Two miles away

After Luke 24:50-53 and Acts 1:1-11

A last meeting,

a final journey

two miles away

from the city,

a quiet walk

in springtime,

the walk familiar

to the olive mount,

the place the man

was called alive

two miles away

from the city.

He stops and turns, 

lifting his hands,

hands bearing scars

and holes, original

stigmata, hands lifted

in blessing the ones

he loved, the heavens

folding around him

like a cloud,

as the blessing 

continues.

Photograph by Alex Favale via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Saturday Good Reads

Louvain University in Belgium was founded in 1425, and over the centuries its library had accumulated all kinds of rare and important books and manuscripts. On Aug. 25, 1914, invading German troops burned the library, an act that so provoked international outrage that Kaiser Wilhelm sent a letter of explanation to Woodrow Wilson and a group of prominent German intellectuals protested. The library was rebuilt after the war, and then came round two, its destruction on May 16, 1940, again by invading German troops. Richard Ovenden at Literary Hub has the story. 

November marked the 400^th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock. It’s also the 400^thanniversary of the Mayflower Compact, a document signed by the passengers that was, despite its brevity, the official birth of religious freedom in what would become the United States. Eric Patterson and Rebecca Blessing at Providence Magazine describe what is the first American covenant.

 

If you haven’t noticed, a small flood of people have begun to migrate from Facebook and Twitter to MeWe and Parler. Most are conservatives, reacting to the heavy-handedness of the big tech platforms in censoring posts. I haven’t experienced that personally, but I’ve seen it happen to quite a number of people. Twitter is generally clumsier at it than Facebook, but neither could be accused of finesse. Eric Geiger has some advice, especially for Christians but applicable to all, about consuming and contributing to social media responsibly. And the advice comes from the Book of Proverbs.

 

More Good Reads 

 

Poetry

 

Bandages – Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Passage in Venice – Royal Rhodes at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Noel – Anne Porter at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

Who Exactly Was Rilke’s Young Poet Correspondent? – Damien Searls at Literary Hub.

 

Saving String, Kicking Leaves: Donald Hall’s Elegies – Steve Knepper at Front Porch Republic.

 

The life you have given me – Troy Cady at T(r)oy Marbles.

 

Waiting – Joy Lenton at Poetry Joy.

 

Architecture

 

Holy Corners Revisited, West Side of Kingshighway – Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina.

 

Stanford White’s Surfaces – Michael Lewis at New Criterion. 

 

Writing and Literature

 

Six Actions for the Silent Weeks – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

The Psychological Benefits of Writing by Hand – Aytekin Tank at Fast Company.

 

Mood is the Most Underrated Literary Device – and the Most Valuable – Kelly Jensen at BookRiot.

 

It Isn’t Genre That Matters—It’s Story – Clare Macintosh at CrimeReads.

 

Life and Culture

 

Dorothy at the Window – Esther O’Reilly at Plough Quarterly.

 

Why cinemas are worth saving – Samuel James at Letters & Liturgy.

 

British Stuff 

 

The Man Beneath Trafalgar Square – Spitalfields Life. 

 

News Media

 

Social media and expert culture – Jason Thacker.

The Problem with Journalism and New Media -- Andrew Gardner.

 

Faith

 

Let the Little Dogs Come – Christopher Gordon at Tabletalk.

 

Christmas Nativity Mistakes: Cybertrucks and Overbooked Inns – John Dyer.

 

Were Early Christian Scribes Untrained Amateurs? – Michael Krueger at Canon Fodder.

 

The God Who Sees – An Oratorio by Kathie Lee Gifford and Nicole Mullen

Painting: Young Man Reading, oil on canvas by Eugen Isper (1909-1974).

Is, was written

After Luke 24:44-49

It is written, just

as it was written,

the entire story,

the entire point

and explanation

and purpose,

mine and yours:

I suffer and die.

Then the gamechanger:

On the third day,

the rising.

What follows:

the proclamation,

the good news

of repentance

for forgiveness

of sins,

a proclamation

to all, all nations,

all peoples,

beginning in the city

of death and the city

of the rising from

the death.

And the clincher:

You are the witnesses,

and you will be sent

on the mission

you’ve already accepted.

Photograph by Daniel Burka via Unsplash. Used with permission.

"Interviewing the Dead" by David Field

It’s late Victorian London. A medium is putting on a public performance, and the place is packed. After successfully answering seemingly unknowable questions from members of the audience, she had a vision. The under-construction underground station at St. Aldgate’s is disturbing a cemetery, and the dead are coming back for revenge. People are frightened and stampede from the auditorium.  

