The Book Den

A Most Moving "Edwardian" Experience

2012-01-19T11:20:00.001-06:00

Among the best viewing pleasures we have had with Netflix options in recent months has been the sterling ATV mini-series from 1975, "Edward the King" starring Annette Crosbie as Queen Victoria, Timothy West as the adult Edward VII, Robert Hardy as Prince Albert, Helen Ryan as Princess/Queen Alexandra, Michael Hordern as Gladstone, John Gielgud as Disraeli and many other superb performances.

Both Claire and I found the long series enthralling. It's certainly better than most when it comes to historical accuracy (being conscientiously based on Sir Philip Magnus' excellent biography) and, as thoughtful and compelling viewing, it would be very hard to top. The writing, acting, editing, sets all represented a level of excellence that moderns rarely reach.

The 13-episode series is currently available on the Netflix instant download feature or via CD discs. We couldn't recommend it more highly.

Dorothy Sayers Quotables

2012-01-19T10:57:00.000-06:00

Reading a Dorothy Sayers' mystery yields not only the regular enjoyment one usually derives from a Golden Age detective novel (Christie, Marsh, Carr, Tey, Allingham, Queen) but the most delightful of asides to think about. Here are just a few examples I noted from a recent re-reading of Sayer's 1926 Lord Peter Wimsey novel, Clouds of Witness.

“Ah, well, as the old pagan said of the Gospels, after all, it was a long time ago, and we’ll hope it wasn’t true.”

“Must have facts,” said Lord Peter, “facts. When I was a small boy I always hated facts. Thought of ‘em as nasty, hard things, all knobs. Uncompromisin’.”

"If all these new-fangled doctors went out of way to invent subconsciousness and kleptomania, and complexes and other fancy descriptions to explain away when people had done naughty things, she thought one might just as well take advantage of the fact.”

“Did you want to be a missionary in your youth? I did. I think most kids do some time or another, which is odd, seein’ how unsatisfactory most of us turn out.”

“My lords,” interjected Sir Impey, “if the learned Attorney-General considers the word murder to be a triviality, it would be interesting to know to what words he does attach importance.”

2011's Reading Review

2012-01-19T10:37:00.001-06:00

I'm afraid that I read fewer books in 2011 than in probably any of the preceding 25 years or so. A much-changed schedule, especially dictated by my mother’s condition and then the activities surrounding her long hospitalization and funeral in Colorado, made serious reading a rather rare thing. I even missed several assignments of our monthly book club this year.

But 2012 looks to be a bit of a comeback for reading. At least, I hope so.

The reading list of 2011 totaled only 40 books and it included included the re-readings of several favorite pleasure books (novels by John Buchan, Dorothy Sayers, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Helen MacInnes, P.D. James) and the Notting Hill Napoleons’ selections. Of the latter, however, there were only a few books I especially liked this year. They would be Jeff Shaara’s Rise to Rebellion and The Glorious Cause, Rafael Sabatini’s The Lost King, Nevil Shute’s The Breaking Wave, and Charles Dickens’ Pickwick Papers.

There were some other gems from 2011 though. Early in the year came Jack Niewold’s A Frail Web of Intention, a combination of autobiography, spiritual memoir and cultural history. You can read my review of the book on the Amazon page I link you to here. It was a very provocative book from a fellow I’ve come to respect and like. In April there was Laura Hillenbrand’s exquisite WWII history, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption – a fabulously interesting and inspiring story. I also found Anna Segher’s novel about an escapee from a Nazi prison camp extremely touching and insightful. I came across The Seventh Cross at an old book store last year (The book was first published in 1942) and I’m so glad I did. All of the above I'd give 5 stars.

Also in the mix this last year were a couple by Evelyn Waugh, Scoop and Those Vile Bodies. I liked them both. But another I read around the same time was uneven, philosophically weak, grimly depressing. That book was Max Miller’s I Cover the Waterfront.

1961: The Inside Story of the Maris-Mantle Home Run Chase by Phil Pepe was quite interesting and so too was Jerry C. Davis’ History of the College of the Ozarks, Miracle of the Ozarks: The Inspiring Story of Faith, Hope and Hard Work U. But even more enjoyable were the re-reading of a few treasures – Richard Adams’ Watership Down, Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop, and Thor Heyerdall’s Kon Tiki.

And before I close, there’s one more book from 2011 that deserves special mention. It’s How Does a Christian Profit from Tough Economic Times? If you’re figuring that this doesn’t sound like the kind of book I’d be reading, you’d be right. And I wouldn’t have looked twice at the book had I not noticed the author – Fr. Val Peter, the Executive Director Emeritus of Boy’s Town and an old friend and pro-life colleague. I didn’t think Fr. Peter would be giving out advice about how to enlarge (or even protect) one’s portfolio and, sure enough, he didn't. Indeed, the book is a spiritual treatise on the culture bred by materialism.

Fr. Peter is a hard but fair and illuminating critic of selfishness, the sense of entitlement, debt, lotteries, credit card dependence and the various financial immoralities indulged in by Wall Street, Madison Avenue, Hollywood and Washington, D.C. As correctives, Fr. Peter points to spiritual health, giving, family togetherness, thrift, patience, simplified lifestyles and public virtue. It’s a short book but an excellent one – and, in those brief pages, he packed as much food for thought as almost anything else I read this year.

So, there (excluding the reading I must do for Vital Signs Blog and the various studies in preparation for Sunday's sermons) is my 2011 reading in quick review. Feel free to send along any gems (or clunkers) from your experiences too. I'd love to read -- and share -- them.

Comparing Christmas Stories to the Real Thing

2011-12-21T10:42:00.003-06:00

Do "A Christmas Carol" and "It's a Wonderful Life" have anything in common?

And, beside being set at Christmastime, do they have anything in common with the all-too-true history of what happened in Bethlehem on the night of our Lord's advent?

Gina Dalfonzo over at BreakPoint thinks so. And she just might add an important new perspective to your reading and viewing these Christmas classics. Check it out right here.

The Surprising Dakota Christmas

2011-12-21T10:27:00.000-06:00

Conservative writer and editor Joseph Bottum has a surprising hit on his hands, Dakota Christmas, a warm-hearted holiday reminiscence that has soared to the Number One slot among Kindle readers. And, in so doing, Dakota Christmas represents a challenging phenomena to traditional publishers.

My opinion of Dakota Christmas? I'll have to let you know because I just ordered it a few minutes ago.

In the meantime, here's Patrick Hruby in the Washington Times:

A writer loses a plum magazine-editing job in New York City, decamping to his native South Dakota. Out of the blue, a major online publisher asks him to adapt and expand an 11-year-old piece about his holiday memories. The resulting essay, warm and wise, becomes a surprise electronic best-seller - topping works by authors such as Nicholas Sparks and Tom Clancy - and a small beacon of hope for a beleaguered profession struggling to survive in the digital age.

“It’s been sweet,” said Joseph Bottum, who has recently lived that scenario. “What else could one want for a Christmas piece?”

A freelance writer and former editor at the conservative religious journal First Things, Mr. Bottum is the author of “Dakota Christmas,” a top seller for Amazon’s Kindle, an electronic reader and e-bookstore.

By turns serious and comic, the piece offers a richly detailed, loosely chronological account of Mr. Bottum’s bookish boyhood on the Dakota plains, reflecting on both the spiritual and secular meanings of the holiday season in a sentimental, melancholic manner...

Read on to learn more about Dakota Christmas and about the new life being experienced by the author and his family. And then go right here and purchase a (very inexpensive) Kindle copy of Dakota Christmas to enliven your own holiday season.

Andy Willams Talks About His TV Christmas Shows

2011-12-21T09:58:00.000-06:00

Books for Christmas -- Suggestions for Kids

2011-12-17T07:45:00.001-06:00

Over at Breakpoint, a few of the contributing writers (among them, Gina Dalfonzo and Kim Moreland) have put together a list of "books to buy your kids at Christmas." Not having read (or even heard of) most of the recommended titles, I don't have much to comment on. Nevertheless, for you parents and grandparents looking for some ideas, I figured you'd do well to check it out. They're smart, principled people over there.

However, reading their lists encouraged me to drop in a few suggestions of my own. Ready?

For little kids (of all ages), you can't go wrong with the Winnie the Pooh books by A.A. Milne; the Freddy the Pig series by Walter Brooks; The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame; the collected fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm; or stories about such heroes as Robin Hood and the Knights of the Round Table.

As these kids grow older, toss in C. S. Lewis' Narnia series; Arthur Conan Doyle; Laura Ingalls Wilder; Robert Louis Stevenson; Robinson Crusoe; Peter Pan; Jules Verne; John Buchan; James Herriot; O. Henry; and biographies of missionaries, explorers and warriors.

By the time they are in their mid teens, let's hope they've become acquainted with J.R.R. Tolkien; Randy Alcorn's fiction; G.K. Chesterton's poetry and his Father Brown series; Louisa May Alcott; G.A. Henty; Charles Dickens; Alexandre Dumas; Thor Heyerdahl; Rafael Sabatini; and plenty of history books. In the latter category, please be sure and include Shelby Foote, Samuel Eliot Morrison and Walter Lord.

Happy Christmas shopping. And don't feel bad that you're going to go out and order the books for your kids that you really want to read too! Literature should promote sharing!

A Review of Wait No More

2011-12-17T07:42:00.000-06:00

Among our most respected and long-term friends are John & Kelly Rosati, Christian pro-life colleagues who we have known since their time in Nebraska -- before John's service in the Air Force and Kelly's service for Focus on the Family took them to Hawaii, Wisconsin, Hawaii again and Colorado. They are a very impressive couple: smart, caring, and visionary.

John & Kelly's new book, Wait No More: One Family's Amazing Adoption Journey, was a project they were asked to write by Kelly's Focus on the Family colleagues. It was a labor of love about an even greater labor of love; namely, raising a family of adopted children. I'm almost sure you will find the book as interesting and inspiring as I did...

Read the rest of Claire Hartford's comments right here.

All I Want for Christmas Is A Good Book (Or Two)

2011-12-14T10:00:00.001-06:00

One of my favorite places to go during the weeks leading up to Christmas is the American Spectator's annual survey of book recommendations. The magazine draws in suggestions from noted "readers and writers," creating an article I always find interesting and from which I always find a few titles to pick up on. In fact, during the years before the internet, the December issue of the hard copy magazine was my favorite and it served as an inspiration for me to create a similar service on the radio program I did in those years. People still tell me that these programs (shows where I shared the book recommendations of writers, preachers, musicians, politicians, housewives, etc) were among the most memorable in our 13 years.

But anyhow, back to the American Spectator's collection for Christmas 2011. This year's recommendations come from such people as Doug Bandow, Mark Tooley (a fellow who frequently is linked in Vital Signs Blog posts), Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, Sean Hannity, film director Ron Maxwell, Donald Rumsfeld, and Florida Congressman Allen West. Go on over and check 'em out.

Really Good "Bad" Writing

2011-12-01T10:25:00.000-06:00

Claire and I, former teachers that we are, got a big laugh out of this collection of Really Bad Analogies that came from stories written by high school students. I think you will as well. Remembering papers I've graded back in the day, I fear that a few of these lines may be "quite innocently" bad. But I'm sure you'll agree that most of them are so cleverly, exquisitely bad that the writer just had to have done it on purpose. Raymond Chandler, eat your heart out.

Let me drop in right here a few of my favorites and you can go on over and find yours.

* Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.

* He was as tall as a 6′3″ tree.

* He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

* The lamp just sat there, like an inanimate object.

* He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

* The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

* The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.

* Fishing is like waiting for something that does not happen very often.

* They were as good friends as the people on “Friends.”

* It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before.

Respectfully Submitted -- The Hartfords' NHN Reading Recommendations

2011-11-25T21:14:00.003-06:00

I describe in this Vital Signs post ("And Now Nebraska City") the autumn retreat of the Notting Hill Napoleons, our peerless book club that's been reading classic literature for over 20 years. Well, each November we go through an intriguing process to decide on the reading list for the coming year. And that process starts with reading recommendation lists presented to the group for consideration.

I thought you might want to look through the one Claire and I submitted last weekend.

Keep in mind that coming up with these recommendations is getting tougher every year because 1) We have already gone through so many classic titles already. The complete reading list of the Napoleons can be found by adding this one (1992-2007) with these: 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.

2) Most of our fellow club members are cool to our repeated suggestions to re-read the best books from previous years. Doing so, we believe, would not only provide those special blessings that come from re-reading a good book but it would go a long way in keeping the club standards high. But, alas, that is not a popular suggestion. Perhaps it's because their memories are a lot better than ours!

And 3) We have to be realistic about a book's chances to get through the process. There are books we would like to recommend but, knowing our friends' tastes, we refrain from putting those books in. The result is that we create a detailed book list that tries to balance our preferences with what we hope are consensus values. Like I said, it ain't easy! Anyhow, here's what we came up with. See what you think.

Denny’s & Claire’s NHN Reading Suggestions for 2012

1) The African Queen by C. S. Forester -- You know the basic story here and, of course, you'll not be able to read it without picturing Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn in the protagonist roles. Nevertheless, the reviews rate this 1935 novel from the author of The Good Shepherd and the popular Horatio Hornblower series very high. 256 pages. (Used starting at $.01 at Amazon. $3 Kindle. 3 copies in Omaha Public Library - OPL.)

2) The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers -- This is a deeply moving novel about the escape of a young Communist from a Nazi concentration camp. Denny read it earlier this year and it provided him with one of the most thoughtful reading experiences he's had this year. It is a thrilling book but also one that illuminates several issues of the human spirit. 344 pages. (Used starting at $0.99 at Alibris.com)

3) Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas -- Two decades have passed since the famous swordsmen triumphed over Cardinal Richelieu and M’lady in The Three Musketeers. Time has weakened their bodies a bit and dispersed them to pursue individual ends. But treason and skullduggery still cry out for justice. So when civil war endangers the throne of France and Cromwell threatens to send Charles I to the scaffold, the immortal quartet comes out of retirement to cross swords once again with the malevolent forces of history...and time itself. (880 pages. New: $10.85. Used from $0.48 at Amazon. Free Kindle edition. 4 copies in OPL.)

4) The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens.(Re-reading this one is already scheduled.)

5) All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren -- A great read for an election year, this landmark novel is a loosely fictionalized account of Governor Huey Long of Louisiana, one of the most remarkable and controversial politicians in American history. The novel tells the story of Willie Stark, a popular but underhanded governor of a Southern state who effectively appeals to the common man while playing dirty politics with the best of the back-room deal-makers. However, his key assistant cannot shed his idealism so easily and the stormy relationship between the two form much of the novel’s tension. (456 pages. New $5. Used copies starting at $.01 at Amazon. 7 copies in OPL system.)

6) No Name by Wilkie Collins -- This is Wilkie Collins at the height of his literary powers. It is the story of two sisters, Magdalen and Norah, who discover after the deaths of their dearly beloved parents that, alas, they were not legally married at the time of the girls’ births. Ousted from their estate and disinherited, Magdalen and Norah must fend for themselves. Will they surrender to their fate or recover their wealth by whatever means available? 784 pages. (New from $10.25. Used from $.02 at Amazon. Free Kindle edition. 1 copy in OPL.)

7) That Printer of Udell’s by Harold Bell Wright -- It would be hard to write a better recommendation for this book than the one written by President Ronald Reagan: “I found a role model in that traveling printer whom Harold Bell Wright had brought to life. He set me on a course I’ve tried to follow even unto this day. I shall always be grateful.” Certainly we could all benefit from reading this warm-hearted novel that emphasizes that a strong belief in God forms the basis for a fulfilling life, no matter what a person’s past might hold. One other thing -- this would be a perfect book to read at a Notting Hill Napoleon getaway in Branson, Wright's old stomping grounds! (346 pages. New: $5.95. Used from $2. Free Kindle edition.)

8) The Final Storm by Jeff Shaara -- The Napoleons have come to love these historical novels and this is the one which completes the WWII trilogy we’ve started. 480 pages. (Used from $5.81 at Amazon and multiple copies in OPL)

9) Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon -- How this story came to be known throughout the world is almost as romantic as the story itself. While serving as a missionary in Thailand, the author discovered a very rare copy of Anna Leonowens' The English Governess at the Siamese Court. Years later, she came across Leonowens' Romance of the Harem in a second-hand bookstore in Chicago. She paid $1 for the book. She eventually combined basic elements of both books with events and characters from her own imagination to create Anna and the King of Siam. It was a big hit. And the exotic setting and romantic story so impressed the wives of Rogers and Hammerstein that they convinced their husbands to write what would become one of the most beloved musicals of all time. 416 pages. (Used from $1. 2 copies in OPL.)

10) November 1916 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn -- With August 1914, Solzhenitsyn began his epic of the Russian Revolution, the finished version of which (The Red Wheel) he hoped to leave as his greatest and most important work. This is historical fiction at its very best. (1000 pages. New $20.00. Used copies available. 3 copies in OPL)

11) The Legend of Montrose by Sir Walter Scott -- The Earl of Montrose leads an army of Highland "gillies" and their clan leaders through various adventures in Perthshire, Argyle and further north. The central character here is Dugald Dalgetty, a verbose and opinionated ex-mercenary who falls in with Montrose's army and plays a leading role in the campaign. We also meet the Earl of Menteith and follow the history of his love for Annot Lyle, an orphan who has been befriended and is also loved by the younger brother of the Highland chieftain Angus M'Aulay. (220 pages. $4.27 & up at abebooks.com. Free Kindle edition. OPL has multiple copies)

12) The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington -- This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel portrays the decline of the wealthy Amberson family, serving as a touching backdrop for the huge social changes America saw in the decades following the Industrial Revolution. Rather than join the modern age, George Amberson insists on remaining a "gentleman" and tries desperately to hang on to his patrician pride. But his town soon becomes a city and the family palace becomes surrounded by industry, destroying the elegant, cloistered lifestyle enjoyed by the family in years gone by. A genuine masterpiece. 276 pages. (New $13. Used from $.01 Free Kindle edition. 2 in OPL.)

