley Birzer looks at Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House;  Amelia Freidline has a go at Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; you can read about “The Witch Hunter Who Helped Shape America’s Witch Trials;” Beth Daley at the Conversation explains where the modern vampire originated, and it’s not where you might think. Joseph Bottum provides the background of Robert Herrick’s poem “The Hag;” And Spitalfields Life takes you on a tour of “The Tombs of Old London.” 

There has been an abundance of posts and articles lately about the death of reading, the end of the traditional book, the decline in book sales, and so one. Everyone seems ready to pronounce the death of books as we know them. Not so fast, says Daniel Darling at One Little Word. He makes the case for why paper books will endure.

 

In the category of “I am not making this up,” Nellie Bowles at The Free Press cited a new report by the United Nations Women organization, “Facts and figures: Women, peace and security.” The big concern: nearly one in four civilian deaths associated with war and violent conflicts around the world are women and girls. The organization also highlighted the statistic with a dramatic graphic on X, formerly known as Twitter. The report does acknowledge, in an offhanded kind of way, that three in four civilian deaths in war and violent conflict are men and boys, but I suppose we need to focus on what’s important.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

The Sentence That Defines America – M.C. Murphy at The Coolidge Review.

 

Discovering White Plains – Bert Dunkerly at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Writing and Literature

 

What Haunted George Orwell – John Miller at The Wall Street Journal (story unlocked). 

 

The flesh and bones of Gulliver’s Travels – David Womersley at Engelberg’s Ideas.

 

Souls at Stake – Algis Valiunas at First Things Magazine on the Gothic novel. 

 

Have a Plan for Your Writing – Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

 

The Daunting Art of Selling Fewer Books – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

American Stuff

 

New Monument Rising: The Gateway Arch Is Completed in 1965 – Jason Clark at Ths Is the Day.

 

In Defense of Daylight Savings Time – Brevin Anderson at Front Porch Republic.

 

British Stuff

 

Descended from Woden: Why Anglo-Saxon Kings Claimed a Pagan God as Their Ancestor – Calogero Nicosia at English Historical Fiction Authors.

 

Poetry

 

Reading Emily Dickinson at Hallowtide – LuElla D’Amico at Church Life Journal.

 

The Famous Christian Poem We’ve Never Heard Of – David Bannon at Front Porch Republic.

 

“La Belle Dame sans Merci,” poem by John Keats – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Faith

 

Your Cross – Cody Ilardo at Power & Glory.

 

What Remains of Our Remains – Emily Carrington at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

And Can It Be – The Village Chapel Worship

 Painting: Man Reading a Letter in His Study, oil on oak panel (circa 1670) by Adriaen Van Ostade (1610-1685).

Saturday Good Reads - Oct. 24, 2026

I’ve known poet, writer, editor, and publisher L.L. Barkat for 17 years. We met on Twitter, as it was called back then. I read her book Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places. And then God in the Yard. We worked together at The High Calling. And, since 2009, with Tweetspeak Poetry. She’s just published a new poetry collection, The Book of Joy: 100 Poems for Your Heart. You can read Maureen Doallas’s review and an interview with Barkat here. 

Some 25 years ago, we attended a church that, seemingly overnight, discovered the book The Prayer of Jabez, a short work about a very short passage in the Old Testament (2 Chronicles 4:9-10, if you’re interested).  Suddenly, The Prayer of Jabez was everywhere. Our Sunday School class. Men’s Bible studies (and the women, too, for all I know). A sermon series from the pulpit. It was a tidal wave of Jabez. It was also thinly disguised prosperity gospel, and I resisted. This week, I happened cross an article about the passage, which puts it in its proper context.

 

I’m not sure whom is behind the Substack entitled “Abstract Truth,” but a friend provided a link to a post, and I read it. The post is entitled “Men Don’t Hate Reading; They Hate Your Books,” and, in addition to the funny AI-generated illustrations, it contains considerable truth. 

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

From the Red Sea to 1776: How the Exodus Inspired America – Michael Freund at Real Clear History.

 

A Dear-Bought Victory: The Battle of Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston 1775-1776 – review by Don Hagist at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

War and Wilderness: British Soldiers in Revolutionary America – Vaughn Scribner at History Today.

 

The Siege of Yorktown – Chris Farmer at Old Dominion Post.

 

The Jewish Patriot Who Died for American Independence – Michael Freund at Real Clear History.

