Saturday Good Reads

If there were ever any doubt left about its status as a newspaper, The New York Times dispelled it over the op-ed article by U.S. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas. The senator’s opinion article made much of the NYT newsroom feel “unsafe;” the editor of the editorial page resigned, and the assistant editor was reassigned.  Left-of-center journalist Matt Taibbi cites the story as an example of how the American press is destroying itself; Paul Roderick Gregory at The Hill says journalism is gone, replaced by moral denunciation; and Izabella Tababrovsky at Tablet Magazine suggests the newsroom has been replaced by a soviet. For its part, the Times doubled down and issued a memo to staff, describing the plan for forging ahead. It’s a brave new world out there, and journalism isn’t part of it.

We accepted the daily changes – often 180-degree flip-flops – from health and medical experts on the coronavirus. Wear masks! No, masks don’t help! Yes, they do! Follow the science, even if the science keeps changing its mind! Stay home! Avoid gatherings! Look at those evil people in the pool at Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri! Then came the protests over the George Floyd death, and the health profession completely discredited itself. “We often accuse the right of distorting science. But the left changed the coronavirus narrative overnight," says Thomas Chatterton Williams at The Guardian. Anthony Dimauro at The American Conservative put it this way: “I Warned About the COVID And Now I Feel Like a Fool."

Decades ago, Julian Symons wrote a much-admired biography of Edgar Allen Poe, entitled The Tell-Tale Heart. A new edition of the book has been published, and author Sarah Weinman has contributed an afterword. At CrimeReads, Weinman wonders if the life and work of Poe can really be separated.

More Good Reads

News Media

Inside the Financial Times Quasi-Scandal Over the Vatican's London Property Investment – Gladden Pappin & Edoardo Bueri at Church Life Journal.

Life and Culture

Dear Mr. Potter: An Open Letter on Cancel Culture – at A Bookish Charm. 

Moral Cruelty and the Left: On the late scholar Judith Shklar – Blake Smith at Tablet Magazine.

Poetry

A Lens That Doesn’t Veil the View: Amit Majmudar in Conversation – Caitlin Doyle at Literary Matters. 

Unreal Wombwell – Paul Brookes at Places of Poetry.

British (and American) Stuff

How Four Americans Robbed the Bank of England – Paul Brown at Longreads.

How Three Royal Brothers Ended an English Dynasty – Thomas Penn at Literary Hub.

‘Their Finest Hour:’ The Legendary Speech – Winston Churchill via The Imaginative Conservative. 

Art and Photography

Tanya Berry’s Faithful Art – Gracy Olmstead at Front Porch Republic.

Writing and Literature

The Mostly Forgotten Irish Crime Novelist at the Center of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction – Shawn Mawe at CrimeReads.

Why fan fiction about Charles Dickens’ life is just as much a part of his literary legacy – Lucy Whitehead at ScrollIn.

In Utter Celebration of Juliet Stevenson’s Brilliance as an Audiobook Narrator - Scott Spencer at Literary Hub.

What Shakespeare Actually Wrote about the Plague – Stephen Greenblatt at The New Yorker.

The Correctors: Meet the editors of early modern book publishing – Anthony Grafton at Laphams Quarterly.

Work and Prayer: The Brief Friendship of Thomas Merton and Wendell Berry – Dan Rattelle at Front Porch Republic.

Faith

Jacqueline Rivers on a Christian Response to Racial Violence – Thomas Kidd at The Gospel Coalition.

Canada Coast to Coast – Dominic Boudreault

Painting: Young Woman Reading, oil on canvas by Osman Hamdi Bey (1842-1910).

Spokesperson

After 2 Samuel 7:1-16

What is it to be the channel

through which flows 

words, divine,

commands, royal,

promises, eternal.

What is it to be heard

and heeded, because lips

are pure, heart is pure,

and so when words

are spoken and words 

are heard, it is because

the channel is trusted

without doubt,

without condition,

without question.

When it happens,

it changes the channel,

unexpectedly and

permanently.

Photograph by Miguel Henriques via Unsplash. Used with permission.

"The Spanish Villa Murder" by Roy Lewis

Newcastle attorney Eric Ward was a policeman until his career was cut short by glaucoma. He studied law, and eventually became a barrister. And surgery seems to have considerably helped his eyesight. He’s married to the former Ann Morcomb, a wealthy younger woman who runs an estate and a considerable number of investments, and she has yet to understand why Eric won’t throw over his law practice and be her full-time attorney. 

Eric likes his independence, and he likes knowing that he doesn’t depend upon a wealthy wife, even if it would be easier. He does represent her on the board of a financial firm in London, one that’s filled with sharks itching to see the end of him. Eric asks too many questions – the wrong kind of questions. But’s he made a name for himself in Yorkshire and London for his expertise in maritime law and for ferreting out information that has saved clients (and his wife) a lot of money.