13) Time of Hope by C.P. Snow -- This is the first (in chronological action) of Snow's series of novels, "Strangers and Brothers." The 11 books in the series were written by Snow (a renowned scientific scholar as well as novelist) between 1940 and 1974. They concern questions of English life, academia, political and personal integrity, and more. 396 pages. (Used copies at abebooks.com from $1.00. New $10.79.)

14) Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier -- "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." Say no more. This is one of those novels which surpasses even the blockbuster movie it inspired. The author is an incomparable craftsman and in Rebecca she weaves plot, tension, setting and dialogue together into one of America’s most intense and intriguing gothic novels. 416 pages. (Used copies starting at $.01 at Amazon. 10 copies in OPL.)

15) The Natural by Bernard Malamud – It is generally acknowledged that this, Malamud’s first book, is the best novel ever written about baseball. Published in 1952, it is quite different from the rest of his work. For whereas his later writing concentrated on modern Jewish life and themes, this novel presents the story of a superbly gifted athlete from baseball’s golden era. 231 pages. (Used from $1. 2 copies in OPL.)

16) The Bridge Over the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle – It is 1942 and the Japanese desperately need a train route going northward from Burma. Labor is provided by POWs but a key bridge they build will become a symbol of honor to British prisoner Colonel Nicholson, a principled perfectionist. While the Allies race to destroy the bridge, Nicholson must decide which will be destroyed, the bridge or his pride. 207 pages. (Used from $1. 1 copy in OPL.)

17) The Chequer Board by Nevil Shute -- Quint suggested this one last year. This is what he then wrote about the novel, "John Turner, a loser, learns that he will die of a head wound suffered during the war. He accepts this but decides to do something good with the time he has remaining. He decides to visit three men he met in a hospital ward. They were each in trouble when he met them and now he sets out to find out how each has chosen his life and settled his problem. As always, Shute tells a good story.” 380 pages. (Used copies starting at $0.63 at Amazon.)

18) Persuasion by Jane Austen -- Anne Elliot, heroine of Austen's last novel, let the love of her life get away. She allowed herself to be persuaded by a trusted family friend that the young man she loved wasn't an adequate match. Now it’s seven years later; she’s still alone; and the man she never stopped loving has come back from the sea. 150 pages. (Used copies starting at $.01 at Amazon. Free Kindle edition. 6 copies in OPL.)

19) We suggest a re-reading of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. (Free Kindle edition.)

20) We suggest a re-reading of Boris Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago.

How many of these books made the final cut? And what is that final 2012 list of books decided upon by the noble Notting Hill Napoleons? That, my friend, you'll find in the post right beneath this one.

The 2012 NHN Agenda

2011-11-25T21:00:00.015-06:00

So, after the dust settled Friday night there in Nebraska City, which lucky books made it into the Notting Hill Napoleons circle?

The Final Storm by Jeff Shaara
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The African Queen by C. S. Forester
Safely Home by Randy Alcorn
No Name by Wilkie Collins
The Shame of Motley by Rafael Sabatini
The Chequer Board by Nevil Shute
Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
That Printer of Udell's by Harold Bell Wright
The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
Tevye, The Dairyman & The Railroad Stories by Hillel Halkin

Catching Up...Again.

2011-11-25T20:06:00.000-06:00

I'm afraid that my other blogging duties (combined with the whirlwind of "When Swing Was King" presentations and all the other activities of Vital Signs Ministries) have kept me from spending any time over here at the Book Den.

Sorry.

I'm going to try and alleviate that a bit, primarily by providing cross posts here to literature, arts and music items that show up over at Vital Signs Blog.

Starting with these examples:

Remembering Shelby Foote

Raymond Chandler Makes the A-List

Have You Read What They Read?

The Epiphany of St. Mugg

Genuine Science vs "Prejudiced Guesses" (Michael Crichton)

Children’s Literature: It's Definitely Not Just For Kids

2011 List for the Notting Hill Napoleons

2011-11-18T20:49:00.006-06:00

In preparation for deciding the NHN books for 2011, I realized I hadn't posted anywhere the book list representing 2010. My bad. Here it is:

Rise To Rebellion by Jeff Shaara
The Glorious Cause by Jeff Shaara
The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Shiloh by Shelby Foote
The Black Tulip by Andre Dumas
Keys of The Kingdom by A. J. Cronin
Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
The Lost King by Rafael Sabatini
The Breaking Wave by Nevil Shute
The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson
Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
Paris in The Twentieth Century by Jules Verne

Once Again I Board Kon-Tiki

2011-08-08T10:38:00.002-05:00

Once in a while you find yourself in an odd situation. You get into it by degrees and in the most natural way but, when you are right in the midst of it, you are suddenly astonished and ask yourself how in the world it all came about.

If, for example, you put to sea on a wooden raft with a parrot and five companions, it is inevitable that sooner or later you will wake up one morning out at sea, perhaps a little better rested than ordinarily, and begin to think about it...

Could anyone, after reading that introduction to a book, put it down?

Well, I certainly couldn't when, in the 5th grade of Glennon Heights Elementary School in south Denver, I first came across Thor Heyerdahl's epic Kon-Tiki. And indeed, this true story of adventurers who make and board an ancient balsa wood raft and sail across thousands of miles of the Pacific Ocean to prove the legitimacy of a ethnological theory, still captivates and inspires me. I've re-read Kon-Tiki probably 6 or 8 times in my life and last night I started the adventure all over again.

Have you ever taken this thrilling raft ride? By all means, don't miss it.

(My last reading of Kon-Tiki elicited this post on The Book Den which you might find of interest and an amazing piece of trivia about the original manuscript of Kon-Tiki is here in this post.)

Mystery Writer's Honor Roll (Revised)

2011-08-06T18:27:00.001-05:00

What constitutes a mystery novel?

It's a tough question. For instance, among my pleasure reading are a whole lot of mystery novels which combine the classic "Who Done It" formula with action, adventure, espionage, police procedural, and so on. The latter group (for me) would include books written by John Buchan, Leslie Charteris, John D. MacDonald, Alistair MacLean, E. W. Hornung, and Donald Hamilton.

There are other writers who apply to the mystery form more complex and higher literary purposes. Among those that I cherish a great deal are Charles Dickens, G.K. Chesterton, and Wilkie Collins.

But for sheer pleasure in wanting to hang out with the hero and helping him or her solve the puzzle, I tend to the Golden Age mystery writers...and a few others. How about you? See how close your favorites line up with my latest version of the Mystery Writer's Honor Roll.

Eric Ambler

Earl Derr Biggers

John Dickson Carr
(and also those under his pen name Carter Dickson)

Raymond Chandler

Agatha Christie

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Dick Francis

Erle Stanley Gardner
(and also those under his pen name A. A. Fair)

Jonathan Gash

P.D. James

Ngaio Marsh

Dorothy Sayers

Josephine Tey

So You Think You Know the Real Story of Roger Maris and 61, Huh?

2011-08-05T11:41:00.000-05:00

Allen Barra's article in the Atlantic, "Roger Maris's Misunderstood Quest to Break the Home Run Record" is a fascinating, must-read for baseball fans and history buffs. Plus it gives some great tips for those of us who would like further reading on this topic.

I took particular note of Phil Pepe's 1961: The Inside Story of the Maris-Mantle Home Run Chase, David James Duncan's novel, The Brothers K, and Barra's Clearing The Bases, The Greatest Baseball Debates of the Century.

Summer Reading

2011-08-05T11:37:00.000-05:00

Last week I posted an item over on Vital Signs Blog about my discovery, lo those many years ago, of one of my favorite writers of all, G.K. Chesterton. That prompted the questions, "Do you still read him a lot? And are you reading anything by him right now?"

Well, yes; I do still read a lot of Chesterton. Although, a more precise answer might be that I do some new reading of Chesterton...and a whole lot of re-reading of Chesterton. But that's true of my reading habits in general. As I've grown older and put a ton of books behind me (good, bad and indifferent books), I find it significantly more edifying and entertaining to read things again rather than experiment. In fact, I'd guess that 3/4 of the books I read are books I have read at least once before.

And that includes Chesterton.

But to return to the specific question -- what am I reading of his right now? Actually, nothing. I do not, like some people, try and read more than one book at a time. My concentration and memory are limited enough as it is. But he is on my summer schedule and right after I finish Charles Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop (right, another re-read), Nancy Pearcey's Saving Leonardo, and this month's Napoleon selection, Rafael Sabatini's The Lost King, I plan to visit several of my favorite Chesterton works: the novels Manalive and The Flying Inn, the polemical works Orthodoxy and Heretics, and the poem "Lepanto."

But those do not constitute the whole of this summer's reading. Besides the reading I do every week in the Bible and Bible study books (I am, after all, a preacher), I've managed to fit in the following since the beginning of May, many of them read while my Mom was in the hospital.

* The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers. This is a novel published in 1941, if I remember correctly, but it was my first reading of it. It's a story of an escapee from one of the Nazi's concentration camps, full of intense drama, desperate chase scenes and profound insights into human emotions, relationships and motivations. It was superb. I'm sure it will be one of my nominations next November to make the Notting Hill Napoleon reading list.

* Scoop by Evelyn Waugh. A very funny 1938 novel from one of Britain's best writers, a novel which looked at English colonialism, journalism, racial prejudices and more.

* Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh. This is an early work of Waugh's -- published in 1930. It's a curious, rather uneven parody of English romantic comedies of the period. But in its derision of the upper classes, Waugh employs a pretty bitter comedy, one that is at times uncomfortably bleak. I've read several Evelyn Waugh novels and essays but this was my first time around with both Scoop and Vile Bodies.

* I Cover the Waterfront by Max Miller. I found this 1933 collection of short tales very interesting, sometimes even quite moving. Miller was a frustrated and lonely newspaper reporter assigned the beat of San Diego's docks. He was a man who desperately wanted the fame, fortune and high living of a popular novelist and that often mars his stories. So too does his cynicism and a self-detachment that sometimes borders on cruelty. Yes, he was an excellent observer and a fine writer but his nihilism keeps me from suggesting this one to the Napoleons...and maybe to you.

* Looking for the King : An Inklings Novel by David C. Downing. This is a new book which offered some nice moments but certainly not enough for me to recommend it.

* Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan. This short novel, though written very early in his career and not as full or sharp as his later works -- it was published in 1915 while Buchan was still serving as a soldier during WWI -- remains a very thrilling adventure. And, of course, it's the necessary introduction to the other novels which feature Scottish secret agent Richard Hannay, Greenmantle, Mr. Standfast, The Three Hostages and The Island of Sheep.

* A Taste for Death by P.D. James. In this, the 7th of James' mysteries starring poetry-writing detective Adam Dalgliesh, the story revolves around the double murder in a small church of a peer and a homeless drunk. But, like her other mysteries, James deftly explores character, ideas and culture as much as she does the complex plot of the crime. I had read this many years ago and, thanks to that shallow memory I mentioned earlier, I had forgotten enough of the details to keep me interested in the mystery as well as James' observations of life.

* Watership Down by Richard Adams. How can you not want to re-join Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig and all their rabbit colleagues in their long, perilous journey to their new warren, let alone experience again that desperate fight against General Woundwort and the soldier rabbits of Efrafra? At least that's what I want to do every few years. And I had a great time doing so again.

So, now on to Dickens, Pearcey, Sabatini and finally, Chesterton. I must say, it's a pretty good summer regimen. What's yours?

Randy Alcorn's Books Provide a Double Blessing

2011-08-05T11:32:00.000-05:00

Randy Alcorn is one of the most popular Christian writers of our day and, in works of both fiction and non-fiction, he has illuminated and challenged hundreds of thousands. Indeed, over 6 million of his books are in print and/or audio formats. Therefore, I have little doubt that many of you have been inspired by such Alcorn books as Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments, Heaven, Deadline, Dominion, Lord Foulgrin's Letters, and Safely Home.

But are you aware that by buying a Randy Alcorn book, you are are not only opening a blessing for yourself but for others as well? For all of the royalties from Alcorn's books go to Eternal Perspective Ministries, the Christian organization that has been among the finest pro-life, pro-family, pro-missions around. Quite remarkably, EPM then gives away those royalties (100% of them!) to support other Christian ministries and missionaries around the world.

For instance, in just this last year, nearly 40,000 Randy Alcorn books were given away to a variety of mission and para-church organizations. And $437,818 in book royalties were given to worthy Christian ministries. The total since EPM began is over five million dollars given away! Wow.

So remember this when it comes time for you to buy another book. Having read Randy Alcorn for years and having interviewed him several times in the days of "Vital Signs" radio programs, I can testify that his dedication as a researcher is superb and his courage in taking on subjects that other Christian authors studiously avoid is magnificent. The sales figures on his books prove that his writing and story-telling skills are first rate. And now you know that, in addition to all of that, Randy Alcorn's generosity and vision for the Lord's work are absolutely wonderful.

So reading Randy Alcorn provides a unique double blessing -- one that will change and enrich your life and yet another that will serve as an investment in the Lord's work way beyond you.

Randy Alcorn books can be purchased right from the Eternal Perspective Ministries web site. It's a terrific place to learn more about the author, the EPM organization and a whole lot of very helpful information for Christians wanting to serve God to their very best.

2011-08-05T11:28:00.000-05:00

In this interesting post from her blog, Mommy Life, Barbara Curtis reviews Abby Johnson's new book, Unplanned. It's a book Barbara likes and recommends highly.

Anyone concerned with the issue of abortion should read this book, as it illustrates through one woman's life how vulnerable we are when someone spins a message a certain way...

Abby Johnson made her entrance into the Planned Parenthood abortion industry through a college jobs fair. She wanted to help women, and the Planned Parenthood operative who chatted her up had just the right bait on the hook to grab her and reel her in. Abby volunteered for a few years, then upon graduation applied for and accepted a paid position at an organization she thought was helping downtrodden women. Her parents and husband knew the truth about PP, but loved her through the years Abby worked there...

But God has different plans for different people. And His plan for Abby's life is clear as you read her story, which God has used to show us how those on each side of the abortion divide think and feel. Abby relates how the 40 Days for Life presence made an impression on her contrary to the PP hype about "anti-abortion" fanatics. While in the beginning of her PP tenure there were a few harsh people on the other side of the fence, as 40 Days for Life became the stronger presence, Abby could see, hear and feel their love. She respected them and they respected - and loved - her.

Still, she never dreamed that one day she would flee to them for comfort and healing when the reality of abortion finally hit her. Since then, Abby has been active in 40 Days for Life. She and her husband are also in the process of converting to Catholicism (but that isn't mentioned in the book, which is a joint venture by St. Ignatius Press and Focus on the Family).

Through Abby's perspective you will gain a real appreciation for how the rapidly growing ministry of Days for Life - based on prayer and fasting - is having a greater effect than all the pro-life drama that came before.

But the real story of Unplanned is Abby's - the personal realizations, the spiritual growth, the clear intervention by God into a life situated, despite her upbringing and belief in God - to go along with the flow of the culture. Abby's insights will help anyone who's ever wondered how a Christian could be "pro-choice."

If you can't buy this book yourself, ask your library to get a copy - or two or three or four. Debuting at #1 on Amazon on its publication date, it has remained in the top 300s.

The Reading Year in Review

2010-03-02T18:53:00.004-06:00

There's no secret why there's been a sharp decline of activity here at the Book Den in the last couple of years. For that decline corresponds exactly to 1) the decline in my Mom's health and 2) my assumption of duties as the teaching pastor at Faith Bible Church. Both of these factors have meant a substantial reduction in my reading time, let alone the regular "maintenance" of my bookish blog.

Yes, I do still find some time for reading. And I've even managed to drop in a Book Den note now and again. But not enough. Indeed, I notice that the last book reviewed here was Bardelys The Magnificent by Rafael Sabatini. And that came back in August. Yipes! I really am far behind.

So, I'll move into the present by zipping through what constituted my 2009 reading list and the first couple of months of 2010. Sorry that I won't have much time for commentary but I am, alas, already whining about a lack of time, right?

I will not bother to list the theological works that I consult in my sermon preparation -- or the collections of short stories or history texts that I'll pick up when I know I just have a brief time to read -- or the dipping in to favorites like G. K. Chesterton. No, I'll stay with whole books read like Lowell Thomas' Pageant of Life that appears first on my list for 2009. (Claire is the record-keeper, bless her.) This is one of the 5 volumes from the Lowell Thomas Adventure Library and it consists of a superb collection of vignettes from Thomas' amazing career as a journalist and world traveler. There are a lot of stories (all quite brief) in this delightful book that are a treasure to a social historian like myself -- but I also know that these strange and ironic tales please others too for I've seen it in my Mom when I've read them aloud to her.

Also in January '09 I read Seven Secular Challenges Facing 21st Century Catholics by Fr. Val Peter (reviewed here at some length) and Check with Chip on Stem Cell Research by Chip Maxwell (also reviewed briefly at The Book Den here.) In January I also did a Book Den posting about White Nights and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostoevsky as well as something in a much lighter vein, Ozzie by Ozzie Nelson.

In the next couple of months my extra-curricular reading included Cleopatra by H. Rider Haggard and then Guilty by Ann Coulter (a Vital Signs Book It! selection). I also did some re-reading: Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis, The Virginian by Owen Wister and the whole slew of Donald Hamilton Matt Helm novels , 27 in all. That was the second (maybe even the third) time around for the Matt Helm books. It reflects my enjoyment in polishing off whole series of adventure/detective/mystery novels. Other "serial authors" in these genres that I've enjoyed re-reading over the years have been Conan Doyle, John Buchan, Ngaio Marsh, Agatha Christie, and John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee books.

In the spring I very much enjoyed Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, Landfall by Nevil Shute, and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. It was probably my 4th time around with that last one, the first time being in high school.

In the summer there was another Book It! discussion covering The Faith by Chuck Colson, a terrific book that made for stimulating conversation. In those months I also re-read You Know Me, Al by Ring W. Lardner and the J.R.R. Tolkien series: The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King. There was also the aforementioned Bardelys The Magnificent by Rafael Sabatini, the Book It! selection of Liberty and Tyranny by Mark Levin and Ninety-Three by Victor Hugo.

