Saturday Good Reads - May 18, 2024

If there was anyone who had the greatest influence on me as a young Christian, it was the theologian Francis Schaeffer and his book and video series How Shall We Then Live?. This past week was the 40^th anniversary of his death, and John Stonestreet and Timothy Padgett at Breakpoint have a remembrance.

Christianity may be experiencing a comeback. When Russell Brand announced he had become a Christian, eyebrows went up. When he was baptized, eyebrows went up even more; was he really serious? As it turns out, yes, he was. He’s not alone. Jane Stannus at The Spectator notes that all kinds of “unorthodox folks” are embracing Christianity these days, and she cites a reason: the growing awareness that Christianity is the last bulwark against society pitching itself into the abyss.

 

Douglas Murray, the writer, social commentator, and outspoken defender of Western culture (and Israel), received the Alexander Hamilton Award from the Manhattan Institute last week. His acceptance speech, “What It Means to Choose Life,” is a marvel. The Free Press has printed the text. 

 

Campus Protests

 

Hysterics for Hamas – Heather MacDonald at City Journal. 

 

Modern Protest Culture is Crippled by Internet Brain – Samuel D. James at Digital Liturgies.

 

Why the Gaza protests are worrying – editorial by The Spectator.

 

Israel

 

What Hamas Wants in Postwar Gaza – Matthew Levitt at Foreign Affairs. 

 

The Insane Anti-Jewish Literary Blacklist – Seth Mandel at Commentary.

 

Culture

 

Duke Commencement Address: ‘The Uncomfortable Feeling of Awkward Humor is Okay – Jerry Seinfeld at The Free Press.

 

Judi Dench on trigger warnings: “If you’re that sensitive, don’t go to the theatre” – Laura Rutkowski at Radio Times.

 

American Stuff

 

Ann Hill Carter Lee – JoAnna McDonald at Emerging Civil War.

 

Interest Costs Just Passed Defense and Medicare – Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

 

The Jessie Scouts: America’s Original Special Forces Unit – Patrick O’Donnell at CrimeReads.

 

Poetry

 

Working for Life Beyond the Words – Sarah Reardon at Front Porch Republic.

 

“Autumn,” poem by Joseph Bottum – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Faith

 

The Big Impact of Little Faith – John Pletcher at the Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics.

 

How Could a Good God… – Jacob Crouch.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Creating a Sense of Place in Fiction – Caroline Cleveland at Writer’s Digest.

 

Alice Munro was the writer’s writer – Megan Gibson at The New Statesman.

 

News Media

 

News publishers sound alarm on Google’s new AI-infused search, warn of ‘catastrophic’ impacts – Oliver Darcy at CNN.

 

In Christ Alone – Michael W. Smith

 Painting: Man Reading, oil on canvas (1851) by Jean-Louis-Ernest Messonnier (1815-1891); the Clark Art Museum, Willliamstown, Mass.

The three promises

After Hebrews 8:1-13 

The new promises are three,

the promises to the people.

 

First is the reconciliation

of all the old enemies,

bound into one family.

 

Second is the enabling,

the strength to do what

we cannot do on our own,

to be what we cannot be

on our own. It is written

on our hearts, into the fiber

of our beings, our hearts

of stone turned into

hearts of flesh.

 

Third is the mercy,

the mercy offered

toward sins, toward

iniquities, that great

and terrible mercy

shown and lived

that day. The sins

are remembered

no more, the imperfect

sacrifices ended

by the perfect one.

 

Photograph by Farrinni via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

Enchanting Axioms: The Snake Oil in the Water We Drink – Harry Zeiders at Front Porch Republic.

 

A Curious Mind – Seth Lewis.

 

Commandments and Strategies – Andrew Klavan at The New Jerusalem.

 

Herman the Cripple – poem by Margaret Coats at The Society of Classical Poets.

"Murder in Mind" by Faith Martin

Retired Detective Inspector Hillary Greene, now working on cold cases as a civilian, is getting a new boss. Her current boss, Stephen Krayle, is being promoted, and their romantic relationship is entering a new chapter, or perhaps coming to an end – he’s asked her to marry him.