 

Faith

 

Should Christians vote? – Doug Spurling at Spurling Silver.

 

According to the Flesh, According to the Spirit: Christianity as Poem and Myth – Jake Meador at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Pruning – Christine Norvell at Mere Orthodoxy (my review of her book can be found here.)

 

Life and Culture

 

Learning to Love This Land – Frank DeVito at Front Porch Republic.

 

The Great Work: An Interview with David W. Orr – Terry Macker at Front Porch Republic.

 

Walking is Loving: The Liturgy of the Stroll – Gracy Olmstead at Granola.

 

Writing and Literature

 

The New Age of Reading – Nathan Heller at The New Yorker.

 

Cormac McCarthy and the Writing Life – Thomas Kidd.

 

“Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving – read by Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Poetry

 

“October,” poem by Robert Frost – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Much Has Been Said – David Whyte.

 

“No Coward Soul is Mine,” poem by Emily Bronte – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

British Stuff

 

The Quest for King Arthur – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Pylons – Jeffrey Streeter at English Republic of Letters.

 

My Song Is Love Unknown – Keith & Kristyn Getty

 Painting: Old Woman Reading a Book, oil on panel by Gerrit Dou (1613-1675), Hermitage Museum.

Some Monday Readings - Oct. 12, 2026

The Genius of Chesterton: Understanding the Heart of the Enduring Story – Kevin Belmonte at The Imaginative Conservative. 

Seven Years Alone on Wildcat Mountain – John Byron Kuhner at First Things Magazine.

 

Author Talk is Cheap – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

America Like Broken Pottery. America with Dragons Roaming – Katie Andraski at Katie’s Ground.

 

Such as she was, such as she would become: Richmond, Williamsburg, Yorktown, Jamestown – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

Photograph: The Governor’s Mansion at Williamsburg, Va., by Christian Alvarez via Unsplash. Used with permission.

 

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 - 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 Wednesday Readings – April 1, 2026

On Judging Books – Matt Reynolds at Mere Orthodoxy. 

Waking Up Chancellorsville – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Civil War.

 

Canada wants to make quoting the Bible illegal – Jane Stannus at The Spectator.

 

What Memoir Scandals Tell Us About Two LLM Writing Scandals – Lincoln Michel at Counter Craft.

 

The Abolition of the Hereditary Lords & the Death of England – John Horvat at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Activism, Uncensored: No Kings in LA – Ford Fischer at Racket News.

 

Traveling America and Lecturing Like a Madman – Bradley Birzer. 

 

What Are Iran’s Centers of Gravity and How Are They Being Attacked? – John Spencer at Urban Warfare. 

 

Photograph: A hall in the Palace of Westminster in London, home of the House of Commons and House of Lords.

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.

The Sweet Agony of Waiting

A publisher asks to see your full manuscript. You read it three more times, trying to eradicate all typos, missing words, unclear passages, and confusing lines. You attach it to a politely professional email, which you hope disguises what you’re experiencing in equal measure: hope, fear, and anxiety. 

You hit send.

 

And then you wait.

 

Waiting may be as much or more exhausting than the writing itself, but it is a fact of life in book publishing.

 

To continue reading, please see my post today at the ACFW Blog. 

 

Photograph by David Taffett via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Samuel Pepys at St Olave’s – Spitalfields Life.

 

Meaning in Mystery: Why Noir Speaks in a Morally Ambiguous World – Adam Hill at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Mississippi Heat: Stops along the Vicksburg Campaign – Nathan Provost at Emerging Civil War.

 

“The Rejected Member’s Wife,” poem by Thomas Hardy – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Some Monday Readings

The New Push for Censorship Under the Guise of Combating Hate – Paul Thacker at Tablet Magazine. 

A Blockbuster Met Exhibition Takes Visitors Back to Siena to Trace the Origins of European Painting – Christian Kleinbub at Art in America.

 

“Poor Eddy”: A New Life of Edgar Allan Poe – Mark Jarman at The Hudson Review.  Law Student Faces Expulsion for ‘Aggressive Pointing’ – Olivia Reingold at The Free Press.   Appreciations: Bram Stoker’s Dracula – Eduard Habsburg-Lothringen at The Lamp Magazine.   The other side of TS Eliot – Jeremy Noel-Tod at Prospect Magazine.   Do the Hard Work of Publishing – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.   Murders for November – Jeremy Black at The Critic Magazine.   James Mackinnon, Artist – Spitalfields Life.