Looking at the list, it's clear that our fall schedule must have really been packed because the only books that I see there are Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins, the Book It! reading of Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis and David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. By December there was a little more room and I squeezed in The Darkness and the Dawn by Thomas Costain, The Gift of Christmas Present by Melody Carlson, At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon (the first in her series that Claire so loves), and a re-reading of O Little Town by Don Reid. (A Book Den post about that last title was done a year ago.)

So far in this year I've made it through the 1,000 pages of November 1916 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Doctor Frigo by Eric Ambler, a Whitman Series book from 1942, Ginger Rogers and The Riddle of the Scarlet Cloak written by her mother (no kidding!), Lela Rogers, and The Sea Wolf by Jack London.

Whew! Now that that's over, I can rest comfortably in my bed tonight. Yet I know I should do a more thorough review of at least a couple of these...which I hope to do. Until then, see you over on Vital Signs Blog.

Behind Those Ringing Bells

2009-12-09T12:26:00.003-06:00

Okay, so what do you really know about those folks with the bells outside the grocery store this time of year?

Mark Tooley reviews Henry Gariepy's new book, Christianity in Action: The History of the International Salvation Army over here at The Weekly Standard. It is a fascinating and positive story which will make you feel a lot better about dropping a few dollars in that red kettle.

And it may even prompt you to order the book. It did me.

Comparing Dickens and Darwin

2009-12-02T14:16:00.004-06:00

Yes, I know I've got to write a piece on the recent Vital Signs Ministries Book It! discussion we had over The Screwtape Letters and I should do another on Great Expectations which was the Notting Hill Napoleons' November read. And yes, there's other posts I'm way overdue on like suggesting some new Christmas reading.

I'll try and get to them this week.

But, in the meantime, check out this brief post over on Vital Signs. It will link you to a terrific essay, Gina Dalfonzo's "A Tale of Two Worldviews: The Dual Anniversary of Dickens and Darwin."

Troweling for Book Bargains

2009-11-24T15:08:00.006-06:00

On the Saturday mornings of our annual book club retreat in Nebraska City (see this post at Vital Signs for a re-cap of our latest excursion), we go into the town center for an hour or two to browse around. I've found some amazing book bargains over the years in the basement of one particular thrift store and managed to scrounge up a few more this time too.

Among those treasures? 1) A few treasured hardbound copies for our collection of popular entertainment books: Little Orphan Annie and the Gila Monster Gang, 1934; Ginger Rogers and the Riddle of the Scarlet Cloak, 1942; Shirley Temple and the Spirit of Dragonwood, 1945 -- all for $3.

2) Three nice G.A. Henty novels I didn't have. All less than $4.

3) A few copies of authors who were best-sellers in the early and mid decades of the 20th Century but who have long been out of print including Thomas Costain, Hugh Walpole, George Barr McCutcheon, and Frances Hodgson Burnett.

and 4) Two great finds: an excellent hardbound copy of Harold Lamb's The Crusades: Iron Men and Saints (1930) for $4 and a fair (but rather rare) copy of Samuel Eliot Morison's The Two Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War for $7.50. That was the most expensive purchase of the day.

Later on in a new bookstore, I talked to the manager about the Redwall series I've heard so much about and ended up coming out with a paperback copy of the first book in what is a long series. I'll let you know what I think of it.

Shopping for books in a thrift store that has a lot of them and then ending up in a comfy small-town bookstore that has a coffee shop en suite -- can you think of a more pleasant way to wile away a couple of hours?

Notting Hill Napoleons' Reading Rota (2010)

2009-11-24T14:35:00.003-06:00

January: November 1916 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

February: Sea Wolf by Jack London.

March: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.

April: The Monastery by Sir Walter Scott.

May: The Steel Wave by Jeff Shaara.

June: A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay.

July: Fortune's Fool by Rafael Sabatini.

August: No Highway by Nevil Shute.

September: The Silver Chalice by Thomas B. Costain.

October: The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells.

November: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.

December: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer.

Denny's & Claire's NHN Reading Nominations for 2010

2009-11-20T12:06:00.008-06:00

Yes, I know...The Book Den hasn't seen much activity over here this last year or so. Can't help it. All of my Vital Signs Ministries tasks, the increase in Vital Signs blog activity, and now preaching every Sunday at Faith Bible Church has taken away what time I formerly found to spend on Book Den posts.

Yes, yes...I'll try to find another hour in the day somewhere.

But, in the meantime, here's a new post to show how serious my resolution is. (Smile) It's the latest recommended reading list to be submitted to the Notting Hill Napoleons this weekend.

Denny’s & Claire’s Nominations for the 2010 NHN Reading List

1) All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren.
This landmark book is a loosely fictionalized account of Governor Huey Long of Louisiana, one of the most remarkable and controversial politicians in American history. The novel tells the story of Willie Stark, a popular but underhanded governor of a Southern state who effectively appeals to the common man while playing dirty politics with the best of the back-room deal-makers. However, his key assistant cannot shed his idealism so easily and the stormy relationship between the two form much of the novel’s tension. (456 pages. New $5. Several copies in OPL system.)

2) Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister.
This novel hasn’t been widely available until the Conservative Book Club printed a bunch a few years ago. We enjoyed Wister’s seminal Western novel earlier this year and so we suggest this story about life in the post Civil-War South. Using Charleston, South Carolina (renamed Kings Port) as a character in its own right, Wister describes the struggles of the ante-bellum Southern culture in the aftermath of a destructive, demoralizing war as well as the need of reconciliation with the victorious, arrogant and well-fed people of the Union. (422 pages. From $1-6 used.)

3) Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas.
Two decades have passed since the famous swordsmen triumphed over Cardinal Richelieu and M’lady in The Three Musketeers. Time has weakened their bodies a bit and dispersed them from one another. But treason and skulduggery still cry out for justice. Civil war soon endangers the throne of France while, in England, Cromwell threatens to send Charles I to the scaffold. It is in this firestorm that the immortal quartet comes out of retirement to cross swords once again with time, the malevolence of men, and the forces of history. (880 pages. New: $10.85. Used from $6. 4 copies in OPL.)

4) No Highway by Nevil Shute.
A new type of British airliner is flying into certain disaster high above the Atlantic. But one of the passengers aboard is a brilliant scientist who recognizes the fate that awaits. Or does he? This is Nevil Shute with his usual skill in human characterizations, dialogue, and thoughtfulness but with one of his most grippingly suspenseful stories. (280 pages. $6 used.)

5) The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells.
"The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking as it seemed from Bramblehurst railway station and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand." Thus begins one of the most chilling stories of all time, a short novel which we'll enjoy reading and which will have us talking about science, the social compact, friendship, secrecy, revenge and more. (208 pages in the Penguin Classics. $5 new. Used & library copies aplenty.)

6) David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.
This was the fourth Dickens novel in the Napoleon Rota. We've been following the same pattern so far so why not continue? (736 pages. $5 for a new paperback copy. Used copies abound. Over a dozen copies in OPL.)

7) Finding Noel by Richard Paul Evans.
"When I wrote my first novel, The Christmas Box, I never imagined it would become an international bestseller. It was a story for my two (then) little girls. But as I wrote, I realized that it was also for my mother -- to ease her pain over losing a child…When The Christmas Box hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, no one, including me, was more excited than my mother. I lost my mother on Valentine's Day of 2006. After weeks of struggling with my grief, I decided I would write a story for her. As she loved Christmas, I chose to write a Christmas novel, my first since The Christmas Box. Finding Noel is about how people come into our lives for a reason. It is a love story about Macy and Mark, two young people from different worlds. I'm sorry that this Christmas, for the first time since I became a writer, I won't be able to present my mother with a copy of my book. I think she would have enjoyed reading it. But, then again, I'm not certain that she hasn't. As you read Finding Noel, I hope that you enjoy the journey and feel the same powerful emotions I felt as the story came to me. Fondly, Richard Evans." (320 pages. $14 new. Used from $6. 17 copies in OPL.)

8) November 1916 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
With August 1914, Solzhenitsyn began his epic of the Russian Revolution, the finished version of which (The Red Wheel) he hoped to leave as his greatest and most important work. After 20 years, the second of the series is here. This is historical fiction at its very best. (1000 pages. New: $20.00. 3 copies in OPL.)

9) A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay.
This novel by the nearly-forgotten Scottish writer was published in 1920. It combines fantasy, philosophy, and science fiction in an exploration of the nature of good and evil. It has been described by critic and philosopher Colin Wilson as the "greatest novel of the twentieth century" and was a central influence on C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy. We noticed it mentioned in Lewis’ preface to the 1961 edition of The Screwtape Letters and thought we might give it a go. (204 pages. $10 new. Some used copies are around.)

10) Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.
Impoverished sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood are sent (following the death of their father and the manipulations of a mean sister-in-law) to a little cottage in Devonshire where they adapt to their new situation, each other, and the entrance of eligible suitors. One of the sisters approaches life with practicality and restraint while the other is more...energetic and impetuous, thus giving Austen (a very young author then) opportunity to look at English country life, the aristocracy, love and courtship, and the development of individual personality from insightful and humorous angles. (220 pages. $5-7 for new copies. Used easily available and there’s over a dozen copies in the OPL system.)

11) The Steel Wave: A Novel of World War II by Jeff Shaara.
“This is the second volume of Shaara’s planned trilogy of novels dealing with America’s role in World War II in Europe. Here Shaara’s topic is D-Day, the Allied effort to begin the liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe by amphibious landings on the coast of Normandy. With decades of hindsight, the success of the Normandy invasion may seem inevitable and a tribute to Allied forces. As Shaara’s fine novel illustrates, however, success was far from assured, and the planning fell short in numerous ways.” -- Jay Freeman. (528 pages. $16 new. Used copies will be showing up soon. 7 copies in the OPL system.)

12) The Silver Chalice by Thomas B. Costain.
Costain was one of America’s most popular novelists in the early years of the 20th Century with this being his best selling book. Based on legends that have circulated from the earliest days of the Church, The Silver Chalice describes the life of Basil, the artisan who fashioned the silver chalice that held the sacred cup from which Christ drank at the Last Supper. Following its publication in 1953, the Chicago Tribune said of the book, "Costain paints a tremendous canvas filled with color and vitality. . .He breathes life into history. But The Silver Chalice does more than this. It makes the New Testament, perhaps for the first time, seem real." (Doesn’t say much for the reviewer’s preacher and Sunday School teachers, does it?) Anyhow, similarly high praise comes from the woman who wrote the introduction to the latest edition, Peggy Noonan. (533 pages. New $11. Used from $1.25. 2 copies in OPL.)

13) Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.
After a terrible fall from a horse in 1920, Margaret Mitchell’s health began to decline. In fact, by 1926, she had to resign from the Atlanta Journal where she had developed into a popular reporter. Fearing that she was becoming bored and depressed, her husband gave her a new Remington typewriter upon which was this challenging message, “Madam, I greet you on the beginning of a new career.” The result? Only the bestselling novel of all time, Gone with the Wind! It’s a long read, but hey - that’s part of its charm for the story, characters and writing are splendid enough to make you never want it to end. Gone with the Wind would make a terrific wintertime book. (1024 pages. New $8. Used from $1. Several copies in OPL.)

14) Fortune's Fool by Rafael Sabatini.
Published in 1922, the novel is set in Restoration London (1665) and concerns itself with the adventures (perhaps "misadventures" is the proper word) of a soldier of fortune who is struggling to deal with the hardships of...peace! The novel sparkles with witty dialogue, intrigue, romance, and the dangers of the plague. Will a possible war with Holland be Randal Holles’ deliverance or will his court enemies bring him down before then? And how will he fare with the gorgeous actress Sylvia Farquharson to whom he's lost his heart? (324 pages. $20 new. Used from $6.)

15) The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington.
This 1919 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel portrays the decline of the extravagantly affluent Amberson family, serving as a touching backdrop for the huge social changes America saw in the decades following the Industrial Revolution. Rather than join the modern age, George Amberson insists on remaining a "gentleman" and tries desperately to hang on to his own version of patrician pride. But his town soon becomes a city and the family palace becomes surrounded by industry, destroying the elegant, cloistered lifestyle enjoyed by the family in years gone by. A genuine masterpiece. (276 pages. New $13. Used from $5. 2 in OPL.)

16) Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon.
This Victorian bestseller, along with Braddon's other famous novel, Aurora Floyd, established her as the main rival of the master of the sensational novel, Wilkie Collins. And there's plenty to keep the reader turning pages here: mystery, blackmail, crime, secret passages, and a female protagonist that is anything but the usual demure heroine of 19th Century fiction. It's an exciting pot-boiler, fun even for those who normally find old novels difficult going. (496 pages, less if you don't read the new introduction. $8 new. $1 used.)

17) The Monastery by Sir Walter Scott
The novel is set in a turbulent period in Scottish history when the border area and its abbeys were the scene of a fierce rivalry for power. Catholics still held sway but the reformers were getting stronger as both clashed for control. Scott presents the two brothers Glendinning as the main characters, each man dedicated to the opposing faction. The book gives a vivid picture of life in a wild and lawless country. (412 pages. Easily available.)

18) Angels in Iron by Nicholas C. Prata.
"The year is A.D. 1565 and the tiny island fortress of Malta, defended by an anachronistic crusading order called the Knights of St. John Hospitallers, is all that stands between the war machine of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and the very heart of Christendom. Pitifully outmatched and against impossible odds, the indomitable Grand Master Jean Parisot de La Valette nevertheless inspires his knights to ‘strike a blow for Christ’ and sacrifice their lives to halt the invading Turks at the gates of Europe. What follows is a desperate struggle between East and West, Cross and Koran, faith and despair. Nicholas Prata relates the actual events of the Great Siege in riveting and graphic prose which brings the extreme heroism of the knights and the unimaginable horror of combat sharply into focus." (Aquinas and More web site.) (292 pages. $16.95 new. $12.00 used.)

19) No Name by Wilkie Collins.
This is Wilkie Collins at the height of his literary powers. It is the story of two sisters, Magdalen and Norah, who discover after the deaths of their dearly beloved parents that their parents were not legally married at the time of the girls’ births. Disinherited and ousted from their estate, Magdalen and Norah must fend for themselves and either surrender to their fate or recover their wealth by whatever means available. (784 pages. New from $10.25. Used from $3. 1 copy in OPL.)

20) We suggest in this last slot a re-reading. After all, we have thoroughly enjoyed and benefited from re-reading Charles Dickens, we think re-visiting some of the Napoleon’s best reads would be rich indeed. Our suggestions? Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Hugo’s Les Miserables, or Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago.

Bardelys The Not-So-Magnificent

2009-08-21T10:40:00.003-05:00

One doesn’t have to love a novel’s protagonists in order to find the book interesting, informative and in other ways, worthwhile.

But if those protagonists are as vain, self-centered and undisciplined as Sieur Marcel de Saint-Pol, the Marquis of Bardelys, and his would-be love, Roxalanne de Lavedan, are in Rafael Sabatini’s Bardelys The Magnificent, the reading for most will be as tense and frustrating as it may be enjoyable.

The novel is set at the "height" of the French aristocracy under Louis XIII. In fact, the King himself is a key character in the action. The stimulus to the plot (one not nearly so adventurous as most created by Sabatini) is a wager between drunken, headstrong rivals. Chatellerault, recently rebuffed by the lovely Roxalanne, goads Marcel Bardelys into risking his entire fortune on the chance of winning Roxalanne as his bride. The dare is taken with confidence. After all, Marcel is hailed by all of France (including himself) as the absolute master of seduction. He is a handsome, accomplished and charming rogue with a somewhat scandalous reputation that only serves to increase his winsome powers.

But Marcel soon finds that he’s met his match in Roxalanne. Through a coincidence every bit as audacious as one that might have thought out by Dickens, Bardelys is taken into the Lavedan estate. But he is embraced for someone he is not. And there the problems begin to multiply.

Marcel's wooing of the maid under false pretenses turns tragic when he realizes he has finally fallen into the snares of love himself. Honor and duty require one course of him but his smitten heart argues for another. At this point the reader is still willing to suspend his disfavor of the aristocracy enough to be attracted to the two protagonists. But events alter (or, perhaps better to say, reveal) their characters. And before the novel closes, there will be a dramatic unveiling, an astoundingly mean act of jealousy, an unjust trial presided over by Marcel's cunning and vindictive enemy (a really nicely-painted bad guy), and more. But don't fret; these all lead to a relatively happy ending.

But again, the difficulty in evaluating the novel is those petty personalities who star as its heroes. I mean, mistakes and character flaws can be overlooked -- but being so disappointed in romance that you turn your would-be husband over to the executioner? Yipes! Or savagely beating a loyal servant nearly to death because he unwittingly got in the way of your plans? Yipes again! No, the protagonists never redeemed themselves in my eyes and, to tell the truth, by the end of the story I was rather pleased to have done with them.

Howver...a couple of hours after I had put the book down, I found my mind wandering back over several scenes and characters, haunted by a new question that I’ll admit I hadn’t entertained at all during the reading. It was this: Had Rafael Sabatini wanted this reaction from me all along? Had he created a suspenseful page-turner, one that showed the same creative genius of his many other works, but one carefully designed to elicit the reader’s disgust with the egotism, the hedonistic excesses and the moral shallowness of the aristocrats who lorded over France in the 17th Century?

If so, Sabatini certainly delineated them much more cleverly, more subtly than the stock characterizations used by most authors whose sympathies lay with the Revolution. It was a fascinating possibility. Was Sabatini trying to give his readers a more realistic appraisal of the nobility of that time – descriptions which did not at all hide their sins but which neither put on them devil’s horns?

Was even the title a clue; namely, that we were not to take at face value that Bardelys was in any way Magnificent, save in his own purse and his own estimations?

On pondering the novel these last couple of weeks, I rather think that’s exactly what Sabatini was suggesting. And that, as you might guess, has made a world of difference in my estimation of it. Instead of my dismissing Bardelys The Magnificent as one of Sabatini’s lesser works, I'm now more likely to regard it as one of his most inventive and profound.