He’s approached by Simon Chan, head of a shopping and banking company in Singapore, to find a former company officer who’s now missing. It seems this officer negotiated deals he shouldn’t have, and it isn’t just Chan who wants to find him. The man also disappeared with the wife of a former business partner. But nothing in this world of shipping, strange contracts, high finance, hostile takeovers, and arbitrage is ever what it seems. And the body count is growing.

Roy Lewis

First published in 1991 as A Kind of Transaction, The Spanish Villa Murder by Roy Lewis is the ninth mystery in the Eric Ward series, and it shares the consistently high quality of story of its predecessors. The story displays a quiet (sometimes not-so-quiet) tension between Ward and his wife that connects to the main plot line and a deep knowledge of maritime law and how courts operate.  

Lewis is the author of some 60 other mysteries, novels, and short story collections. His Inspector Crow series includes A Lover Too Many, Murder in the Mine, The Woods Murder, Error of Judgment, and Murder for Money, among others. The Eric Ward series, of which The Sedleigh Hall Murder is the first (and originally published as A Certain Blindness in 1981), includes 17 novels. The Arnold Landon series is comprised of 22 novels. Lewis lives in northern England.

Ward’s understanding of human nature, and his ability to know when a client is lying (which is often), underscore the story in The Spanish Villa Murder. The series is being revised and reissued by Joffe Books, and it’s an excellent mystery and legal thriller.

Related:

The Sedleigh Hall Murder by Roy Lewis.

The Farming Murder by Roy Lewis.

The Quayside Murder by Roy Lewis.

The Diamond Murder by Roy Lewis.

The Geordie Murder by Roy Lewis.

The Shipping Murder by Roy Lewis.

The City of London Murder by Roy Lewis.

The Apartment Murder by Roy Lewis.

A Cotswolds Murder by Roy Lewis.

“Tough Issues, True Hope” by Luke Davis

Christians are regularly denigrated for believing Biblical teachings that were broadly accepted by the general culture less than a decade ago. The pace of change in the culture, powered by sea changes in news media, entertainment, the business world, and large parts of political and governmental authorities, seems so accelerated that it often bewilders even those who accept the changes uncritically. And this seeming rejection of Christian values has accompanied a rejection of the values of Western civilization generally. 

Multitudes of books have been written and read to understand what has happened and, equally as important, to respond and deal with the change. Luke H. Davis, as a high school teacher of Biblical ethics, has witnessed and experienced the changes. He also has to help the students he teaches to understand and deal with the issues that seem to confront them, and all Christians, at every turn. 

And he’s created a navigational aid, Tough Issues, True Hope: A Concise Journey Through Christian Ethics. In short, succinct, and conversational chapters, he’s assembled and summarized the main issues where Christians find themselves in conflict with the culture. Each issue is summarized, its Biblical position discussed, and then questions provided for further discussion. Davis uses clear, easy-to-understand language, writing a book that’s as suitable for high school and college students as it is for adults in the workplace, the home, and church. That’s no simple accomplishment.

The list of issues is staggering and begins with one that many Christians are unaware of – words and language. Words and language matter tremendously and can be used not only to illuminate but also to propagandize. (I can still remember when newspapers referred to “pro-life” and “pro-abortion,” until they evolved into “anti-abortion” and “pro-choice.”)

Luke H. Davis

The issues Davis considers includes technology and social networks; diversity and unity; abortion; murder and capital punishment; euthanasia; suicide; disabilities; bioethics; gender; marriage; divorce; pornography; same-sex marriage; and more. He even discusses the concepts of stewardship as they relate to the individual, the workplace, the environment, and immigration (legal and illegal). 

It’s a daunting list. It’s daunting even to consider how Davis researched and considered each issue. Equally impressive is the tone of the book; it’s not condemning or strident, but honest, candid, thorough, and loving. A non-Christian reading the book would likely miss how much care and love went into the discussion.

Davis teaches at Westminster Christian Academy in St. Louis and chairs the Bible Department there. He’s also taught at schools in Louisiana, Florida, and Virginia. He describes himself as “Presbyterian body, Lutheran heart, Anglican blood, Orthodox spirit,” all of which have served him well in writing the Cameron Ballack mysteries. He has published three Ballack mysteries, Litany of Secrets (2013), The Broken Cross (2015), and A Shattered Peace (2017), and the first book of a new series, Joel: The Merivalkan Chronicles Book 1 (2017).

Tough Issues, True Hope is one of the best books I’ve read on the subject of culture, issues, and Christianity. It’s comprehensive without a deluge of details. It’s highly readable. And its solidly grounded in what is pre-eminent for believing Christians – the word of God.