Days pass, and people start dying for inexplicable reasons, claiming to see the dead rise and coming after them.

 

Matthew West is a young Methodist minister working at a mission for the poor, who seem to like the young clergyman more than his superiors. His family, who live in Clerkenwell in London’s East End, include his parents, a brother, and a sister. One day at the mission, he meets James Carlyle, a surgeon who works in the London Hospital in Whitechapel but lives is a much more fashionable part of London. He’s the nephew of philosopher Thomas Carlyle, and he has a daughter who believes women can do whatever men do in the professions and is, in fact, working for her father at the hospital. 

 

David Field

West and Carlyle are increasingly drawn into the mystery of the St. Aldgate’s murders, which seem to be happening randomly. West actually spots the pattern first, using some of the same analytical reasoning espoused by Carlyle. West and Carlyle’s daughter Adelaide seem to generate only conflict whenever they’re around each other – a harbinger, perhaps, of a possible romance to come. And then West finds himself about to become the next murder victim.

 

Interviewing the Dead by David Field is the first of three books in the Carlyle & West Victorian Mystery Series, the second being Death Comes But Twice, and the third Confronting the Invisible. It’s well research and finely plotted, with numerous references to real people and events that add color and authenticity to the story.

 

Field also written six historical novels set in Tudor England and eight novels in the Esther and Jack Enright Mystery Series. A native of Nottingham, England, Field practiced and taught criminal law for his professional career. He now lives in Australia.

 

Interviewing the Dead builds on a conflict between faith and reason (West and Carlyle), with an added dash of the political and social with Adelaide. Fields swirls all this together to create a highly satisfying historical mystery story.

 

“Miz Scarlet and the Holiday Houseguests” by Sara Barton

Christmas is coming, and Scarlet Wilson, known as Miz Scarlet to family and friends, is getting her Connecticut lodge ready. Her good friend Larry (short for Laurentia) has a double problem on her hands – her father and mother are coming for the holiday from different part sof the country, and she has her hands full with a recent murder.  

Scarlet offers to have Larry’s father stay at the lodge. As the murder case deepens, and as a stalker seems to be following Larry around, Scarlet had her friend’s 14-year-old daughter stay at the lodge as well. And then Larry herself. Except Larry goes missing.

 

Sara Barton

Miz Scarlet and the Holiday Houseguests is the third in the Scarlet Wilson Mystery Series by Sara Barton. It’s filled with family squabbles, romance, a touch of humor, a thirst for revenge, slightly more than a touch of romance, and, of course, a cozy mystery.

 

Barton has written numerous novels in several cozy and thriller series. In addition to the Scarlet Wilson Mysteries, she’s also written the Off the Books Mysteries, the Gabby Grimm Fairy Tale Mysteries, the International Killer Chefs Competition Mysteries, the cozy thriller series Cornwall & Company Mysteries, the Cat Ballentine spy thrillers, The Project Stargazer Thrillers, and The Arden Woods Thrillers. (That’s a whole bunch of books.)

Miz Scarlet and the Holiday Houseguests is a fast-paced, easy-reading story and a bit of holiday escapism, with an edge-of-your-seat ending. 

Books I'm Not Recommending for Christmas

Each December, I publish my list of books I’m not recommending for Christmas. I could also call the list “the best books I read this year,” but I try not to press too hard on people as to what my ideas of what they should read. People can usually figure that out for themselves. Perhaps the real point of this is to look back at the year, and review the books that impressed me, challenged me, cheered me, and perhaps even changed me a little. 

Looking at this list, and comparing it to previous lists, I can see that I’m increasingly moving away from what’s popular or celebrated in the culture. You won’t find many bestsellers or national prizewinners here. You also won’t find much that is transiently popular – books that skyrocket to fame because they happened to be available when something notable happened – but soon disappear into the pile you keep in the basement because they’re no longer news.

 

Here it is, the 2020 edition of the books I’m not recommending for Christmas. I haven’t selected any as “No. 1” in their category; instead, I’ve grouped the handful of the best titles in each category in no particular order. Each are linked to my review either here at Faith, Fiction, Friends, at Dancing Priest, or at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Literary Criticism and Biography

 

You can find some really fine analyses and biographies of writers and poets. These are some of the best I read this year. I really, really liked Cross of Snow.

 

The Music of Time: Poetry in the Twentieth Century by John Burnside.

 

The Making of Poetry: Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Their Year of Marvels by Adam Nicolson.