To check myself, I'm planning on reading it a second time fairly soon, perhaps this winter. I'll see how it resonates then.

Now, I should emphasize that believing this particular theory will still not make Bardelys The Magnificent an entertaining read, I don’t think. Not like Dumas or Scott or even most other Sabatini. The enjoyment of this Sabatini, I think, will be more like to what you get when you read Shakespeare, Dostoevsky (no, not that dark) or Waugh.

But whatever else, Bardelys The Magnificent is a novel which, in addition to an eventful story, will give keen insights into culture, the human soul and an intriguing era in European history.

By the way, if you're the kind of person who likes cinematic versions of great novels, you might be interested in the silent film version directed by the esteemed King Vidor back in 1926. It starred John Gilbert and Eleanor Boardman.

And the guard that shows up there in the background as a bit player? You're right. That's John Wayne.

Give Me "Liberty and Tyranny"

2009-08-21T10:31:00.002-05:00

It may be superfluous for me to recommend Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny. After all, the book has been #1 on the bestseller list for over 4 months. Nevertheless, I’ll join the chorus of high praise. It is a well-written, carefully-documented and critically-timely book, one which illustrates the immense differences between traditional conservatives and liberal Statists on issues of federalism, the free market, Constitutional authority, immigration, environmental concerns and more.

We discussed Liberty and Tyranny a couple of weeks ago at one of our regular Vital Signs Book It! meetings. There were a few of the regulars missing but John and Barb, Matt, Allen and Cindy, Claire and I were on hand – all of us expressing admiration and appreciation for this important book. They join me in recommending it.

The book serves as a history, an exposé, a philosophic review and a profound apologetic for Judeo-Christian values as applied to politics and culture. The book closes with a chapter entitled “A Conservative Manifesto” that outlines those principles and action steps that are most crucial to the protection of America’s best interests and highest calling.

Liberty and Tyranny provides plenty of stimulation for old guard conservatives but it is also a superb education for “converts” and young readers too. In fact, I’ve heard several accounts of how warmly received the book has been by college students and even home-school kids. That’s good news for I can’t think of a more effective political primer.

Beginning next week over on Vital Signs Blog, I’ll be offering “A Week of Liberty” which will feature one of Mark Levin’s observations from Liberty and Tyranny each day. If you’ve already ready the book, you can compare the passages I select with those you might have chosen.

And if you haven’t read it…well, just maybe those gems will be enough to swing the deal.

Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto by Mark R. Levin is published by Threshold Editions and is available here and a lot of other places. (Levin is also the author of Men in Black, an excellent political review of the Supreme Court. For more on that title, see this brief Book Den post from... wow...is it four years ago already?)

When Musis Was Music...And Still Is

2009-08-07T12:14:00.003-05:00

Kenny Vance (original member of Jay and the Americans and now going strong with Kenny Vance and the Planotones) still sings classic rock because he loves it so.

And singing it like he does makes the rest of us love it too.

Two Poems By Bill Coker

2009-08-07T11:59:00.004-05:00

Bill Coker, husband and dad, newly retired teacher, musician and composer, intercessor and worship leader, pro-lifer and missions supporter, poet and a well-balanced connoisseur of life...is also a longtime member of the Notting Hill Napoleonsa and, Claire and I are really pleased to say, a good friend.

Here's a couple of Bill's poems that I think you'll find most provocative.

SUNDAY BEST

I had read all about triumphal entries
with garments—precious garments
in days before washers or dry cleaners—
strewn like palm branches on the road
for a borrowed burro to soil,
but when I saw him striding
smiling towards me with open arms,
saw blood on his forehead, his side,
his hands, my heart leapt at the thought
of what this blood could do—would do—
to my navy blazer, my white shirt, my striped tie,
and I balked, lowered my eyes
and watched dust settle
over the shine
of my wing-tip shoes.

BEIGE AND BLUE

“Ann would’ve loved this,” you say,
as we drive from the cemetery, flanked
by close-cropped bean fields and snaggled
corn stalks still dazed by the late harvest.

“Beige was her favorite color.” Our dust
catches up with us at the stop sign and rolls
on through. Above the shoulders of the highway,
prairie grass whispers to weathered fence posts

and cattail-filled ditches. A linen cloud
stretches in long folds like a shroud cast aside.
The sun is a honeycomb spreading
warm, sweet light along the horizon.

Beneath the deepening sky, we pull out,
turning toward the river where another
dawn will come to sparkle the waters.
“Beige,” you repeat. “Beige and blue.”

The Dangerous Scam That Is Modern Sex Education

2009-08-04T06:34:00.003-05:00

Dr. Miriam Grossman, author of the ground-breaking book, Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness Endangers Every Student, has a new one that should be a must read for all parents -- and, for that matter, anyone whose taxes go to support the socially destructive curricula prominent in the public schools.

If you think sex education as conducted by schools and influential, tax-supported organizations is still about the birds and the bees, you'd better think again. And then dare to read Dr. Grossman's latest, You're Teaching My Child What?: A Physician Exposes the Lies of Sex Ed and How They Harm Your Child.

In this alarming exposé, psychiatrist and expert on sexual education, Dr. Grossman describes how today's sex ed programs are not based on science at all. Indeed, they ignore basic science (including those truths crucial to a person's physical health, emotional stability and social development) to serve up instead a dangerous mix of liberal lies and politically correct propaganda.

You're Teaching My Child What? is published by Regnery Publishing. And its 256 pages, fresh off the presses just this week, are available for less than $17. It's a wise investment.

"Is Shakespeare Dead?" Dramatized

2009-08-04T06:00:00.001-05:00

Dr. Keir Cutler performs (and performs very well!) Mark Twain's "Is Shakespeare Dead?" debunking the myth that the Stratfordian actor wrote the great works of William Shakespeare.

Unplugging Secularism: An Evangelical Appreciation of Fr. Val Peter’s "Seven Secular Challenges Facing 21st-Century Catholics"

2009-07-30T09:51:00.008-05:00

Perhaps I’m not the most likely person to review a book written by a Roman Catholic priest, a book whose very title emphasizes the author’s audience to be American Catholics. After all, I am an evangelical, the director for nearly 30 years of an evangelical organization and the teaching pastor of Faith Bible Church, a small evangelical congregation in south Omaha, Nebraska. What on earth could Fr. Val Peter’s Seven Challenges Facing 21st-Century Catholics say that would be of interest, let alone personal benefit, to me?

The answer is...plenty! Indeed, I found the book one of the clearest and most helpful books on practical theology I’ve read in some time. Well-researched, well-written and full of the wise insights that Fr. Val Peter is known for, Seven Secular Challenges Facing 21st-Century Catholics is a valuable resource for any Christian who desires to effectively stand against the onslaughts of postmodern culture. Catholics, of course, will find it a gem of particular relevance. But, any Christian who appreciates a bold, perceptive analysis of modern secularism will find it an important read. And yes, Fr. Peter doesn't just curse the darkness; he provides practical, hopeful ways to counteract secularism’s influence upon you, your family and your church congregation.

The value of the book did not come as a surprise. As a esteemed professor at Creighton University, an author and speaker and, of course, the Executive Director of Boys Town, Fr. Val Peter’s inspirational impact has been substantial and well known. But more to the point, I have had the honor of knowing Fr. Peter as a friend and fellow pro-life advocate for many years. I’ve read his stuff, heard him speak and seen him in action. So when I picked up Seven Secular Challenges on a visit to the Boys Town gift shop, I bought it with a confident assumption that it would prove more than worthwhile.

I was right.

Seven Secular Challenges has ambitious goals; beginning with the investigation of seven distinct themes of modern secularism: lack of respect for authority, "uncritical openness," cynicism, truncated ideology, "learned helplessness," anti-intellectualism, and an enveloping atmosphere of political correctness. The largest part of the book concerns the loss of authority in the West and how the influences of Sigmund Freud, Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow and, on a more popular level, figures like Benjamin Spock and Robert Schuller have weakened the traditional, biblically-centered authority heretofore granted to parents, statesmen and clergy. These writers derided external authorities as outdated obstacles to self-realization, self-fulfillment and even social progress.

Fathers, for instance, were told they needed to be less authoritative and directive; they needed to be more like buddies to their children. Statesmen were instructed to create an increasingly enveloping government, a nanny-state in which citizens were promised more entitlements -- but at the price of less freedom and personal responsibility.

Even clergy succumbed to the new ethos. As Fr. Peter explains, "Since church leaders do not live in a vacuum-sealed container, environmental reinforcement is as strong in their lives as elsewhere. They live in a society that bombards them with continual exhortations to quit preaching sin and just make people feel good by being pastoral."

But these ideas haven’t worked. Society is worse off because of secularist influences, not better.

The answer to this socially-destructive erosion of authority is to re-orient oneself to the fixed truths of divine revelation and to again embrace the God Who is not only the font of all wisdom but of all love and grace. Living life according to the "design specs" given by a masterful, merciful Designer yields true fulfillment. And so thoughtful submission to authentic authority (leaders who are careful to serve under the Lordship of Jesus Christ) is the path of genuine liberation.

But Fr. Peter is strong on insisting that those leaders prove themselves in order to merit (not merely demand) the trust of others. "The remedy for misguided trust in authority figures is to insist on purification, reform and renewal. This starts with developing a set of realistic criteria for trusting those who are in power. Start by replacing unconditional trust in religious leaders with merited trust. This constitutes a monumental change in our expectations. Jesus told us that ‘you know them by their fruits’ (Matt 7:20). A person does not consult a doctor without asking others about the doctor’s reputation. If we do this with physicians why not do the same with our religious leaders?"

What is called for then is what Fr. Peter calls selective openness – a humility that is willing to receive the guidance of authorities but which yet exercises discrimination and moral judgment. When these are properly balanced, one’s freedom is actually enhanced.

Among the many things I appreciated in Seven Secular Challenges was the thoroughness of Fr. Peter’s evaluations. He has sound, biblically-documented arguments that even evangelicals will find insightful and instructive. And he is refreshingly direct in his exhortations. He doesn’t pull his punches. Nor does he aim them at straw men. And Fr. Peter knows the immense stakes involved in this philosophic contest. He understands, for instance, the terrible breadth of the culture of death about which John Paul II and other prophets warned us. It’s abortion and euthanasia. It’s embryonic stem cell experimentation and genetic engineering. But it’s also divorce, adultery, aberrant sexuality, the abuse and neglect of children, the desensitization of conscience and, particularly due to mass media, the disengagement of the person from real life.

But, as I mentioned, beyond Fr. Peter's penetrating analysis (and critique) of the origins, salient features, and general impact of these seven faces of secularism, he goes further by carefully explaining ways in which individuals and families can overcome them in the power, wisdom and joy of the Holy Spirit. The book thus provides not merely a sobering experience but ultimately a most uplifting one -- somewhat like a tough but effectively motivating half-time talk.

We’ve been taking it on the chin from a very aggressive secularism for quite a while now. So, isn’t it past time to start fighting back -- wisely, winsomely and with a new spirit of dedication? Fr. Val Peter’s Seven Secular Challenges to Facing 21st-Century Catholics presents an inspirational game plan to accomplish those very purposes.

Seven Secular Challenges to Facing 21st Century Catholics (185 pages, $17.95) is published by Paulist Press, 2009.

A Re-Opening Celebration?

2009-07-28T10:56:00.006-05:00

Do I dare disturb the silent dust over here at The Book Den in order to put a new post on the shelves?

Actually, I've already explained earlier today to the visitors of Vital Signs Blog why I haven't made it over here in a long time.

But then I hinted that I might show up once in awhile after all.

So, here goes -- I'll dust the tomes, run the vacuum, open the windows, and put a brand new post in the shop window. I'll even select a cleaner, crisper template to show off the place.

And then I'll put up a new post that will match the same theme; namely, by "cleaning up" the pile of books I've read since that last entry way back in January.

Let's start then with January. In addition to those I had already written about (Check with Chip on Stem Cell Research by Chip Maxwell, Ozzie by Ozzie Nelson and the Dostoevsky material), I also enjoyed Lowell Thomas' Pageant of Life, H. Rider Haggard's Cleopatra and Fr. Val Peter's Seven Secular Challenges Facing 21st Century Catholics. The star of those books was certainly Fr. Peter's and I'll post here a more detailed review in a couple of days.

From February into April I re-read a couple dozen of my favorite mysteries , some poetry and several GK Chesterton articles and stories. I also managed to fit in a re-reading of Owen Wister's The Virginian, Ann Coulter's Guilty, Jane Austen's Mansfield Park and a re-reading of C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet.

With May comes lawn and garden work (plus other summer pleasures) and so my reading tends to be scaled back a bit. Plus this year my Mom has needed quite a bit of attention. That's cool -- she's worth a lot more than a book! Still May did allow a reading of Nevil Shute's Landfall and a re-reading of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations.

For June it was The Faith by Chuck Colson and and Harold Fickett, You Know Me, Al by Ring Lardner, The Rising Tide by Jeff Shaara and and a re-reading of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I followed that up in July with my 4th time round with Tolkien's trilogy (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King).

Still to come in July is Bardelys the Magnificent by Rafael Sabatini which I have to get read by Friday night's Notting Hill Napoleons' meeting. Yipes.

So there we are. The clean up is over and The Book Den is officially re-opened.

Stem Cell Research -- In Plain Language

2009-01-23T03:54:00.008-06:00

The Hartford living room was bright with a glowing fire and spirited conversation last Monday night as the Maleks (John & Barb), the Nelsons (Allen & Cindy), Matt Troutman, Chet Thomas, Karla Struble, and Claire and I gathered for Vital Signs Ministries' latest Book It! discussion. The book we had read was the brief (but intellectually bounteous) Check with Chip on Stem Cell Research by lawyer, former Nebraska state senator and Douglas County commissioner, and now Executive Director of the Nebraska Coalition for Ethical Research, Chip Maxwell.

I gave a brief description of the book when I recommended it back in September over on Vital Signs Blog but let me add here that Monday night's discussion certainly proved it to be every bit as valuable and provocative as I forecast.

Chip Maxwell is a gifted communicator: concise, clear, authoritative, engaging and witty. And he's courageously forthright (an increasingly rare virtue among conservatives) because he knows the scientific facts back up his case.

Most important of all, what Chip does in this 96-page book is skillfully break down the jargon and the hype which so often surround the issue of stem cell research and, instead, presents the issues in a careful, easy to understand way. And everyone agreed the other night, he does it very well indeed.

The format he uses to accomplish this is that of a radio broadcast (Chip hosted a call-in radio show here in Omaha where he dealt with such subjects) and this approach allows him to show how the case against embryonic stem cell and for adult stem cell research (both critically important) can be effectively, relevantly presented by anyone. Yes, anyone. You don't have to be a scientist to understand these things nor do you have to be a Perry Mason to refute the arguments coming from the other side.

But you do have to get the basic facts down. (That's easier than what you might think.) And then it's also good to pick up tips from as able a communicator as Chip Maxwell. That's why all nine of us at the Book It! discussion the other night enthusiastically endorse for your reading Check with Chip on Stem Cell Research.

You can order the book (only $10) right here.

And the next in line for the Book It! series? Ann Coulter's Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America. The discussion will take place on the second Monday evening in March. If you'd like to be a part, terrific. Read the book and zip us a line at vitalsigns@vitalsignsministries.org

The Real Life Adventures of Ozzie Nelson & Family

2009-01-23T03:33:00.004-06:00

I immensely enjoyed Ozzie, the 1973 autobiography of Ozzie Nelson which I read over the course of two evenings earlier this week. Really interesting. And fun.

Many of my generation remember Ozzie as the central character in one of the most successful television series of all time, ABC's "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet." That alone qualifies him as meriting my attention because I loved that show when I was a kid and I love it even more now when watching the episodes we purchased in a multi-CD package last year.

Humorous, warm-hearted, wholesome and remarkably well-crafted programs, the TV show starred "the entire Nelson family." There were, of course, Ozzie and Harriet; the handsome and rugged oldest son, David; younger son Ricky (from his "I don't mess around, boy" adolescence to his teen idol years); and eventually daughters-in-law June and Kris. Furthermore, numerous friends of the boys played recurring roles in the show, the Nelson's real-life secretary (pretty Connie Harper) portrayed David's law firm secretary, and Ozzie's younger brother Don was one of the main writers.

It was a family show in more ways than one.

So, no doubt about it, finding "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" as thoroughly charming as Claire and I do, reading the chapters in Nelson's autobiography dealing with the TV program were terrific. But no less interesting and entertaining were Ozzie's early days as a boy in New Jersey; his Boy Scout career (including participation in the first international Jamboree in Europe); a standout athletic career as a football player and boxer at Rutgers University; the development of his big band into one of the most popular in the country; his falling in love with the lovely singer, Harriet Hilliard; their touring and show dates; the couple's entry into serial radio with Red Skelton; the impressive success of their own radio and then TV show, and such "up close and personal details" as David's flying trapeze career and Rick's achievements as a tennis player.

Ozzie Nelson writes in an easy, comfortable, conversational style with loads of anecdotes and humorous observations. But there are serious, touching moments too. After all, this is real life.

Ozzie is a great read for fans of the TV show like we are -- as well as those interested in Rick Nelson, big band music, American history, popular culture, early Hollywood, or the engaging interrelationships of a loving, multi-talented and very charismatic family.

We picked up Ozzie on the internet for a couple of dollars. You can too.

Bill Coker’s "Sunday Morning at the Bed and Breakfast"

2009-01-21T11:33:00.004-06:00

Bill Coker plays many tunes – and all of them well. He is a teacher, songwriter, musician, troubadour, poet, avid student of history and folklore, worship leader, intercessor, member of the Notting Hill Napoleons and, most important of all, a devoted husband and dad.

The following poem was written on the Sunday morning of our last NHN autumn retreat at the Whispering Pines Bed and Breakfast down in Nebraska City. Though, like all poetry, it uses references of an esoteric nature, I’m sure you’ll find it almost as moving as we who know intimately the references did. For instance, it’s an old response to failed jokes that “I guess you had to be there.” But, that’s not true with quality poets like Bill Coker. Yes, they certainly give the reader a desire to have been there (that’s the magic) but the poem's rhythm, images and keen observations are treasures in themselves too. Here it is with a photo taken by the Whispering Pines' innkeeper, Jeanna Stavas.