Related:

Reading a Novel that Stars Your Hometown.

My review of Litany of Secrets.

My review of The Broken Cross.

My review of A Shattered Peace.

Poetry as a Way of Ordering Experience: “The Music of Time” by John Burnside

“As music-making is a way of making sense of noise, of giving noise order,” writes John Burnside in The Music of Time: Poetry in the Twentieth Century, “so poetry is a way of ordering experience, of giving a meaningful order to lived time.” And that’s precisely what the author proceeds to do. Instead of what might be expected – a survey of twentieth century poetry – Burnside considers some of the great poetry of the last century and how it shaped and gave meaning to his own life. 

Burnside, a poet, novelist, and essayist considered one of the greatest living literary critics, has had, like most of us, a diverse life that needs some meaningful ordering. He studied English and European languages at the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology but worked as a computer analyst and software engineer for many years. He began to publish poetry in the 1980s and is now the author of some 16 poetry collections. He’s also a novelist, his most recent work being Havergey (2017), the story of man who experiments with time travel and ends up in a future Scotland – having missed the intervening plagues (like skipping 2020 and finding yourself in a post-coronavirus world).

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry. 

"The Gracie Allen Murder Case" by S.S. Van Dine

People are tempted to do a lot of things when they need money. 

Mystery writer S.S. Van Dine needed money, and he cut a deal with Paramount Studios to write a parody of his own Philo Vance novels. As John Loughery writes in his Edgar Award-winning biography, Alias S.S. Van Dine: The Man Who Created Philo Vance, Van Dine not only delivered a manuscript suitable for satire, he also agreed to allow Paramount to make any changes they wanted without his approval. 

The manuscript in question was The Gracie Allen Murder Case, using the enormously popular Gracie Allen, the zany half of the George Burns and Gracie Allen comedy duo. To the author’s credit credit, Van Dine’s novel is substantively better than the movie of the same name. The book was published in 1938; the movie was released in 1939. Paramount made big changes, including dropping George Burns altogether and giving Gracie Allen a different boyfriend. 

That said, the character of Gracie Allen is by far the best in the story. Van Dine seemingly channeled her crazy way of thinking and speaking, and he did it expertly.

In the novel, a criminal known as Benny the Buzzard has escaped from prison, and Sergeant Ernest Heath of the New York City Police warns district attorney John Markham that the man has vowed vengeance on the DA. Markham blows off the threat, but Philo Vance does not. He travels to a rural section of New York City (they still had then in the 1930s), where he thinks he might find the criminal. He doesn’t, but he meets a young perfume factory worker named Gracie Allen and charms her with an untrue story about being out in the sticks to kill a criminal (she takes him seriously).

He meets her again that evening at a restaurant known for criminal associations, and the place where the police expect Benny the Buzzard to show up. But it’s a dishwasher from the kitchen who’s found murdered in the boss’s office – and the dishwasher happens to be Gracie’s brother. For a time, suspicion focuses on her boyfriend, George Burns, who also works at the perfume factory. Gracie, kept unaware the deceased is her brother, decides to help Philo Vance and become a detective assistant. She finds useless, unrelated clues that actually help Vance solve the mystery. 

S.S. Van Dine

Willard Huntington Wright (1888-1939) was an art critic who had been literary editor of the Los Angeles Times, an editor of The Smart Set, a novelist, an art historian, and art exhibition organizer. A friend of H.L. Mencken and an admirer of the novels of Theodore Dreiser, Wright hated romance and detective fiction with a passion, until he needed money. In 1926, he published the first Philo Vance story, The Benson Murder Case, with Scribners. And he used the pen name “S.S. Van Dine.” 

The Gracie Allen Murder Case is interesting as an artifact of the period of the big movie studios and the Golden Age of Mystery converging at a point in time. But it’s still the weakest of the Philo Vance novels, even with the laugh-out-loud scenes involving Gracie Allen.

Related:

The Benson Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine.

The Canary Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine.

The Greene Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine.

The Bishop Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine.

The Scarab Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine.

The Kennel Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine.

The Dragon Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine.

The Casino Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine. 

The Garden Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine.

The Kidnap Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine.

Promise

After 2 Samuel 7:1-16

No ifs, no conditions,

no contractual clauses

to ensure a quid pro quo;

instead, a promise,

a promise made and kept.

And a reminder of origins,

a signpost of where one comes

from and the distance traveled

to where one is now.

And more.

An affirmation of what will be,

a kingdom, a forever place,

and relationship of father

and child, a child through whom 

a kingdom lasts forever.

Photograph by delfi de la Rua via Unsplash. Used with permission.