She’s also getting a new cold case. Some years back, an elderly woman was found beaten to death in the living room of her home in a small village. The murderer was never found, and a strong motive was never identified. Some of the people originally interviewed have since died (of natural causes), and this case appears to be one that may not get solved.

 

Faith Martin

Hillary is also having to keep an increasingly close eye on a member of her team, Jake Barnes, the highly successful tech entrepreneur who decided he wanted to be a policeman. The Kidlington / Oxford police higher-ups were thrilled with a PR coup, but Hillary wondered what else might be going on. When she discovered that Barnes had been snooping around her computer, she had another member of the team, Jimmy Jessop, keep an eye on him. And, sure enough, Jake is definitely up to something that involves going after some local criminals. But why?

 

Murder in Mind is the 16^th Hillary Greene mystery by British author Faith Martin, and martin once again adroitly manages three narrative streams in one book – the main mystery, Greene’s romantic life, and a story involving one of the police team members. Greene proves to be as adept as solving cold cases as she was solving homicide cases when she was a full-time DI.

 

In addition to the DI Hillary Greene novels, Martin (a pen name for Jacquie Walton) has also published the Ryder and Loveday novels as well as the Jenny Sterling mysteries. Under the name Joyce Cato, she has published several non-series detective stories. Both Cato and Martin are also pen names for Walton. (Walton has another pen name as well – Maxine Barry, under which she wrote 14 romance novels.) A native of Oxford, she lives in a village in Oxfordshire.

 

Related:

 

Murder on the Oxford Canal by Faith Martin.

 

Murder at the University by Faith Martin. 

 

Murder of the Bride by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Village by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Family by Faith Martin.

 

Murder at Home by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Meadow by Faith Martin.

 

Murder in the Mansion by Faith Martin.

 

Murder by Fire by Faith Martin.

 

Murder at Work by Faith Martin.

 

Murder Never Retires by Faith Martin.

 

Murder of a Lover by Faith Martin.

 

Murder Never Misses by Faith Martin.

 

Murder by Candlelight by Faith Martin.

 

Some Thursday Readings

 

Fifteen Minutes a Day, Celestine: The Crime Writing Career of Nedra Tyre – Curtis Evans at CrimeReads.

 

Saying the Unsayable, and Listening to the Silence – Jon Fosse at Literary Hub.

 

A Historical Novel for Our Time: George Gissing’s Veranilda – Glenn Davis at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

160 Years Later, a New Battle of the Wilderness is Waged – Emily Hemphill.

Some Wednesday Readings

“Battle of Jackson” Day – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Cicil War.

 

The end of “Anglo-Saxon”? – Samuel Rubinstein at The Critic Magazine. 

 

Things I Learned from Rural Living – Lara D’Entremont at Story Warren.

 

Climate Protestors Charged over Magna Carta Attack in London – Gareth Harris at The Art Newspaper.

 

Non-profits Are Making Billions Off the Border Crisis – Madeleine Rowley at The Free Press.

 

Guardians of the Nation’s Glory: The Civil War Memorials of Northwest Washington, D.C. – Kyle Hallowell at Emerging Civil War. 

 

Reading Shakespeare at Home with Teenagers – Joseph Woodard at The Imaginative Conservative.

Photograph: The Magna Carta, via Wikimedia. 

Poetry and Music: In “(After),” the Aaron Irwin Trio Orchestrates Nine Poems

I’m not a music critic. I read and review a lot of poetry, but most days I don’t consider myself a poetry critic, either. But I love listening to music. Lately, when I go on long walks three to four times a week, I’m listening to Eremo by Jeff Johnson and John Van Deusen.  

In their new album (After), the Aaron Irwin Trio has combined music and poetry to create something decidedly different. Each of the nine compositions orchestrate a poem; three include a recitation of the poem. “Orchestrate” may be the wrong word here; the musicians describe each selection an interaction “between sound and verse.” 

 

And what the listener experiences is a wide array of emotions and responses – joy, chaos, beauty, anxiety, and more. 