SUNDAY MORNING AT THE BED AND BREAKFAST

The book club has retreated, leaving only echoes—
footsteps on the stairs, laughter in the rooms.
Scents of orange and pecan, ham and maple linger,
mingling with kitchen clinks of china and crystal.
Outside, a yellow-shafted flicker flits over
to sit atop a bare bur oak, as pines lean
toward second-storey windows.
They are whispering descriptions of the Dickensian
characters who have played their parts here
during this hundred-thirty-year run.
The flicker pauses, cocks her head to listen,
then taps away again, taking notes.

White Nights, Dark Dreams: Revisiting Dostoevsky

2009-01-21T11:17:00.003-06:00

Man changes during the course of his life, especially spiritual men who embrace the need for change and moral improvement…men who understand that God’s sovereignty provides no excuse for one’s failure to deliver his own dedication and prayerful effort. But sometimes the changes that happen in a man’s life are not agreeable ones. Trials can mellow a man, give him greater humility and understanding, give him a more profound gratitude for the grace of God that comes through Jesus Christ. But sometimes trials can distract and deter a man from his early purposes and principles. They can even break his spirit and leave him cynical, morose, with only the murkiest of spiritual hopes…if that.

These thoughts spring from last weekend’s reading of “White Nights” and "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man” by Fyodor Dostoevsky. They are two brief reads (“White Nights” is 55 pages, “Dream” a mere 25) which represent Dostoevsky at opposite ends of his life.

“White Nights” was written in 1848. Dostoevsky was young and just getting started. He had high principles and firm hopes – both rooted in an optimistic socialism. He was a very emotional, introspective man (those traits never changed) but he was a believer in rationality, progress and the positive role a Christian could have in establishing meaningful relationships and in building a just society.

“White Nights” is a compelling love story that reflects these things. It isn’t an easy read for Westerners. Indeed, the lovesick protagonists are sometimes maudlin and verbose to a point most of us would believe silly, but one must remember Dostoevsky was writing to a culture that loved Pushkin’s and Gogol’s over-the-top emotional scenes too.

The story begins with a young recluse who has retired into a weird, introspective fantasy life after failing in normal relationships. He imagines passersby as his friends; he thinks of buildings as greeting him in his daily walks; he builds love castles in the air. But one day he fumbles his way though a strange circumstance in which he actually speaks to a girl. He loves her immediately and with all the stored up passion in his lonely heart. She eventually agrees to marry him until an unexpected twist in the story takes her back to a former suitor. It’s all a bit eerie and, on the surface, every relationship left in the story looks unhealthy and doomed.

But not so. For Dostoevsky describes the boy’s love, unrequited as it is, to be an ennobling, liberating, highly spiritual experience. And even in the Western reader’s uncomfortably with the story’s heavy emotionalism and perhaps a disappointment in the story’s conclusion (it isn’t a typical happy ending, that’s for sure), the reader is left with a genuine respect for Dostoevsky’s commitment to the exalting power of unconditional love. It is a bright and joyous tale even though the boy loses the girl (as a wife anyhow) because it reveals how sacrificial love has transformed the boy’s life into something beyond loneliness. He is now a man with a true heart, noble goals and involved in the real world.

But “White Nights” was written before Dostoevsky’s arrest, before the famed “almost execution” where he was minutes away from a firing squad, before prison, before his various illnesses. The changes wrought in the author's life by these grievous trials were profound. That emotional, introspective personality began to bend towards mystery, then doubt, then even to a fascination with the irrational and morbid. Though still deeply religious, the optimism and joy ebbed away and Dostoevsky instead plumbed the murkier waters of the fallen nature.

His contemporary Ivan Turgenev determined that Dostoevsky was the nastiest Christian he had ever known.

So by the time Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man” nearly 30 years later, he was dramatically changed. This, the last short story he ever wrote, is a brief and bizarre tale about another reclusive dreamer and another chance meeting which changes his life. As the story begins, the protagonist (never named) is planning his suicide. He has ceased to think along rational lines but is guilty of overthinking nonetheless, trying to fathom the deepest motives behind his and others’ actions.

A crying child, panicked because of some catastrophe that has befallen her, appeals to the man. He shuns her, even runs away from her. But his subsequent examination of why he was so cruel and selfish distracts him from his suicide plans. He sleeps for the first time in days. While he sleeps, he experiences a wild dream in which he’s taken to another planet, an Edenic paradise where the inhabitants are all gentle, loving and pure. Yet the dreamer eventually contaminates this distant world and all of its inhabitants. They fall into sin as did Adam and Eve, allowing Dostoevsky ample opportunity to movingly describe, through this dream race, a bleak view of his own.

“They learned about shame and they made a virtue of it. The concept of honor appeared, and each alliance hoisted its colors. They started to torture animals, and the animals escaped into the forests and became their enemies. They fought to secede, for independence, for individual advantages, for what’s mine and what’s yours. They ended speaking different languages; they experienced suffering, and came to love; they declared that suffering was the only way to Truth. Then science spread among them.

As they became evil, they talked about fraternity and humanitarianism and came to understand those concepts; as they became criminal, they invented justice and drew up voluminous codes of laws to enforce their justice – and built a guillotine to enforce their laws.

They only dimly recalled the things they had lost and refused to believe that there had been a time when they were pure and happy. They even dismissed as ridiculous all possibility of return to that lost bliss, branding it a pipe dream. They were unable to visualize or conceive of it...

Religions appeared worshiping the nonbeing and self-annihilation for the sake of an eternal repose in nothingness.

Finally these people grew tired in their senseless efforts and suffering appeared on their faces. Then they proclaimed that suffering is beautiful because suffering alone contains thought. So they praised suffering in their songs. I walked among them wringing my hands in despair and crying over them. I believe I loved them even more than before the suffering had appeared on their features, when they were still so pure and beautiful. I loved their degraded earth more than I had loved it when it was a Garden of Eden, if only because sorrow had made its appearance in it. Alas, though I’ve always welcomed sorrow and torment myself, I was not happy to see them struck by it, and it made me cry...”

Near the end of Dostoevsky’s story, the man awakens from the dream. But it has caused him to be an even stranger, more manic personality than ever. In fact, he becomes a kind of preacher -- though he confesses that he doesn’t make much sense and is really quite unable to put into words the message of his dream. He is ridiculous to others and even to himself.

But he’s no longer suicidal. He’s not even lonely or unhappy. He now sees that true happiness, real spirituality is something which emerges from feeling, not thinking. He had been too tied up by rationality. Freedom came as he released himself to God. And God was to be found not in organized religion or divine revelation but from purely subjective sources...even from the subconscious or the surreality of a dream.

“The Dream of the Ridiculous Man” thus underscores (and very talentedly so) several of Dostoevsky’s philosophic themes from those last years of his life. Society is a sham, composed of hypocritical people and unjust institutions. Religion surely gives meaning to an individual’s life but is a religion that is subjective, incommunicable, supra-rational. Suffering, even when caused by wickedness, is a positive thing not because it provides opportunity for character transformation (the basic biblical concept) but because it provokes an escape from the world of reason and relationships into the mystery of self. Prayer becomes less a conversation with God than it is an exercise in self-focused meditation.

Dostoevsky’s popularity has waned in recent decades. His dualism, dark moods and distorted characters are pretty tough to take in regular doses. Secular readers prefer sweeter themes nowadays. Even cynics have moved away from the dark writers like Kafka, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky, preferring their skepticism colored in lighter shades...hues softened by such elements as Eastern religion, socialization, liberal politics and even self-help formulas.

And Christian readers? They were never that attracted to Fyodor Dostoevsky anyhow. And while they might be persuaded to share an evenings with curmudgeons like T.S. Eliot and Evelyn Waugh, Dostoevsky was just too much of a downer. Yes, there’s that marvelous chapter from The Brothers Karamazov, “The Grand Inquisitor,” that they read in college. They think that quite provocative and valuable. But for the long haul, they desire cheerier companions, Christian writers who demonstrate the fruits of the Spirit in their lives and work -- writers that acknowledge rationality, the divine revelation of Scripture which is authoritative and trustworthy, and the triumph of Christ’s atoning work.

Had Fyodor Dostoevsky kept the enthusiasm for life and love and optimism that he so compelling portrayed in “White Nights,” I have no doubt he would have remained not only in the pantheon of great writers but in the one dedicated to popular and beloved writers too. But he concentrated his search for truth in the turgid waters of emotion, suffering and the unknowable depths of psyche where few can (or even desire to) follow.

It Ain't No Mayberry: A Review of O Little Town

2009-01-21T10:31:00.008-06:00

Among the enjoyable Christmas read this year (for both Claire and I) was Don Reid’s wise and winsome little novel, O Little Town. Though set in a small southern town in the late 50’s and therefore full of details of fond interest to readers of my generation who can match them to their own experiences of that time, O Little Town is more than up-to-date in its themes.

Mt. Jefferson, for instance, isn’t Mayberry.

No, the problems emerging from this fictional town are much more than Opie playing hooky or Barney lecturing Otis on the evils of drink. Try unplanned pregnancies. Broken marriages. The pastor’s daughter caught shoplifting. And a mysterious secret finally revealed by a dying man. O Little Town is a more realistic examination of the era as the author takes very seriously the nature of man’s foibles, failures and false pride.

But can a novel that honestly deals with such matters make for cheerful reading? Doesn’t one expect a Christmas novel to be full of delight and charm and happy endings?

Or could it be that first-time novelist Don Reid manages to accomplish all of these things?

Yes, he does.

Indeed, because of his honesty in writing about sin, Reid is able to write profoundly and persuasively about redemption. For Mt. Jefferson doesn’t contain only vice, it includes virtue too – beautiful and necessary virtues like love, humble confession, forgiveness, healing and dramatic change for the good. Because it does and because Reid is a warm-hearted and talented writer, O Little Town succeeds quite well indeed as a Christmas book. We both recommend it highly.

I’ll end this brief review, however, with the item that actually serves as the lead to most others; namely, the author's most interesting other career. Because if you don’t know (and you probably wouldn’t unless you’re an old-school country music fan), Don Reid was part of one of the genre's most successful groups of all time, The Statler Brothers.

So, writing great songs is not an unusual activity for Reid. Not too big of a surprise there. And his experience has included co-writing the scripts for The Statler Brothers’ television show and penning three non-fiction books. But a novel is a different game altogether.

Thankfully, Reid took the risk and in so doing gave us a well-crafted novel, one with humor as well as pathos, honor as well as moral failure, and inspiring lessons of life richly portrayed.

A Post-Christmas Challenge

2009-01-07T13:10:00.000-06:00

"The Week After" by Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965)

Thou that diest, Thou that never diest,
Thy day of birth has come and gone again,
Heaven has sung Hosanna in the Highest!
And Earth has sung Peace and Goodwill to men!

And some have feasted, and still more have fasted,
But in the week that now has slipped behind
The movement was a warm one while it lasted,
And the hearts of men were willing to be kind.

Oh, keep that movement warm, not only now
But in the weeks that still beyond us lie!
Oh, keep that movement constant in us, Thou
That ever diest, and wilt never die.

("The Week After" published in Come Christmas, 1927)

Western Lit -- Just a Kafkaesque Exercise?

2009-01-07T12:55:00.007-06:00

David Frum begins this NRO essay talking about Franz Kafka's enigmatic (but enduring) novel, The Trial. But he ends up making some important observations about literature, modern culture, and education. For instance...

...Despite Kafka's high place in the contemporary literary canon - despite the hugely improved new English translations which have provided the texts for the excellent Geoffrey Howard audio recordings - I cannot help fearing that these riches are sought by fewer and fewer. Literature is a declining presence in our modern society, increasingly an academic preoccupation. Intelligent young people read literature at university, and when they graduate, they stop. When they feel the need to feed the imagination, they turn to movies or television shows.

Here in the blogosphere, certainly, the contrast is stark. I just did a Google blogsearch. For "Franz Kafka" and "The Trial," 7900 entries. For HBO and "The Wire," 59,000. For HBO and "The Sopranos," 72,000. For "Battlestar Galactica," 399,000.

Now "The Wire" and "The Sopranos" are fine shows, that do many of the things literature does. I loved the early seasons of "The Sopranos" myself. As for Battlestar Galactica, well who am I to cavil at a show that has done so much to introduce adolescents around the world to the appeal of things Canadian? Still, I do often feel that we live in a world gone color blind or hard of hearing, cut off from deeper connections that were once broadly shared.

The decline of literature is a phenomenon with many causes. Technology is the most important obviously - movies and TV are more arresting, more accessible, and less demanding than text.

There are cultural changes at work too. Contemporary culture has scant room for arbiters of excellence, yet without them the obvious and easy will drive out the enduring and important. In any area of art – not only literature, but also music and the visual arts - the modern person reminds me of the first encounter of the modern child, raised on fried chicken strips, and an actual roast chicken: “This thing has bones!”

Then of course there is the collapse of self-confidence among those who ought to act as arbiters. Roger Kimball has devoted a lifetime of work to excoriating the multiple self-betrayals of teachers and critics of the arts and literature. So far, alas, the results of his labors are at best inconclusive.

What happens all too often in high school and college literary classes is this:

Students are assigned work of very low literary quality. These works are chosen to provide sexual/racial/ethnic diversity. Or because they talk explicitly about sexuality or some other topic deemed likely to excite student attention. Or because they reflect approved attitudes on the issues of the day.

The usual result is simply to bore the students - to deaden for a lifetime any potential enthusiasm for the thing they think they are studying. But for the small minority of students whose enthusiasm for reading cannot be killed even by the academic study of literature, the effect is (if possible) even worse. For them, the study of literature has been turned into an experience of organized lying...

And yet I persist in hoping that precisely because literature touches something profound and permanent in the human spirit and human condition, that the very best will continue to find its audience. The Trial of course ranks among the very best. And it even gives us a story, a style, and a word to describe the dominant character of contemporary literary life: what is it, but Kafkaesque?

Mary's Burden

2008-12-26T09:53:00.000-06:00

Mary's Burden
by Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965)

My Baby, my Burden,
Tomorrow the morn
I shall go lighter
And you will be born.

I shall go lighter,
But heavier too
For seeing the burden
That falls upon you.

The burden of love,
The burden of pain,
I'll see you bear both
Among men once again.

Tomorrow you'll bear it
Your burden alone,
Tonight you've no burden
That is not my own

My Baby, my Burden,
Tomorrow the morn
I shall go lighter
And you will be born.

("Mary's Burden" written in 1920)

Assessing Solzhenitsyn

2008-12-26T09:04:00.004-06:00

Frontpage Symposium (directed by Jamie Glazov of Frontpage Magazine) has collected a most distinguished panel to discuss the significance of the life and work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Those panelists include Natan Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident and political prisoner and winner of the Congressional Gold Medal of Freedom; Harvard Professor Emeritus Richard Pipes, one of the world's leading authorities on Soviet history; Pavel Litvinov, a Russian physicist, writer, human rights activist and former Soviet-era disisdent; Russian Orthodox priest Yakov Krotov; former Russian dissident Dr. Natalia Sadomskaya; Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest official ever to have defected from the Soviet bloc; David Satter, a senior fellow of the Hudson Institute; former leading Russian dissident Yuri Yarim-Agaev; and Dr. Theodore Dalrymple, retired physician who is a contributing editor to City Journal and the author of the new book, Not With a Bang But a Whimper: The Politics and Culture of Decline.

The descriptions provided by this impressive group of Solzhenitsyn's work, philosophy and legacy are truly incomparable, covering as they do both Solzhenitsyn's heroic stand against Stalinism and, in his later years, a seemingly incongruous defense of Vladimir Putin.

Excellent, provocative reading. I print below just a few samples:

Satter: On learning of Solzhenitsyn’s death I had a sense of the end of an era. I grew up politically with Solzhenitsyn. As a teenager in the 1960s, I once asked my father whether it was true that there were slave labor camps in the Soviet Union. He said that if they had existed, we would have the accounts of survivors. After Solzhenitsyn and the publication of “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” it was no longer possible to say that there were no first hand accounts.

Many people, including millions of Soviet citizens, were deceived about the atrocities of the communist regime. More than anyone else, Solzhenitsyn dispelled those fatal illusions. His contribution to literature and to truth is indelible. I also, however, on learning of Solzhenitsyn’s death felt a sense of sadness that in his later years, he strayed from the path of universal values and supported the Putin regime. In this, he demonstrated spiritual weaknesses that were not so evident in the years when he valiantly resisted Soviet totalitarianism.

Solzhenitsyn made a monumental contribution to the destruction of Soviet communism. Many episodes from his books are simply unforgettable – the telephone call in the opening scene in The First Circle, Eleanor Roosevelt’s visit to the Butyrka Prison, the discovery of a prehistoric salamander in an ice lens by starving prisoners in The Archipelago Gulag. This rare artistic talent was used to bear witness to some of the greatest crimes of the century. In this way, Solzhenitsyn combined great art and riveting political relevance...

Sadomskaya: As to the ‘rapprochement’ between Solzhenitsyn and Putin, the mystery is easily solved if one reads “The Letter to the Leaders” written in 1973 and published by ‘Samizdat’ in 1974. It was the same year that Solzhenitsyn was exiled from the USSR.

His views, which he brought with him to the West, were like these: addressing Brezhnev and the others, he emphasized his national homogeny with the communist leaders, saying, “I am trying to say here the main thing: that I regard as salvation and good for our people, with whom all of us – both you and myself surely belong by birth.”

It’s not a slip of tongue. His meaning was: “I wish good for all the nations, and the closer to us, the more dependent on us, the warmer the wish. Yet primarily I care for the good of namely the Russian and the Ukranian peoples because of our incomparable sufferings.”...

Solzhenitsyn’s negative attitude to the pre-revolutionary opposition intelligentsia very soon turned into irritation against dissident emigrants. He saw that in the West, having attained freedom, they supported those very forms of democracy and parliamentarism he considered premature and dangerous for Russia. And when the dissidents tried to talk to him politically, he accused them of Russophobia...