 

Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by Nicholas Basbanes.

 

The Poet and the Fly: Art, Nature, God, Mortality, and Other Elusive Mysteries by Robert Hudson.

 

The Soul is a Stranger in This World: Essays on Poets and Poetry by Micah Mattix.

 

Tolkien’s Lost Chaucer by John Bowers. 

 

Poetry

 

I’ve loved poetry since elementary school, when we were required to memorize and recite poems (usually something like “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” by Longfellow. I found T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” in high school. It made such a profound impact that I can even remember the bookshop where I bought it. And then poetry stuck throughout my career as (among other things) a speechwriter. 

 

Saudade: Poems by Nigel Kent.

 

Left Waiting: Poems by River Dixon.

 

HellWard: The English Elegies Vol. 1 by James Sale.

 

The Best Poems of Jane Kenyon, edited by Donald Hall.

 

Federico Garcia Lorca Blues: Poems by Justin Hamm.

 

Things My Mother Left Behind: Poems by Susan Richardson.

 

Railsplitter: Poems by Maurice Manning.

 

Andalusian Hours: Poemsfrom the Porch of Flannery O’Connor by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell.

 

When Your Phone Dies: A Hurricane in My Head by Matt Abbott.

 

Non-fiction and Memoir

 

On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis by Louis Markos.

 

Wilber Wilberforce: A Hero for Humanity by Kevin Belmonte.

 

Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story by Wilfred McClay.

 

Between Two Millstones, Vol. 1 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

 

Borges and Me by Jay Parini.

 

The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, edited by Norman Wirzba.

 

What We’re Teaching Our Sons by Owen Booth.

 

Tough Issues, True Hope by Luke Davis.

 

General Fiction

 

I likely read more general fiction than anything else, most likely because I write it. Writing it gives you an appreciation for what fiction writers can do, where they fall short, and where they soar.

 

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger.

 

The Old American Artist by Felipe Adan Lerma.

 

Stay by Catherine Ryan Hyde.

 

A Man by Keiichiro Hirano.

 

Waiting for Neruda’s Memoirs by Laura Boggess. 

 

Beautiful Sky Beautiful Sky by Stephen Parolini.

 

Mystery

 

I love mysteries; I loved reading them since I was a kid. This year, I read (or reread) all of the Philo Vance mysteries by S.S. Van Dine, which were wildly popular in the 1920s and gradually declined in popularity in the 1930s. The great Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins said Van Dine was the only author he never had to edit (unlike F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe). Rather than list individual titles, I’ve listed authors of whom I’ve several works this year. Everything they write is good. The links will take you to the most recent review which will include a list of all of their works I’ve read and written about.

 

Roy Lewis – The Eric Ward Mysteries.

 

William Brodrick – The Father Anselm Mysteries.

 

Simon Michael – the Charles Holborn Legal Thrillers.

 

Jonathan Dunsky – the Adam Lapid Mysteries.

 

Fire in the Barley by Roger Longrigg.

 

Romance

 

Most romance novels are generally written according to a formula: Woman (or man) returns to hometown and rekindles romance with first love. Here are four that break away from that formula.

 

That Hollister Man by Margaret Desmond.

 

Peace in the Valley by Ruth Logan Herne.

 

His Father’s Son by Autumn Macarthur.

 

Hoping for Hawthorne by Tara Grace Miller.

 

Classics

 

Classic books don’t have to be by big-name authors. What defines a classic is that its influence (and popularity) lasts, or that it broke ground when it was published and still hasn’t been equaled. Here are a few I read this year.

 

The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

 

Shakespeare of London by Marchette Chute.

 

The Crime Novels of Ruben Fonseca.

 

The Tell-Tale Heart: The Life and Works of Edgar Allen Poe by Julian Symon.

 

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

 

Top photo by Jarred Craig via Unsplash. Used with permission.

C.S. Lewis: World War I Poet

In 1919, the English publisher William Heinemann released a volume of poetry entitled Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics. The collection was part of a flood of poetry works that flowed copiously during and after World War I, joining collections by Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Charles Sorley, Francis Ledwidge, Robert Graves, Edmund Blunden, and other “World War I poets,” many of them published posthumously.  

The author of Spirits in Bondage published under a pseudonym, Clive Hamilton. His real name was Clive Staples Lewis. The collection wasn’t republished until 1984, and in 1994 it was included in his Collected Poems. Most of the poems were written between 1915 and 1918, when Lewis was in military training at Oxford and then in France on the Western Front. 

 

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