Saturday Good Reads - Dec. 16, 2023

I read this week about a study by anthropologists with the Museum of London. They announced a new study – how the Black Death was more deadly to Black women of African descent than to others in London. This was attributed to “premodern structural racism.”  I am no anthropologist or disease specialist or scientist, but this sounded off to me. As in, how many Black women of African descent were living in London at the time? With no reliable numbers, how could you make a case like this? It turns out I wasn’t the only one with doubts. Ian Leslie at The Ruffian takes a look. 

The Strand Magazine, normally a publication for mystery and detective stories, has been discovering and publishing previously unknown manuscripts by famous authors. The latest, reports Maya Yang at The Guardian, is a poem by Raymond Chandler, the writer of noir mystery and detective novels like The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely. 

 

Samuel D. James, who posts at Digital Liberties, took a long, in-depth look at that Christmas staple, It’s a Wonderful Life. And he developed a wonderful theological discussion of the movie in general and the character of George Bailey in particular. Read “Let Me Live Again.”

 

More Good Reads

 

Writing and Literature

 

New Wine, Old Skins: Donna Tartt – Brother Thomas Nee at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

Mutual Friends: The Adventures of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins – Hannah Gal at Quillette. (The notice for the exhibition at the Charles Dickens Museum can be seen here.)

 

After Melville – Andrew Schenker at The Baffler.

 

Book Diversions: Publishing Troubles – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Barnes & Noble & Me: Is the books giant making a comeback? – Peter Tonguette at The Spectator.

 

American Stuff

 

“Boston Harbor a Teapot This Night!” – Mark Maloy at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Poetry

 

10 Best Poems for Funerals – Susan Jarvis Bryant at Society of Classical Poets. 

 

Impossibilities – Paul Wittenberger at Paul’s Substack. 

 

How to Be a Poet, poem by Wendell Berry, and Gleanings, poem by Matt Wheeler – Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

Night Traveler – David Whyte.

 

Life and Culture

 

It’s hard to avoid the theology in ‘A Christmas Carol,’ but some movies do just that – Terry Mattingly at Get Religion.

 

Why the HR Mindset Can’t Condemn Genocide – Joe Carter at The Gospel Coalition.

 

The Ouster of Penn’s President Won’t Fix the Problem – Peter Savodnik at The Free Press.

 

A History of Feminist Antisemitism – Kate Jesella at Quillette.

 

Faith

 

The Desecration of Man – Carl Trueman at First Things Magazine.

 

Craft and Theology: The Renaissance – Nathaniel Marshall at Front Porch Republic.

 

The Storm in the Soul – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule on St. Cuthbert.

 

Rorate Caeli by Jacobus Handl – Gloria Dei Cantores

Painting: An Old Philosopher oil on canvas, attributed to Godfried Schalcken (1643-1706), Warrington Museum & Art Gallery.

The cave

After I Samuel 24:1-12  

In this mouth

of darkness plays

out a drama,

a story of fear,

of opportunity

prevented,

of opportunity

refused. There

in the cave,

the king would

have died. There

in the cave,

a king could

have risen. But

the opportunity

was refused,

confounding human

understanding. But

the man who refused

it knew it was not

his opportunity

to seize.

 

Photograph by Bradley Dunn via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

Let the Stable Still Astonish – Leslie Leyland Fields at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

Just a Stay-at-Home Mom – Lara d’Entremont. 

 

Christmas Should Humble Us – Seth Lewis.

 

More Light, Lord – poem by Esther at From the Wildwood.

 

The Word became flesh – poem by Jody Lee Collins.

“Murder by the Quay” by Roy Lewis

It starts off as just another city council meeting, and Arnold Landon of the Morpeth Department of Antiquities & Museums in Northumberland is there to provide the department’s insight into a proposed land development. The meeting is proceeding like a script until the developer erupts, accusing all and sundry of corruption, deceit, bribery, and a slew of other crimes. A well-known, and well-connected, attorney steps forward, calming the situation and bailing out the sweating city council chairman.  

That same attorney is master of a masonic-like organization, and he sees in Landon an opportunity to recruit knowledge and expertise. Landon, however, isn’t interested. Another individual talks with him about undertaking some research relating to the medieval origins of that same organization, and this time his historical curiosity leads him to accept. Arnold and his good bookselling friend Jane Wilson start on a research journey, including a visit to The Borders area in Scotland. 