 

A New Mozart Work is Discovered – Stephen Klugewicz at The Imaginative Conservative.

“Write & Publish Organically” by Catherine Lawton

Sometimes I think more people write about writing than actually write. I follow several writer blogs, web sites, online magazines, and Substack listings, and just keeping up with those can be overwhelming. I’ve read and read lots of books on the subject. This is all in addition to the writing itself. 

But it is a good idea to step back from time to time and think critically about what you do and how you do it. And to figure out if you can do it better. A new book on writing that is aimed at Christian writers but easily applies to all writers is Write & Publish Organically by Catherine Lawton. And it is a gem. 

 

Lawton uses a rhyming scheme to explain what she calls organic writing and publishing.

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

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Shrouded Veterans: A Soldier for the Pope and Lincoln – Frank Jastrzembski at Emerging Civil War.

 

“The Raven Days,” poem by Sidney Lanier – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Remembrance of What Is – Christine Norvell at The Imaginative Conservative.

Some Monday Readings

Britain: This Machete’d Isle – Rod Dreher at Diary. 

On Bram Stoker’s Forgotten Dracula Play – Olivia Rutigliano at Crime Reads.

 

Boiling the British Frog – Sam Bidwell at The Critic Magazine.

 

The Lyrical Tradition in Classical Christian Education – Benjamin Myers at Credo Magazine.

 

Early Bookcases, Cupboards, & Carousels – Suzanne Ellison at Lost Art Press.

 

King’s English: The Making of a Writer – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review on Stephen King.

 

John Steinbeck’s Library: 10 Works that Captured an Artist – Carter Davis Johnson at Dwelling.

 

Ted Vanner, Model Steamboat Pioneer – Spitalfields Life.

 

Like Herding Cats – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

Solzhenitsyn on the West’s ‘Decline in Courage’ – Douglas Murray at The Free Press. 

 

Photograph: Bram Stoker, author of Dracula.

Some Monday Readings

“Recuerdo” by Edna St. Vincent Millay – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern. 

The Tragedy and Triumph of The Killing Fields – Bradley Birzer at Law & Liberty.

 

Turbulence After the Trump Verdict – Charles Lipson at The Spectator.

 

What Lowry saw in the sea – William Cook at The Critic Magazine on the philosophical side of the British painter.

 

How Hadrian’s Wall is revealing a hidden side of Roman history – Julia Buckey, CNN.

 

A Confederate Buried at Mount Vernon? – Evan Portman at Emerging Civil War.

 

AI, Poetry, and Prayer – Dwight Longenecker at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Comps and Circumstance – Lincoln Michel at Counter Craft.

 

Daniel Defoe: The first futurist – Jeremy Black at The Critic Magazine.

 

London Maps in Books – A London Inheritance.

 

Photograph: Hadrian’s Wall near Waltown Crags,by Ray Harrington via Unsplash. Used with permission.

 

Why Publish? Why Write?

My head’s swirling. I’m editing, rewriting, drafting, doing other projects, maintaining a rather hectic if not torrid pace when I’m suddenly stopped cold by a question.

Why do I want to publish?

I have three novels and a non-fiction book published. A fourth novel and a collection of stories are in the works. 

Why?

It’s not as if the novels have been so wildly successful that I can live off the royalties. So why am I doing this again, when each novel has turned out to be far more of a wrestling match than I expected?

To continue reading, please see my post at Christian Poets & Writers.

Writing: The Right Reason

I was at a writer’s conference, carrying with me my selection of a work in progress like hundreds of others, scheduled for a meeting with both an editor and an agent. Like most of the people there, when not in a general session or a seminar, I spent a lot of time milling about, looking at the writers’ books for sale, talking to a few people, trying to understand what I was even doing there.

At one of the luncheons, a woman sat next to me, her arms full of books, papers, notebooks, purse, briefcase, and water bottle. She smiled expansively at the rest of us at the table and announced, “I am a writer.” Loudly. Loud enough so that the people at the next table turned their heads. 

She went on to tell us, knowing we were all phenomenally interested, that she was in her positive affirmation mode. Declaring herself to be a writer meant, as night followed day, that she was one. And she went on to explain what that meant.

To continue reading, please see my post at Christian Poets & Writers.