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 – Nov. 22, 2025

I first came across writer Paul Kingsnorth through his fiction (Beast, The Wake, and Alexandria) and then his poetry. He’s also written non-fiction (works like Savage Gods and Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist). In recent years, he’s turned to reading and writing about what he calls “the machine,” not a mechanical device but a way of describing the force that has taken over culture and society. His first full work on the subject is Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity, and Mere Orthodoxy has published two reviews of it: “Imagining Life Outside the Machine” by Jeffrey Bilbro and “After the Machine” by Rhys Laverty. 

Most if not all of us know the story of Paul Revere’s ride (“The British are coming! The British are coming!”). At least, we know the version we learned from reciting (and often memorizing” the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The historical ride didn’t happen exactly as Longfellow described. Karissa Waddick at USA Today rode along the actual route to determine what really happened. Me, I prefer Longfellow’s version.

 

Sixty years ago, a television program aired that became one of the most popular Christmas shows ever, so popular that it’s been repeated every year since. Carolyn Pirtle ay Church Life Journal asks, and answers, what made “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

The Search for Shirer’s Ferry, South Carolina – Stephen Khn Katzberg at the Journal of the American Revolution.

 

Life Under British Occupation During the American Revolution – Deborah Lynn Blumberg at History.

 

In Colonial America, Patriots Flocked to Coffeehouses to Debate Politics and Sow the Seeds of Revolution – Laura Kiniry at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

Thomas Paine, Common Sense, and a Plan for America – Jett Conner at the Journal of the American Revolution.

 

British Stuff

 

Speechcrime: On Britain’s Authoritarian Turn – Theodore Dalrymple at City Journal. 

 

George Cruikshank’s London in Winter – Spitalfields Life.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Art of Living (and Dying) – Trenton Olsen at Literary Hub.

 

C.S. Lewis’s Aeneid: A Labor of Love – Anthony Esolen at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

In Norman Maclean’s Life, There Was No Clear Line Between Beauty and Tragedy – Gen Sharp at Front Porch Republic.

 

Faith

 

The Belgian Priest who Saved 400 Jews – Menucha Chana Levin at Aish.

 

Poetry

 

Longfellow – poem by Kevin Parks at Society of Classical Poets.

 

“Talk,” poem by Stephen Vincent Benet, and “Sea-Fever,” poem by John Masefield – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Two Crooked Streets: A Proposed Genealogy of Noir Poetry – Boris Dralyuk at Liberties.

 

American Stuff

 

On the Road to Atlanta: Am English Poet at Peach Tree Creek – Dave Powell at Emerging Civil War.

 

Life and Culture

 

Is our education system radicalizing young men? – Michael Young at The Spectator.

 

‘A Recipe for Idiocracy’ – Rose Horowitch at the The Atlantic (via MSN). 

 

Fading to Dust in Slow Motion – Jeff Johnson

 Painting: Reading the Story of Oenone, oil on canvas (1883) by Francis David Millet (1846-1912); Detroit Institute of Arts.