 

In a seemingly unrelated area, Detective Inspector Culpepper is finding himself boxed in from investigating a local crime boss. Every time he starts getting close, he’s warned off by his superiors. Then he’s called in to investigate the murder of an attorney – the very same attorney who spoke at the city council meeting. He discovers there’s a connection to the crime boss, and the hunt is on. He also discovers that pesky Arnold Landon is also somehow involved (Landon and Culpepper have a history). 

 

Roy Lewis

Murder by the Quay is the ninth Arnold Landon mystery novel by British author Roy Lewis. This book in the series really moves the story in seemingly two directions at once, and they almost appear to be separate stories. Until Lewis cleverly brings them together. And it has something of a cliffhanger ending. Landon seems like such an unassuming person that it’s rather surprising what he manages to get himself involved in. And who would have expected medieval historical research to become so deadly?

 

Lewis (1933-2019) was 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. Lewis lived in northern England. 

 

Of the three series – Arnold Landon, Eric Ward, and Inspector Crow – my favorite had been Eric Ward. But Arnold Landon is winning me over.

 

Related:

 

Murder Under the Bridge by Roy Lewis.

 

Murder in the Tower by Roy Lewis. 

 

Murder in the Church by Roy Lewis.

 

Murder in the Barn by Roy Lewis.

 

Murder in the Manor by Roy Lewis.

 

Murder in the Farmhouse by Roy Lewis.

 

Murder in the Stableyard by Roy Lewis.

 

Murder in the House by Roy Lewis.

 

Error in Judgment by Roy Lewis. 

 

Some Thursday Readings

 

Murders for December – Jeremy Black at The Critic Magazine.

 

My First Thriller: Patricia Cornwell – Rick Pullen at CrimeReads. 

 

This – poem and artwork by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Year of the Monarch: Am Paying Attention? – Dheepa Maturi at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

I Was Wrong About John Fetterman – Peter Savodnik at The Free Press.

 

Fredericksburg: “War So Terrible” & Peaceful Beauty – Chris Heisey at Emerging Civil War.

 

"The Red Badge of Courage" by Stephen Crane

If I have one vivid memory of high school junior English class, it would be the classic coming-of-age assignment of The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. In the spring, anyone could spot a sophomore, because inevitably each and every one of us was carrying our paperback edition of the classic novel about the Civil War. It was assigned at the same time we were studying the Civil War in American history.  

Crane published the novel in 1895, two years after he’d published the book that put him on the American literary map – Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, the story of a prostitute. Crane belonged to the Naturalist, Realist, Symbolist, or Impressionist School, depending upon which critic you ask. The story of a prostitute had not been done before, at least not in a way that made Maggie something of a heroine. 

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

Some Wednesday Readings

 

The Treason of the Intellectuals – Niall Ferguson at The Free Press.

 

An Emerging Image of General Lee at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville – Sarah Kay Bierle at Emerging Civil War. 

Poets and Poems: Rowan Evans and "A Method, A Path"

British poet Rowan Evans is a musician. And a poet. And a musician-poet. And likely a poet-musician. He’s composed music for guitar, keyboard, cello, strings, synthesizer, and electronics. His music has been used in theater, art installations, short films, animation, and performances. He’s a sound designer, so it’s no surprise that his music sounds designed for poetry and his poems for music. 

Listen to his web site’s playlist. Choose any of the eight selections listed; I was particularly taken with “Dunes” and “Ocean.” Poems began to play through my mind as I listened. I’m not sure how Evans does it, but it’s a marvel.

 

A Method, A Path is his first full collection; he previously published a chapbook. 

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Louise Gluck: The Art of Poetry No. 115 – Henri Cole at The Paris Review.

 

Advent 1955 – John Betjeman at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Things Worth Remembering: September 1, 1939 – Douglas Murray at The Free Press on the poem by W.H. Auden. 

 

The Things I Never Thought Possible – Until October 7 – Mathias Dopfner at The Free Press.

A Review of All 5 Dancing Priest Novels

Bill Grandi is a pastor in Indiana, cyclist, and regular blogger (two blogs, Cycleguy’s Spin and Living in the Shadow). Cycleguy’s Spin is about whatever might happen to be on Bill’s mind, and it’s always worth reading. Living in the Shadow is about his pastoral work, written largely for his flock but applicable to the rest of us as well. He often discusses what he’s working on for his sermons, inviting comment and commentary. 