Sharansky: When I was active in the Soviet dissident movement in the beginning of the 1970s, there were two clear camps. The first was led by Andrei Sakharov and was focused on fighting for universal human rights. The other, led by Solzhenitsyn, was fueled by a strong Russian identity. In a sense, this was a continuation of the classic divide among the Russian intelligentsia between “Westerners” and Slavophiles.

I was fully in the Sakharov camp. I was also part of the Soviet Jewry/Zionist movement, which had serious disagreements with Solzhenitsyn. For instance, he was critical of the Jackson amendment, which was so important for our movement. Whereas Sakharov understood that any expansion of freedom inside the USSR was a victory for the human rights struggle and should therefore be embraced, Solzhenitsyn thought too much energy was being wasted on ensuring freedom of emigration when the entire regime had to go.

But while the differences between the camps were real and would later, as many of the previous writers correctly mentioned, result in profound disagreements, those differences paled in comparison to our common struggle against Soviet totalitarianism.

The main challenge for all dissidents – democrats, Zionists, nationalists, etc. – was to convince the West that the Soviet regime was evil and that there was no place for appeasement. In this effort, Solzhenitsyn contributed more than anyone to unmasking that evil. His widely read books had a huge impact, and as a spokesman for the dissident movement, I can tell you that when I mentioned “The Gulag Archipelago,” everyone knew what I was talking about. By painting such a vivid and powerful picture of evil, he gave all dissidents an indispensable reference point for our struggle.

When the Iron Curtain fell, the differences between the camps came to the surface again. On one side were the democrats, heirs to the legacy of Sakharov. On the other was Solzhenitsyn, who put Russian identity first. Against the KGB, the forces of identity and freedom stood on the same side of the barricades. Today, unfortunately they often find themselves on different sides. And Solzhenitsyn was always a champion of identity more than a champion of freedom.

In a sense, Solzhenitsyn believed that one had to choose between being a man of his people and a man of the world. As I argue in my latest book, Defending Identity, this is a false choice. We can be both, as long as our commitment to our own unique history, people and faith is coupled with a firm commitment to freedom and democracy. For all his great insight, this was something that Solzhenitsyn never saw...

Yarim-Agaev: I would not call Solzhenitsyn controversial. The fact that I do not agree with a man does not make in itself him controversial. And though I disagree with Solzhenitsyn on many important issues, I must give him credit for the comprehensive and consistent position to which he adhered for most of his life... Accepting KGB officer Putin was not an inconsistency...That was a retreat from his position, the weakness of an old man who wanted to believe that he would see the light at the end of the tunnel before he died.

I feel it somehow wrong to start talking about one of the greatest men of the 20th century by discussing a rather inconsequential mistake of his old age. We should define first the broader context of his life and achievements. We should judge him first and foremost by his deeds, which had a great effect on our history and civilization, not by the quotes from his little known works, which had barely any influence.

To me Solzhenitsyn’s main legacy is the exposure of communism with such precision and power that that totalitarian ideology could never recover from the heavy blow. The Gulag Archipelago influenced not only liberal-minded intellectuals, but the Soviet ruling elite as well.

Solzhenitsyn also had a great impact on Western intellectual life and politics. He may be considered the godfather of neo-conservatism, which played a decisive role in dismantling Soviet communism and disarming that terrible ideology...

Sharansky...Something that was so critical in unmasking such a horrific evil will always be much more than a blip.

Reading the remarks of this distinguished panel, one might get the impression that the demise of the Soviet Union was inevitable. But few in the free world believed this at the time.

We dissidents knew that the regime was weak, that it could be toppled, but that it needed a West that believed in the power of its own ideals -- a West that would abandon the course of appeasement, embrace moral clarity and confront the regime.

There were so many who wanted to understand, to sympathize, to find common ground, and there were so few who were really prepared to confront the regime.

If before it was politically correct to sympathize and draw a moral equivalence with the Soviet Union, the Gulag Archipelago made support for this regime something of an embarrassment. That was a critical stage in the struggle.

As to the argument that there were people like Shalamov who were both more talented and who suffered more, this is true. What differentiated Solzhenitsyn was not his towering literary talent or the extent of his suffering but the fact that he succeeded where so many others had fallen short. In secret, he meticulously collected and prepared material over many years and he became a voice for all those who dreamed to unmask the truth, who tried to unmask the truth, but who were unable to tell the world the true story of the horrors they were subject to. That is why his name will remain the symbol of the unmasking of Soviet evil even though so many others contributed to it.

A catalog of all previous Frontpage Symposiums can be found here.

Charlton Heston: A Master Shakespearean

2008-12-26T08:41:00.001-06:00

Here, in the rather reluctant praises of professor and critic Nicholas Salerno, is a look at Charlton Heston rarely acknowledged by the mainstream press.

Harold Pinter: A Distorted Anti-West Vision

2008-12-26T08:32:00.002-06:00

On learning of his Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005 Harold Pinter diplomatically acknowledged that he was unsure to what extent his political activism had played a part in the award. Unfortunately, that open question does a disservice to Pinter’s memory and to the credibility of the Nobel Committee; for while Pinter’s contribution to literature was a great one, his contribution to politics was less so...

Yet the political world that Pinter conjured up was an extravagant fantasy. In it, the Western democracies exemplified not imperfection or even moral failings, but venality and bloodlust. To Pinter, the modern US had only one point of comparison: “Nazi Germany wanted total domination of Europe and they nearly did it. The US wants total domination of the world and is about to consolidate that.”

In its nefarious designs, according to Pinter, the American leadership was assisted by a culpable populace and a mass-murdering British prime minister. In his Nobel lecture, Pinter asked rhetorically, with reference to Tony Blair and President Bush: “How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal?”

Pinter’s political message...was sophistry couched in the unrelentingly scatological language of the lavatory wall. Posterity will surely judge Harold Pinter as an impassioned voice and a great artistic talent; it is less likely to honour or even recall the areas in which he went astray.

Oliver Kamm deftly diagnoses the muddled and mean-spirited perspective of the late playwright (and husband of Lady Antonia Fraser) Harold Pinter in this Times (U.K.) article.

"The Christmas of the Talking Animals"

2008-12-23T16:13:00.000-06:00

If a quiet 1/2 hour ever comes along in your hectic holiday schedule, you might enjoy this rural Christmas story I wrote several years ago. I think you'll find it a winsome, wholesome story with a very old-fashioned ingredient; namely, a spiritual moral. It's a story (not strict autobiography, by the way) about a 9-year old boy and his lively imagination who spends a remarkable Christmas at his grandpa's Missouri farm in 1952.

Word got out about the story among our friends and a recorded version ended up playing on KGBI several Christmas mornings. We just thought about it again this year and Claire suggested we burn some CD copies and send it around to a few special people. And we did that.

But she then suggested an even better idea. Embed the recording of "Christmas of the Talking Animals" into our Exposition 101 web site. That way anyone who wants to could get at it. And so we have done that too. We hope you enjoy it.

Merry Christmas!

December Literary Meetings 2008: GK Chesterton, the Toy Theater and Christmas Poetry

2008-12-23T14:14:00.008-06:00

I will present in the post just after this one a quick description of the second of our two December book club gatherings, the meeting of the Notting Hill Napoleons and our discussion of the short stories of O. Henry.

But earlier in that same week, we had a terrific time with our beloved little group of Chestertonians at the annual Christmas party of the Omaha Chesterton Society. Indeed, the OCS affair, complete with a toy theater production, carols performed on a dulcimer, the reading of Advent-themed poetry, and the coolest Christmas tree cake ever, was definitely the more festive of the two.

The group was small (Dick and Mary Ann, Kathy, Sister Rita Jane, Quint and Carol, Bill and Karin, Chet, and Claire and I) but perhaps that added to the intimate warmth of the evening. So did the beautiful decorations put up by the retired nuns there at Mercy Villa.

The "official program" for the evening began with a presentation for our toy theater, "A Tale of Three Trees." Carol had suggested the idea, found a basic copy of the story (which I reworked pretty extensively), made the figures for the story and gave us our respective duties in the production. It went well -- a minimalist "cast" and actions, clever sound effects and flashlight lighting, a gentle musical accompaniment, and a simple but moving story of God's sovereignty and grace.

(By the way, you can read our version of the story right here.)

Bill then played a couple of extra numbers on his dulcimer (a great Christmasy instrument, isn't it?) and Chet shared insights about the Latin traditions of Las Posadas. Then we got down to the literary gems. They included Quint reading Pasternak's "Christmas Star;" Kathy reading poems and prose selections from a really neat book, Advent and Christmas: Wisdom From G. K. Chesterton; and Sister Rita Jane reciting from memory a couple of poems she used with the elementary school kids she used to teach. Those two were "A Prayer for Little Things" (I think by Eleanor Farjeon) and "Hiding" by Dorothy Keeley Aldis.

There was also Bill's reading of Gerald Manley Hopkins' "May Magnificat" and Karin's reading of Bill's own poem, "Christmas Star." Claire read GKC's "House of Christmas" and I read a couple by Leslie Norris, "The Shepherd's Dog" and "Camels of the Kings."

It was a gentle, profound and thoroughly enjoyable way to spend a Christmastime evening. And I sincerely wish that all of our Book Den visitors have at least a couple of like-spirited experiences in their celebrations this year.

December Literary Meetings 2008: O. Henry

2008-12-23T12:35:00.008-06:00

Claire and I always look forward to the December meetings of the Notting Hill Napoleons and the Omaha Chesterton Society, our two ongoing book clubs. They constitute an important part of our annual Christmas festivities.

The former club has been having December meetings since...oh, my...about 17 years now whereas our little Chesterton group has a mere 4 or 5 years behind us. Nevertheless, they both are fun and inspirational.

The Napoleons' book selection for December has only occasionally related specifically to Christmas. We covered Christmas Stories by George MacDonald and The Fourth Wiseman by Henry Van Dyke in our first year (1992) but have lighted since on but four Christmas selections: Snow by Calvin Miller, Skipping Christmas by John Grisham, A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg and The Good Shepherd by Gunnar Gunnarsson.

I can recommend all of them except Grisham's.

This year our book was the Barnes & Noble edition of O. Henry stories. Now, I love O.Henry (I have since I was a kid) but the critics have been anything but kind to the gentleman over the years. A great deal of their negativity arises from the frustrated jealousy which literary critics so frequently feel for popular writers. Some too comes from the fact that O. Henry stories are wholesome, straightforward and...gasp...have morals!

And finally, critics of O. Henry often dismiss his dazzling plot designs as "contrived." Not bothering to wonder how many of these scribblers would die for the talent to themselves "contrive" a plot anywhere near as delightful as one of O.Henry's, the charge lacks both balance and historical consciousness. O. Henry was the first short story writer to truly succeed in the amazing plot twists, the paradox, the irony that made his stories the toast of America in the early years of the 20th Century. Even if there is cause for modern critics to disdain those "tired old formulas" (and I don't think there usually is), the complaint can hardly be leveled at the inventor of the form.

No, let the university profs get their erect noses out of joint as they sniff petulantly for traces of heroism, spirituality, tradition, patriotism, and happy endings, you go ahead and enjoy the quality literature represented by writers like O. Henry whose wit, whimsy, wisdom and outstanding storytelling skills are truly without peer.

I must now admit, however, that the discussion of O. Henry was a bit dodgy. First off, not everyone read the same stories. Second, the hectic nature of the holiday schedule had kept some from reading very many at all. And third, there were some of the Napoleons who just weren't as keen on O. Henry as others.

Fourth, and most important, there is a real trick to discussing a collection of short stories -- a trick that, if missed, ends up in a mere cataloging of likes and dislikes. ("I really liked this story. "Me too." "Oh yes, I liked that one too; here let me read one of my favorite bits.")

The meeting was still a lot of fun; you can't get interesting, experienced, principled people together in one room and fail to do so. Plus, there was the beautiful tree that John and Barb had put up, the deliciously rich desserts, and the enjoyment of good cheer and spiritual invigoration.

Another big plus, the selection for the book club of this master of the short story (well, co-master with Gogol, as the Russians believe) seems to have won over at least two new devotees of O. Henry. And that is one of the main strengths of a successful book club -- introducing members to new friendships with great writers.

A Tale of Three Trees

2008-12-23T11:47:00.004-06:00

A Tale of Three Trees

(Revised by Denny Hartford)
And Performed by Quint and Carol Coppi and the Hartfords
in a Toy Theater, December 15 2008, for the Omaha Chesterton Society.

Once upon a time, in ancient Palestine it was, on a distant mountain top stood three little trees, dreaming of what they wanted to become when they grew up.

The first little tree looked up at the stars with a soaring heart and said: "I want to hold treasure. I want to be covered with gold and filled with precious stones. I'd love to be made into the most beautiful treasure chest in the whole world!"

The second little tree, bothered by being so fixed, gazed longingly at the stream bubbling by on its way to the ocean. "My dream is travel down mighty waters and across great oceans. I'd like to carry powerful kings. I'll be the strongest, greatest ship in the world!"

For his part, the third little tree looked down into the valley below and saw men and women hard at work in their fields and in the bustling little town nearby. They were so taken with everyday matters that they never looked up at the beauty on the hills, let alone the splendor of the sky beyond. The third tree said, "I never want to leave this lovely mountain top at all. I want to stay here, put down deep roots and grow so tall that the people will just have to notice me. And looking at me, their eyes will be drawn inevitably to heaven and think of God. Yes, my dream is to be the tallest tree in the world!"

Well, many years passed and the little trees did grow firm, and straight and tall. And one day they stood out so dramatically from the other trees on the hillside that three woodcutters who had climbed the mountain gave them their attention.

One large, rough woodcutter looked at the first tree and said, "This tree is truly beautiful. It is just perfect for me." Then, without any more words, the man took a few well-aimed swings with his axe… CHOPPING…and the first tree fell. The tree could feel that its dream was about to come true. "Oh yes! Now I shall be made into a beautiful chest. I shall indeed hold wonderful treasure!"

The second woodsman looked at the second tree and said, "This tree is surely strong enough for me. I choose this one." He too reared back and swung his mighty axe...CHOPPING…and the second tree was down too. "Now I shall sail mighty waters!" thought the second tree. "I shall most certainly have my wishes realized and sail to the world's end as a royal man o' war!"

The third tree, the one whose dream was only to remain where it was where it could draw men's thoughts to God, was horrified when the last woodcutter looked its way. The man grumbled, almost under his breath, "Any kind of tree will do for me." And with a few blows of his axe...CHOPPING…even this, the tallest and most beautiful tree in the forest, fell.

The first tree rejoiced when the woodcutter brought it to a carpenter's shop. But the carpenter fashioned the tree…SAWING AND NAILING…not into a treasure chest to hold jewels and coins but rather a homely feed box for animals. The once beautiful tree was not destined for expensive glory after all; and before long it was filled instead with dry hay for hungry farm animals to eat. So much for the dream.

The second tree had also felt high hopes when its woodcutter hauled it into a bustling shipyard. However, its fate was not to be part of a royal man o' war. No, its end was to be… SAWING AND NAILING…a rather small and quite simple fishing boat. Too small to ever be trusted on an ocean or river, the boat was taken to an inland lake and entered into a family fishing business. So much for the dream.

The third tree was deeply grieved to have been cut down at all. And it was confused and disoriented when it was taken to a lumberyard and roughly cut into heavy beams... SAWING…"What happened to my dream?" the once tall, stately tree wondered. "It was a good dream, even a righteous one for all I ever wanted was to stay on the mountain top and point men and women to God."

Well, many more days and many more nights passed. So many that all three of the trees nearly forgot their dreams. But not completely. And that was a wonderful thing because one strange night, the first tree, the one that had been made into an animal's feeding trough felt golden star light pour over it as a young woman placed her newborn baby in its sturdy frame.

The tree heard the man accompanying the woman say, "I wish I could make a cradle for him." The mother squeezed his hand and smiled as the uniquely wondrous starlight shone on the smooth and the sturdy wood. "This manger is beautiful and strong. It is good." she said. And suddenly the first tree knew his dream had come true, more than he had ever imagined for not only was he holding the greatest treasure in the world; he was holding the greatest treasure of the world beyond!

The second tree? No, we haven't forgotten it. For one evening not too many years hence, the fishing boat it had been made into bore on the waters a tired traveler and his friends. The traveler, a man unlike all others the boat had ever carried, fell asleep as they quietly sailed out into the lake. But suddenly a thundering, thrashing storm arose and greatly troubled the waters. The little tree shuddered for it knew it didn't have the strength to bear so much weight in such a fierce storm. But just when the waters threatened to engulf the small boat, the tired traveler awakened, stood up, stretched out his hand and said, "Peace!" The storm stopped as quickly as it had begun. Suddenly the second tree knew its dream had also been realized for it was carrying not just a king but the King of all Kings, the very King of heaven and earth!

And finally, one Friday morning in that ancient land of Palestine, the third tree from our story was startled when, after many years of despondent neglect, its rough-hewn beams were yanked from the wood pile of that lumberyard. It instinctively flinched as it was carried by cursing men through an angry, jeering crowd. It shook with fear and shame when soldiers cruelly nailed a man's hands to it….NAILING…It felt ugly and harsh and helpless. It heard the cries of the crowd about this man they called King of the Jews and heard the mocking of his prophecies of resurrection. The man suffered and bled and finally died upon her. The third tree was horrified at what it had been forced to do. So much for the dream.

But on that Sunday morning, when the sun rose and the earth trembled with joy beneath it, the third tree somehow understood that God's love had changed everything and that the Man it had borne was exactly who it had suspected. And it gave the third tree peace and hope and the satisfaction that its dream had been realized beyond anything it could have ever imagined. For it knew that it was able to point the way to heaven after all and that from that time until time meant no more, whenever people looked at the cross that the third tree had been made into, they would indeed have their minds drawn to God. Yes; that was quite certainly better than being the tallest tree in the world.

And this ends the story of the Three Trees.