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

The Destruction of Sennacherib, poem by Lord Byron – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

It Happens to Those Who Live Alone – poem by David Whyte.

 

‘The Body of a Woman and the Heart of a King,’ speech by Elizabeth I as the Spanish Aramada loomed – Douglas Murray at The Free Press.

 

At John Keats’ House – Spitalfields Life.

 

New Every Morning – poem by Tania Runyan at Every Day Poems.

"Dickensland" by Lee Jackson

In the last 12 years, I’ve visited the Charles Dickens Museum on Doughty Street in London five times. I tried when we visited the city in 2012, but it but was closed for remodeling, during the 200^th anniversary of his birth, no less. In addition to the museum visits, I’ve done a few walks suggested by various guidebooks and maps where you can see what little might be left of the London known and chronicled by Dickens. Some years back, I joined the Dickens Fellowship, a worldwide association founded in 1902 who “share a common interest in the life and works of Charles Dickens.”  

It turns out, I follow in a long line of literary tourists, beginning as early as 1865 (five years before the author died) when a friend guided Louisa May Alcott on a tour of sites associated with Dickens. For fans, of which I number myself, the difference between a real site like the house on Doughty Street and the Thames River stairs where Nancy is overheard ratting on Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist is not one of reality versus fiction. Of course it’s fiction. Except when you actually find it.

 

Lee Jackson, novelist, historian, and academic advisor to the Dickens Museum, knows the real and imagined passions of literary tourists well. In Dickensland: The Curious History of Dickens’s London, he tells the story of literary tourism and Charles Dickens. For a fan of Dickens, it’s both informative and great fun. For people who aren’t fanatics about the subject, it’s a carefully researched and fully documented history of a phenomenon associated with Dickens and perhaps only other author – William Shakespeare.

 

Jackson explains that the most avid literary tourists happen to be those from North America (I’m in good company). It was American touristsm in fact, who provided the impetus for what is known today as “The Old Curiosity Shop” to accept its fate and become actually that. It was originally an art gallery, and while Dickens might have seen it, it was never the inspiration for the book. 

 

Lee Jackson

Dickensland takes you on its own tour, identifying the major sites of Dickens tourism and explaining what connection they did (and didn’t) have. You discover cemeteries, haunted bridges, “great rambling queer old places,” and much more. The author also provides some history of the Dickens Fellowship, how it helped bring the Dickens Museum into existence, and what the museum itself has looked like over the years, including the renovation in 2012 that temporarily closed the place.

 

Jackson received his doctorate degree from Royal Holloway University of London. He’s written novels, anthologies, and non-fiction books, including A Dictionary of Victorian London (2006), Walking Dickens’ London (2012), Dirty Old London (2014), and Palaces of Pleasure (2019). 

 

Dickensland is a treat for the literary tourist and an entertaining read for those who simply enjoy the works of the man. I count myself fortunate to be both.

 

Related:

 

A Week of Dickens: Resources on His Life, Works, Walks, and London.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

“Willing to be Useful to His Country”: Robert Q. Shirley of Vicksburg, Mississippi – Jeff Giambrone at Emerging Civil War.

 

At 200 Years Old, the London National Gallery is Redefining What It Means to Be a ‘National’ Museum – Ann Wallentine at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

Salman Rushdie Writes Back – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

We have a priest

After Hebrews 8:1-13 

We have a priest

like Melchizedek.

We have a priest

who sits in heaven.

We have a priest

seated at the throne.

Sacrifices are no longer

required, as he was

the sacrifice.

We have a priest who

replaces earthly ones.

We have a priest who

eliminated the need

for earthly priests.

We have a priest who

replaces earthly sacrifices.

We have a priest

in heaven because

we cannot keep the law.

 

Photograph by Jacob Bentzinger via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Mother’s Day After Abortion – Camille Cates at New Growth Press.

 

The Hidden Sorrow of Mother’s Day – David Bannon at Front Porch Republic.

 

The Ache for Home – Mary Grace Mangano at Comment Magazine.