He also turns out to be a faithful reader of the Dancing Priest novels. 

 

Bill has reread all five of the books, and today at Cycleguy’s Spin he’s posted a summary of each and an overall review. A writer can’t ask for a greater kindness and encouragement than that. You can read his review here.

Books I’m Not Recommending for Christmas

Once again, I’m not recommending books for Christmas. This goes back a long, long time, when I learned that, if people know you’re a reader, they will shower you with books as gifts for birthdays and Christmas. Unfortunately, it was usually books the giver liked, without thinking too much about the recipient.  

That’s not to say I don’t really like books. Or that certain books have made me wildly enthusiastic. I discovered that this blog (and my page at Dancing Priest) is a good way to describe books I like. If I read a book and don’t like it, I don’t review it.

 

What follows is a list of the books I truly enjoyed this year.

 

Classics

 

I surprised myself when I tallied up the classic books I read this year. Some of them surprised me; they weren’t what I remembered them to be. But it’s hard to go wrong with The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson; Hospital Sketches by Louisa May Alcott; The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway; The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde; Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson; John Brown’s Body by Stephen Vincent Benet; Andy Catlett: Early Travels by Wendell Berry; and The Wonderful Visit by H.G. Wells.

 

Fiction

 

Just when you think contemporary literary fiction is going down the drain, you read books like Small Things Like Theseby Claire Keegan and Eugene Vodolazkin’s Solovyuv and Larionov and A History of the Island. And Robert Hudson’s The Beautiful Madness of Martin Bonham is simply stunning.

 

History

 

I’m still reading a lot (A LOT) about the Civil War. If We Are Striking for Pennsylvania, Volume 1 and Volume 2 focus on the runup to the Battle of Gettysburg. Man of Fire by Derek Maxfield succinctly explains the personality of William Tecumseh Sherman. And Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era by Frances Clark and Rebecca Jo Plant tell a fascinating story: how 10 percent of both the Union and Confederate armies were comprised of boys under the age of 15.

 

For non-Civil War history, my favorite was England in the Age of Dickens 1812-1870 by Jeremy Black. 

 

Poetry

 

I read some really fine poetry this year. When you start a year with The Family Book of Martyrs by Benjamin Myers and finish it with Under the Pearl Moon by Rick Maxson, you know it was a good year. In between were Meet Me at the Lighthouse by Dana Gioia; Stairwell by James Sale; Skyscrape by John Sibley Williams; and Mining the Bright Birds by Jody Collins.

 

Mysteries

 

When people wonder why I read mysteries (a lot of mysteries), I tell them that T.S. Eliot was a famous mystery reader, too. My favorites this year tended to cluster around authors: the Hillary Green series by Faith Martin; the Arnold Landon series by Roy Lewis; the Inishowen mysteries by Andrea Carter; the York mysteries of H.L. Marsay; the Louise Blackwell mysteries by Matt Brolly; the Munro & West mysteries by Pete Brassett; and the Lord Edgington mysteries by Benedict Brown.

 

Literary Criticism

 

Two titles were special standouts for me this year: Mythic Realms by Bradley Birzer and Belligerent Muse: Five Northern Writers and How They Shaped Our Understanding of the Civil War by Stephen Cushman. 

 

News Media

 

Newspaperwoman of the Ozarks: The Life and Times of Lucile Morris Upton by Susan Croce Kelly describes a journalism I recognize, even if it was the first half of the 20^th century (back when reporters used to report news). 

 

Faith

 

Luke Davis had two books aimed at younger (teen) readers – Reform: The Church at the Birth of Protestantism and Renewal: The Church That Expands Outward. Ben Palpant’s Letters from the Mountain, Letters to Doctors by Earle Carpenter, and Monastery Mornings by Michael Patrick O’Brien. Of special note is The Goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living by Leslie Busatrd.

 

Memoir

 

High marks to Brian Miller for his Kayaking with Lambs. It's about farming, and a lot more.

 

Top photograph by Valentin Antonini via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Monday Readings

 

A Great Historian’s Inner History – Jeff Reimer at The Bulwark on Journeys of the Mind by Peter Brown.

 

Remembering with Christmas Cards – Brian Miller at A South Roane Agrarian.

 

The Legacy of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative. 

Every Day Poems: Community Mandalas + New Poetry Club Invitation -- Tweetspeak Poetry.