They Were a Stronger, Happier Bunch: Paul Johnson Reflects on the Great Depression

2008-12-22T10:41:00.003-06:00

Reading the engaging wisdom and blue-ribbon prose of Paul Johnson is one of the best ways I know to pursue a quality education. Johnson is a journalist, historian, speechwriter, winner of the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, and popular author of some 40 books, including Intellectuals, Modern Times, A History of the American People, and A History of Christianity.

One of the easiest introductions to Johnson is his column in the Spectator and this warm, enlightening description of a few of his memories of the Great Depression is priceless. It's a column that shows off Johnson's subtle skills as a wordsmith, his attention to and respect for the human person, and the immense differences between that culture's response to economic hard times and our own. Very good, very provocative reading.

The Comfort (and Challenge) of Wind in the Willows

2008-12-16T12:25:00.002-06:00

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Kenneth Grahame's classic, The Wind in the Willows. It is, as I've shared here before, one of my all-time favorites.

Therefore, I was interested but also a bit wary when I saw that one of Salon's resident liberals, Gary Kamiya, a fellow who can wax both poetic and peevish (and that's in the same article) had written a respectful, interesting article about the book (which he also cherishes) and its enigmatic author.

If you're also a fan of Wind in the Willows, I'm fairly certain you'll enjoy reading Kamiya's thoughtful essay. You'll find it right here.

Another Side of Christmas

2008-12-15T14:59:00.006-06:00

Christmas is a holiday which certainly evokes fond memories and the most lovely and endearing of sentiments. But not for all. For some it can prompt, as this poem by Nicholas Gordon movingly describes, intense feelings of sorrow (perhaps even bitterness) for what one has lost.

"No Christmas for My Children"
by Nicholas Gordon

No Christmas for my children,
No husband for my bed,
No money for tomorrow,
No place to lay my head,
No tree with mounds of presents,
No ornaments or lights,
No smiles on Christmas morning,
No feast on Christmas night,

No toys to ease the boredom
Of hours before closed doors,
No family celebrations,
No trips to crowded stores,

No fireplace, no Santa,
No games aglow with friends,
No fire but feeble fury
As Christmas slowly ends.

For me I have no pity,
My sorrow stronger proves,
Because for my sweet children
I've nothing but my love.

This poem is a strong reminder that this season of delight and goodwill isn't experienced as such by everyone. Therefore, our Christmas felicitations should be extended far beyond those who come to fellowship at our own Yuletide fires. Indeed, we should make special efforts to spread Christmas cheer with the elderly and "long term lonely" in our community, those who might be feeling, in Gordon's words, "no fire but feeble fury."

I Found Noel. Have You?

2008-12-12T19:52:00.004-06:00

A splendid addition to my Christmas library this year was Richard Paul Evans’ Finding Noel, a rather brief but beautifully constructed story that was published a couple of years ago. Evans seems to be making a nice career out of Christmas, following up on the success of The Christmas Box with several other popular books oriented to the holiday.

Chances are that you’ve read some of them or at least seen the movies that have been made based on Evans’ books. I’m afraid I’m a bit late coming to the party but after the very pleasant time I had reading Finding Noel, I’m sure it’s a party I’ll return to again before the Christmas season passes.

Finding Noel actually tells several stories, most of them dealing with strained, stressed and even completely severed relationships. But it's anything but a downer book. Indeed, it is a heartwarming look at how even these challenges can bring out the best in people.

And sometimes even the most difficult of problems can be solved.

Mark Smart is a young musician/janitor/college dropout struggling (and none too well) with loneliness, failure, lies and family heartaches. He is even contemplating putting an end to his troubles when into his life comes Macy Wood, a pretty waitress at the Java Hut who shows him unusual kindness and joy and, before very long, love. Macy has her own problems though. They’ve scarred her badly and left her without the one thing she most desires – her little sister, Noel.

The story of Mark and Macy falling in love is sweet but not cloy. The dialogue between them is crisp, charming and realistic. But even true love encounters obstacles and…no, I don’t want to give anything more away. You’ll just have to read Finding Noel yourself if you want to see if they work it out, if Macy finally finds healing from her horrific foster upbringing, if Mark ever makes things right with his father and, of course, if Noel, the long lost sister is ever found.

But I can tell you this much -- discovering the answers to these questions will make for a delightful and moving read.

One more note here – Evans begins each chapter (and like many of these compact-size, special-themed books, there’s an awful lot of them) with a quotation from the protagonist’s diary. They were inventive and fun, so much so that I didn’t mind at all the frequent breaks in the action.

Let me give you a few of my favorites.

* “There is no amount of compassion or common sense that can’t be extinguished by government bureaucracy.”

* “When it comes to hurting children we cannot claim ignorance. Every adult I’ve ever met has once been a child. And some have become more so.”

* “I learned something valuable today. Oftentimes the greatest hurts of our lives come from running from the smaller ones.”

* “ How foolish to believe we have any idea of what is really going on around us or that permanency is an earthly option.”

* “...Revenge is only for those still chained.”

* “…I swear you could tell that woman that her hair was on fire and she’d ask if the flames matched her blouse.”

Again with the Schmaltz

2008-12-12T18:19:00.003-06:00

In one of my December posts from a couple of years ago, I asked the question, “Who doesn’t want a little schmaltz in their Christmas celebrations?” And I remain as committed to the defense in literature of what commonly falls under that term (wholesomeness, heart-stirring emotion, fortunate coincidences, happy endings, etc.) even as I stand devotedly against the cynical, unobservant snobs who argue that such pleasant things do not exist in real life.

They do.

Indeed, it is only in modern art (literature and music included) that “schmaltz” has died. Everywhere else, it is alive and very well.

And I know whereof I speak.

After all, didn’t I arrive in 1970 in a town (where I have since built my adult life) amid the wildest circumstances? I was broke, hitchhiking, hundreds of miles away from all that was familiar to me, knowing no one and having no clue why I was here. If I tried to set that in a novel plot, modern literary critics would deride it as too contrived, too unbelievable, too schmaltzy.

But it happened.

And equally wild coincidences occurred the very next day when I found a job, a home and what were to be the foundations of my future life – just because I happened to walk up a certain street and because I happen to have been delayed by two events which put me at the pivotal location at the pivotal moment.

Contrived? Certainly not by me. But there you have it.

As my life continued, so have coincidences every bit as supra-rational as those mentioned. My life, not very different from those I know around me, has also been deeply marked by those other things which are so often labeled schmaltzy -- profound emotions, grievous moral crises which are sometimes followed by the most happy of conclusions, encounters with heroes and villains more real than those invented by Dumas or Dickens. And, yes, there’s also emerged in my life a crystal clear moral vision; that wholesomeness which gives purpose, strength and the most daring of hopes.

Different people will try and relate these things to magic or ministering angels, to lady luck or divine sovereignty. But this much is clear. No close and honest observer can deny the reality of coincidence, romance, sacrifice, dreams coming true, and the most inexplicable of conversions.

There are in this everyday world, love and honor and high surprise.

Schmaltz happens.

And so where does schmaltz fit in one’s literary pursuits? Well, I don't believe Christmas’ should be the only season it makes its appearance. That's why I read O. Henry all year round. But then again, with the Advent season involving the most unique and splendid miracle of all human history, it’s no surprise that schmaltz has found an especially comfortable home in Christmas literature.

So, as you read through this December’s Book Den entries (as well as posts from earlier years found via the “Topical Search” available on the right sidebar), you’ll undoubtedly find a lot of books and poetry and other stuff which modern Grinches would dismiss as only “schmaltz.”

But if your life occurs outside the pages of books, then you know that schmaltz really is occurring all around you: in your travels; in your love life, in your interactions with children and animals and nature; in many of your everyday experiences.

So why be embarrassed to admit you like a little schmaltz between the pages too?

On Condescending Writers

2008-12-12T17:59:00.004-06:00

Among my pet peeves are arrogant authors.

I came across one today whose elitist attitudes were on dramatic display -- a very strong condescending manner towards the rubes he satirized and a style that was less prose than it was never-ending inside jokes. (“No, I don’t understand the reference but it must be because this author is so clever and in the know.”)

The only reason I picked up this particular book was because of a recommendation by a good friend. I brought it along with me today as I had volunteered to baby-sit another friend’s art exhibit that’s running all month in a new Council Bluffs café/gallery. I had some work to do but figured I’d finish with it long before my 5-hour shift was over. Naturally then I tossed a couple of extra books into my shoulder bag to ward off any boredom that might assail me.

For the sake of my friend, I tried to read the book. Really I did. But the author’s smug pleasure with himself for using foreign phrases, sophisticated sexual references, and just being so much more hip than the hayseeds he was making fun of finally did me in.

I had reached page 33.

How pleased I was, therefore, to break from the novel by enjoying one of those deli sandwiches offered by the cute but multi-punctured kids across the way. And even more pleased I was when I remembered that other book in my bag to fall back on, John MacArthur’s 1989 God With Us: The Miracle of Christmas.

Whew. That was close, for the only thing worse than getting stuck somewhere without a book is getting stuck somewhere with a bad book!

So be careful and do with books like what you do with can openers, batteries and tires -- always have a spare in case of emergency.

Two James Hilton Gems

2008-12-09T18:20:00.004-06:00

Among the best fiction I’ve read all year have been James Hilton’s Random Harvest and his captivating novella, Goodbye, Mr. Chips. I had enjoyed Hilton’s Lost Horizon earlier but found in Random Harvest and Goodbye, Mr. Chips characters that were even more appealing. Also, the simple story lines (though they were both certainly engaging enough) beautifully presented the human dramas of love, loss, courage, friendship, duty and idealism.

Both books are set (primarily) in the years following World War I. They follow, respectively, the lives of a shell-shocked veteran whose loss of memory creates a mysterious gap of three years in his life and a humble, modestly skilled schoolmaster whose long career in the same boy’s school brings him many small triumphs. Both fellows I think you’ll find endearing and the lessons they have to teach you’ll find practical, winsome and memorable.

And the surprise ending of RH will knock you out.

Both Random Harvest and Goodbye, Mr. Chips easily rate my 5-star recommendation.

And one more thing -- There are movies based on these two books that are really quite good. Random Harvest stars Ronald Colman and Greer Garson and my favorite version of the two Goodbye, Mr. Chips that were made stars Peter O'Toole and Petula Clark.

By all means, if you like old movies, please consider these as excellent choices. However, do not expect the movies to follow the plots of the novels!

Read the books first. Let them settle into your psyche. And then, after two or three months maybe, go watch the films. Like bourbon and egg nog, each may be superb on its own but combining them is a disaster that ruins both.

On “Reworking” Bible Characters

2008-12-09T18:03:00.003-06:00

I finally got around to reading Thomas Costain’s The Silver Chalice but I only made it 130 pages or so before I gave it up. Costain’s writing skills were sharp enough and the story was interesting but I require higher standards regarding plot and perspective when an author drags biblical characters onto his own pages. The Silver Chalice just didn‘t make it.

For instance, Costain seemed to have an affection for the Bible but a seriously limited respect for its credibility. I had noticed his revisionism a few times earlier in the novel but when St. Luke explained away the exorcisms of demons as Jesus merely easing the “madness” that made the afflicted believe they had demons, I had enough.

I looked at the 400 pages or so that were left in the novel and then I noted the table where several other books awaited my attention and…it was a pretty easy choice.

From 2008's Reading -- Two Top Ten Lists

2008-11-28T09:59:00.004-06:00

From this year's reading, here's a quick list of my highest recommendations:

Non-Fiction Selections from 2008
(From highest rating down):
1) The Prince of Darkness by Robert Novak
2) America Alone by Mark Steyn
3) Brave New Family, a collection of essays by G. K. Chesterton
4) Dickens by Fred Kaplan
5) One Hundred Days: Napoleon’s Road to Waterloo by Alan Schom
6) The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh (edited by David Gallagher)
7) Judging Thomas: The Life and Times of Clarence Thomas by Ken Foskett
8) Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
9) The Face of Battle by John Keegan
10) What If? The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been (John Keegan, David McCullough, Stephen Ambrose, Victor Davis Hanson, Thomas Fleming, James M. McPherson, Robert Cowley and more.)

Fiction Selections from 2008
(From highest rating down):
1) The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
2) Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
3) Random Harvest by James Hilton
4) A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
5) The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini
6) A few John Buchan novels (Thirty-Nine Steps, Power-House, Greenmantle, Mr. Standfast, The Three Hostages, The Island of Sheep, and Huntingtower)
7) To The Last Man by Jeff Shaara
8) Parnassus On Wheels by Christopher Morley
9) Father of the Bride by Edward Streeter
10) Dragon by Clive Cussler

Clive Cussler's Christmas Memories

2008-11-26T12:47:00.005-06:00

From an interesting "cyber-flier" that came in my e-mail from Books-A-Million (everybody's trying to move Christmas shoppers off the dime) comes some quick Q&A sessions with authors whose new books the company is pushing. There were 12 authors they enlisted in the game but I was only interested in one. It was Clive Cussler and his answers are printed below.

What is your earliest holiday memory?

Waking up Christmas morning after being brought home from the hospital after nearly dying from pneumonia when I was six years old. My father carried me out into the living room and there was a Lionel train chugging around beneath the tree. It had three red cars, a tunnel and a house with a little man who came out and waved a lantern when the train went past.

What was the best holiday gift you received as a child?

That Lionel train.

Did you have a favorite holiday book as a child?

The Night Before Christmas. I made Dad read it every night at bedtime. He later joked at how he skipped entire sections until he came to "And to all a good night."

What are your favorite books to give as gifts?

My own.

What books are you planning to give as gifts this year?

None. It seems presumptuous to give them as Christmas presents.

What are you reading now?

A book on the Battle of the Bulge.

What would you like to get from Santa this year?

A 1932 supercharged Duesenberg. (It's a Duesy.)

Of Dickens, an Autumn Retreat and the 2009 NHN Reading List

2008-11-25T17:10:00.000-06:00

The Notting Hill Napoleon's annual autumn retreat is now history but the warm memories of our time together in Nebraska City will help us survive the chill months of winter that are coming our way.

We had a great time (I think I can speak for everyone) with Jeanna Stavas again serving as a most gracious and talented innkeeper there at Whispering Pines Bed and Breakfast. It's a beautiful, comfortable place and we heartily recommend it for pilgrims, wayfarers and solace-seekers of all stripes.

Among our activities this past weekend were our discussion of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, an experiment with a different way of selecting the next year's reading rota, Bill's inventive Napoleons-oriented song (a longstanding tradition) and very delicious meals -- both Jeanna's hearty breakfasts (prospective guests will be pleased to learn that Jeanna serves up much fuller portions than most B&Bs) and the food that we ourselves fixed for several meals: sausage and zucchini soup, lasagna, ham and bean soup, stromboli, corn bread, cheese, rich desserts, and gallons of coffee and tea).

And, of course, there were engaging conversations covering the Bible, spiritual concerns, pro-life issues, politics, history, books, our families, the arts and more.

Regarding the Dickens book, I must tell you that I enjoyed it much more than my last reading. In fact, going over an earlier Book Den entry covering that reading, I confess it was quite wrong in its two basic criticisms.

First of all, this latest time through convinces me that Dickens was not as "gracious" in his sympathies with the French Revolution as I suggested in that earlier post. My bad. The fact is that Dickens depicted the savagery of the mobs, their irrationality and their lust for vengeance extremely well. And Dickens did not excuse the Reign of Terror even though he also characterized the aristocratic regime of Louis XVI's reign as brutally insensitive and unfair. Dicken's objectively painted both "sides" of the violent conflict with blame, "I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth..."

I had written that "Dickens doesn't praise the Revolution, by any means, and yet he fails to capture its envy, its hatred of Christianity, and its sheerly vile lust for blood." Again, I was wrong. Perhaps reading the novel more carefully (including taking notes) in preparation for our discussion was the key to a clearer interpretation. For Dickens does capture well the Revolution's envy, the blood lust and the hatred for Christianity. An example? Of La Guillotine Dickens writes, "It was the sign of the regeneration of the human race. It superseded the Cross. Models of it were worn on breasts from which the Cross was discarded, and it was bowed down to and believed in where the Cross was denied."

Secondly, I also misinterpreted the Sydney Carton climax because I had put too much emphasis on him as the novel's protagonist. He isn't. Yes, he's important -- but only as one of several plot lines underscoring Dicken's theme, "Recalled to Life." It is the hope and power of resurrection that drives A Tale of Two Cities: resurrection from a false and cruel imprisonment (Doctor Manette and Charles Darnay); resurrection from a dissipated, worthless life (Sydney Carton); and resurrection from physical death as Carton finally understands and embraces the message preached at his father's funeral, "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die."

No, if there is a protagonist in A Tale of Two Cities, it is Jarvis Lorry who along with Doctor Manette, Lucie, and even Miss Pross join the rank of heroic characters along with Carton. But if there is a focus of the novel, it is not the characters of Lorry, Carton or any of the others. It is the Resurrection with its triumphant power over injustice, terror and evil itself.

Okay, now that I've cleared the books with my corrected opinion of A Tale of Two Cities, it's time to close this post with the titles of those books which made the Notting Hill Napoleon cut for 2009. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we tried an experiment this past weekend which proved very successful. In fact, we managed to decide on our 12 books for the coming year with no lobbying, no squabbles, no reasons to cry foul -- and in about a third of the time it normally takes. Nice.

So here, in the finished form for the 2009 calendar, is the Notting Hill Napoleons' Reading List for 2009:

* January -- The Heart of Midlothian by Sir Walter Scott
* February -- Out of The Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
* March -- The Virginian by Owen Wister
* April -- Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
* May -- Landfall by Nevil Shute
* June -- The Rising Tide by Jeff Shaara
* July -- Bardelys, the Magnificent by Rafael Sabatini
* August -- Ninety-Three by Victor Hugo
* September -- Random Harvest by James Hilton
* October -- The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins
* November -- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
* December -- O Little Town by Don Reid

The top vote-getters in this election (not counting the requisite Dickens novel -- we're repeating the exact course of Dickens' novels that we read the first 13 times around!) were Scott, the new Don Reid Christmas novel (we were looking for a Christmas read and this easily beat out the other two contenders), Collins, Austen, Sabatini and Hilton.

Now to understand how these fit in with choices made earlier in our history, the full rota from 1992 through 2007 is listed in this post whereas the 2008 list is in this one.

And then, for further reference and to help you select titles for your own reading or for the book-lovers on your Christmas list, you might give a look to Denny's and Claire's newest version of Notting Hill Napoleon Reading Recommendations. You'll find that list in the post just below this one or, to put it another way, right here.

Denny's & Claire's NHN Reading Recommendations (List #16)

2008-11-25T16:45:00.000-06:00

Created for the Notting Hill Napoleons' Consideration for 2009 --- And for Interested Visitors to The Book Den!

1) All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren.
This landmark book is a loosely fictionalized account of Governor Huey Long of Louisiana, one of the most remarkable and controversial politicians in American history. The novel tells the story of Willie Stark, a popular but underhanded governor of a Southern state who effectively appeals to the common man while playing dirty politics with the best of the back-room deal-makers. However, his key assistant cannot shed his idealism so easily and the stormy relationship between the two form much of the novel’s tension (456 pages. New: $5. Several copies in Omaha Public Library system.)

2) Angels in Iron by Nicholas C. Prata
"The year is A.D. 1565 and the tiny island fortress of Malta, defended by an anachronistic crusading order called the Knights of St. John Hospitallers, is all that stands between the war machine of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and the very heart of Christendom. Pitifully outmatched and against impossible odds, the indomitable Grand Master Jean Parisot de La Valette nevertheless inspires his knights to ‘strike a blow for Christ’ and sacrifice their lives to halt the invading Turks at the gates of Europe. What follows is a desperate struggle between East and West, Cross and Koran, faith and despair. Nicholas Prata relates the actual events of the Great Siege in riveting and graphic prose which brings the extreme heroism of the knights and the unimaginable horror of combat sharply into focus." (Aquinas and More web site.) (292 pages. $16.95 new. $12.00 used.)

3) Bardelys the Magnificent by Rafael Sabatini
One of Sabatini's earlier novels, this is still a richly satisfying read. It's an engaging story of the Marquis de Bardelys, a court favorite of Louis XIII, who takes a loaded wager that he can win the heart of Roxalanne de Lavédan where his rival had failed. The ensuing action, however, includes the Marquis being mistaken for someone else, a mistake that goes uncorrected and then endangers not just the romance but his neck. (232 pages. $20 new. Less expensive used copies can be obtained through the web.)

4) Finding Noel by Richard Paul Evans
"When I wrote my first novel, The Christmas Box, I never imagined it would become an international bestseller. It was a story for my two (then) little girls. But as I wrote, I realized that it was also for my mother -- to ease her pain over losing a child…When The Christmas Box hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, no one, including me, was more excited than my mother. I lost my mother on Valentine's Day of 2006. After weeks of struggling with my grief, I decided I would write a story for her. As she loved Christmas, I chose to write a Christmas novel, my first since The Christmas Box. Finding Noel is about how people come into our lives for a reason. It is a love story about Macy and Mark, two young people from different worlds. I'm sorry that this Christmas, for the first time since I became a writer, I won't be able to present my mother with a copy of my book. I think she would have enjoyed reading it. But, then again, I'm not certain that she hasn't. As you read Finding Noel, I hope that you enjoy the journey and feel the same powerful emotions I felt as the story came to me. Fondly, Richard Evans." (320 pages. $14 new. Used from $6. 17 copies in OPL.)

5) Fortune's Fool by Rafael Sabatini
Published in 1922, the novel is set in Restoration London (1665) and concerns itself with the adventures (perhaps "misadventures" is the proper word) of a soldier of fortune who is struggling to deal with the hardships of...peace! The novel sparkles with witty dialogue, intrigue, romance, and the dangers of the plague. Will a possible war with Holland be Randal Holles’ deliverance or will his court enemies bring him down before then? And how will he fare with the gorgeous actress Sylvia Farquharson to whom he's lost his heart? (324 pages. $20 new. Used from $6.)

6) The Golden Ring: A Christmas Story by John Snyder
I give a hearty recommendation to John Snyder’s The Golden Ring: A Christmas Story as a terrific holiday read. Not classic literature but a solid Christmas novel in a culture that’s pretty short on them. A bittersweet story marked by Christian faith, family values and a heart-stirring plot, The Golden Ring was a nice surprise that I found in the public library a couple of years ago. We liked it so much that we ordered three autographed copies at the author’s website and gave two of them as gifts last Christmas. (180 pages. $16 new. Used considerably cheaper. 8 copies at OPL.)

7) Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.
After a terrible fall from a horse in 1920, Margaret Mitchell’s health began to decline. In fact, by 1926, she had to resign from the Atlanta Journal where she had developed into a popular reporter. Fearing that she was becoming bored and depressed, her husband gave her a new Remington typewriter upon which was this challenging message, “Madam, I greet you on the beginning of a new career.” The result? Only the bestselling novel of all time, Gone with the Wind! It’s a long read, but hey - that’s part of its charm for the story, characters and writing are splendid enough to make you never want it to end. Gone with the Wind would make a terrific wintertime book. (1024 pages. New: $8. Used from $1. Several copies in OPL.)

8) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
This was the third Dickens novel in the Napoleon Rota. We've been following the same pattern so far and I suggest we continue. (544 pages. Several copies in OPL system. Used copies easily available.)

9) The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins
One of Collins’ most vividly drawn characters, the mysterious and obsessed Countess Narona, is the central figure in The Haunted Hotel. Part detective story, part ghost story, part psychological thriller, Collins takes the reader from London to the ancient waterways of Venice in a most memorable and pleasantly eerie journey. You may want to read this one with the lights on! (225 pages. Often published with other works. $7 and up for used copies. 2 copies in OPL.)

10) The Heart of Midlothian by Sir Walter Scott.
Sir Walter Scott ranks Number 4 in the standings of the Napoleon’s “Most Read Authors.” Fortunately, we have a long way to go before we need worry about running out of Scott titles to delight us. Our recommendation for this year is The Heart of Midlothian, an exciting novel inspired by several historical events, including the Porteous Riots of 1736 in Edinburgh and Helen Walker’s long trek on foot to London to obtain a pardon for her sister, wrongfully sentenced to death for child murder. (566 pages. Used copies at $1. 2 copies in OPL system.)

11) Landfall by Nevil Shute
A British Coastal Command plane strikes at a U-boat in the English Channel. But a British submarine in the same waters goes missing and is presumed lost. Did the young pilot accidentally bomb one of his country’s own ships, sending his fellow warriors to their deaths? Only Roderick Chambers’ girl believes in him after the tragedy. But he doesn’t even believe in himself. And even she can’t stop him from taking the one last chance to clear his name…even though the attempt will likely cost him his life. (240 pages. $6 used. 1 Copy in OPL.)

12) The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington.
This 1919 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel portrays the decline of the extravagantly affluent Amberson family, serving as a touching backdrop for the huge social changes America saw in the decades following the Industrial Revolution. Rather than join the modern age, George Amberson insists on remaining a "gentleman" and tries desperately to hang on to his own version of patrician pride. But his town soon becomes a city and the family palace becomes surrounded by industry, destroying the elegant, cloistered lifestyle enjoyed by the family in years gone by. A genuine literary masterpiece. We loved it. (276 pages. New $13. Used from $4.85. 2 copies in OPL system.)

13) Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.
Mansfield Park may be full of serious events like betrayal, social ruin, and ruptured friendships. But, golly; it is a comedy so, rest assured, there’s plenty of humor, gentle satire, the requisite happy ending and plenty of Austen's excellent writing along the way. (448 pages. New: $6. Used from $2. 4 copies in OPL.)

14) No Highway by Nevil Shute
A new type of British airliner is flying into certain disaster high above the Atlantic. But one of the passengers aboard is a brilliant scientist who recognizes the fate that awaits. Or does he? This is Nevil Shute with his usual skill in human characterizations, dialogue, and thoughtfulness but with one of his most grippingly suspenseful stories. (280 pages. $6 used.)

15) O Little Town by Don Reid
Yes, that Don Reid, member of the legendary country group (now retired) The Statler Brothers. In this quiet Christmas novel set in a Southern small town in 1958, there are two primary storylines taking place. One deals with the preacher’s daughter getting nabbed shoplifting and the other with a terminally-ill grandfather who has a secret tradition he plans to pass on to his descendants. ( 256 pages. New just last month at $12.99. Used copies will probably be plentiful next year.)

16) The Prisoner of Zenda and Rupert of Hentzau by Anthony Hope
Before there was Rafael Sabatini, there were the adventurous romances he cherished by Alexandre Dumas, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, and Anthony Hope. Indeed, Hope's dashing novel, The Prisoner of Zenda set the bar high with its combination of drama, principle, courage, plot complexity, romance, suspense and the allure of foreign intrigue. But since The Prisoner of Zenda is a mere 212 pages and because you'll read it as fast as you eat Almond Joys, I suggest we team it with the lesser-known but thrilling sequel, Rupert of Hentzau (220 pages). (The Prisoner of Zenda is readily and cheaply available. The sequel less so with used copies from $8 to $12.)

17) Ninety-Three by Victor Hugo.
1793 was the year that Louis XVI was decapitated and Robespierre really swung into “terror mode” to further the French Revolution. And after neglecting the Revolution as a theme for his whole career, Hugo finally did so with this, his last novel. Ayn Rand once wrote an introduction to the novel and described the theme of Ninety-Three as “man's loyalty to values.“ That sounds like a great theme for the NHN to explore, especially when it comes from the pen of such a master artist. (392 pages. New: $27.95. Used from $8.)

18) No Name by Wilkie Collins.
This is Wilkie Collins at the height of his literary powers. It is the story of two sisters, Magdalen and Norah, who discover after the deaths of their dearly beloved parents that their parents were not legally married at the time of the girls’ births. Disinherited and ousted from their estate, Magdalen and Norah must fend for themselves and either surrender to their fate or recover their wealth by whatever means available. (784 pages. New from $10.25. Used from $3. 1 copy in OPL.)

19) November 1916 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
With August 1914, Solzhenitsyn began his epic of the Russian Revolution, the finished version of which (The Red Wheel) he hoped to leave as his greatest and most important work. After 20 years, the second of the series is here. This is historical fiction at its very best. (1000 pages. New: $20.00. 3 copies in OPL.)

20) Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
Dr. Elwin Ransom, noted professor of philology at Cambridge University, becomes curious about the language of the inhabitants of Malacandra (Mars) but has no idea he will soon travel there...as a hostage of two sinister villains who plan to offer him as a human sacrifice! Ransom’s daring escape, his harrowing adventures afterwards and a whole lot of profound spiritual allegory make this short novel, Lewis' first of his famous space trilogy, a more than appropriate read for the Napoleons. (160 pages. Used copies inexpensive and plentiful. 5 copies in OPL system.)

21) Random Harvest by James Hilton
I really like the other Hilton works I have read (Lost Horizon and Goodbye, Mr. Chips) but Random Harvest is the most engaging, profound and well-crafted of all. It is an unusually presented novel dealing with a severely shell-shocked victim of WWI whose subsequent life is successful but enigmatic because of a long period of memory loss. The touching novel has romance, mystery, character, mood, historical interest, profound philosophic perspectives, and plot twists aplenty. It’s a splendid read. (326 pages. Used copies from $10.00. 2 copies in OPL system.)

22) The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
We don’t really want to leave a task undone, do we? Having read and profitably discussed together the first two volumes of Tolkien’s legendary trilogy (The Fellowship of the Ring in 1998 and The Two Towers in 2002), I suggest we finish off with this provocative and peerless novel. (544 pages. $9 new. Used copies even cheaper. Numerous copies in OPL system.)

23) The Silver Chalice by Thomas B. Costain.
Costain was one of America’s most popular novelists in the early years of the 20th Century novelists with this being his best selling book. Based on legends that have circulated from the earliest days of the Church, The Silver Chalice describes the life of Basil, the artisan who fashioned the silver chalice that held the sacred cup from which Christ drank at the Last Supper. Following its publication in 1953, the Chicago Tribune said of the book, "Costain paints a tremendous canvas filled with color and vitality. . .He breathes life into history. But The Silver Chalice does more than this. It makes the New Testament, perhaps for the first time, seem real." (Doesn’t say much for the reviewer’s preacher and Sunday School teachers, does it?) Anyhow, similarly high praise comes from the woman who wrote the introduction to the latest edition, Peggy Noonan. (533 pages. New $11. Used from $1.25. 2 copies in OPL.)

24) That Printer of Udell’s by Harold Bell Wright.
It would be hard to write a better recommendation for this book by the author of The Shepherd of the Hills than the one written by President Ronald Reagan: “I found a role model in that traveling printer whom Harold Bell Wright had brought to life. He set me on a course I’ve tried to follow even unto this day. I shall always be grateful.” Certainly we could all benefit from reading this warm-hearted novel that emphasizes a strong belief in God (and the resultant good deeds) forms the basis for a fulfilling life, no matter what a person’s past might hold. (346 pages. New: $5.95. Used from $2.)

25) Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas.
Two decades have passed since the famous swordsmen triumphed over Cardinal Richelieu and M’lady in The Three Musketeers. Time has weakened their bodies a bit and dispersed them from one another. But treasons and stratagems still cry out for justice and, eventually, civil war endangers the throne of France. Meanwhile in England, Cromwell threatens to send Charles I to the scaffold. It is in this firestorm that the immortal quartet comes out of retirement to cross swords once again with time, the malevolence of men, and the forces of history. (880 pages. New: $10.85. Used from $6. 4 copies in OPL.)

26) The Virginian by Owen Wister
Before there were the stereotypical Westerns (Zane Grey, Max Brand, and the rest), there was Owen Wister's acclaimed The Virginian, a well-written, thoughtful novel of the American West. In it Wister introduces many of the elements that others would eventually copy -- the handsome, self-educated cowboy hero (the fellow reads Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott); the modest schoolteacher from back East; and the stern requirements of dealing out one's own justice in a lawless land. But The Virginian is more than a Saturday matinee shoot 'em up, it is fine literature, a classic study of human nature, and one of the most popular novels ever written by an American. Published in 1902 and dedicated to President Theodore Roosevelt, The Virginian has the history, the literary excellence and the enjoyable readability that has made up so many of our favorites over the years. (480 pages. Many inexpensive editions around. 9 copies in OPL.

"Father of the Bride" Finds a Fan

2008-11-20T20:58:00.006-06:00

Perhaps not since the last time I re-read Thurber, Lardner or my Pogo cartoon books have I had as much comic delight as during the couple of hours I spent with Edward Streeter's Father of the Bride.

Having never married off a daughter or even having a wedding myself (Claire and I were married by a judge in a courthouse, long since torn down -- the courthouse, not the marriage), one might think I wouldn't get the charge out of the short novel that others might. That could be true. But though Father of the Bride is a charming and yet rather profound look at the costly, confusing carnival that is the American wedding, it also gives sharp, humorous insights into family relationships, young love, American consumerism, the meaning of neighborhood, liquor consumption and more.

Father of the Bride is, in the opinion of almost anyone in the know, a genuine American American classic. That means, among other things: 1) it was a huge bestseller in its time, 2) it is memorable to all who have read it (even for school!), 3) it's been made into a movie (in this case, twice - very important to Americans), and 4) you'll have a dickens of a time finding it in your local library! It's apparently been culled to make way for the Harry Potter books, the BBC videos and whatever New Age schlock Oprah is promoting this month.

So, here's to Edward Streeter and his mirthful masterpiece. It can indeed be found and I recommend it to anyone who wants a few laughs...and especially to anyone who is planning anytime soon to be in, to attend or to pay for a wedding. Father of the Bride will certainly help fortify you for the experience.

The Key (Seven of Them, Actually) to a Great Melodrama -- George M. Cohan's "Seven Keys to Baldpate"

2008-11-20T17:43:00.006-06:00

I confess that until a couple of weeks ago, I only knew the name of George M. Cohan as a major vaudevillian player and songwriter, one of the few who successfully made the transition to Broadway stardom. However, even those impressions were pretty fuzzy as they arose from my memories of seeing James Cagney play Cohan in the film Yankee Doodle Dandy -- and that was decades ago.

But even a cursory inquiry revealed to me that Cohan was truly an American superstar. Considered the father of American musical comedy and, at one time, "the fellow who owned Broadway," Cohan was a skilled musician, composer, singer, dancer, actor, stage director and playwright. No wonder they made movies about this guy!

But I need to tell you why my interest was kindled in George M. Cohan in the first place. It was because I came across a rollicking good play that he had written and produced, Seven Keys to Baldpate. It was the last play featured in a library book I had picked up, 10 Classic Mystery and Suspense Plays of the Modern Theater.

The collection was edited by Stanley Richards and sported a 1973 copyright. However, the plays Richards had selected were from a much earlier period of the London and Broadway stage: Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians (1943); Joseph Hayes' The Desperate Hours (1955) (The original cast included Karl Malden, James Gegory, Paul Newman and was directed by Robert Montgomery.); Edward Chodorov's Kind Lady (1935); J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls (1946) (The opening cast included Alec Guinness, Ralph Richardson, and Harry Andrews.); Hostile Witness (1964) (The New York premiere two years later had Ray Milland in the lead.); Night Must Fall (1935); and a few more, including the one I found so quirky and delightful, Seven Keys to Baldpate, which opened at New York's Astor Theater on September 22, 1913.

I enjoyed several of the plays in Richards' collection but Baldpate was clearly my favorite. Wrote Richards about the play, "While Cohan publicly acknowledged that 'it stands for nothing but pure entertainment and a sort of comedy kidding of the technique of melodramatic thrillers," a number of critics and colleagues credited Seven Keys to Baldpate with breaking new ground in the field of playwriting."

Seven Keys to Baldpate is based on a novel of the same name by Earl Derr Biggers (later the creator of Charlie Chan). It is a novelty of sorts, a melodrama played for laughs but which manages to create real suspense and tension as well.

The plot involves a popular author of "pot-boiler" novels who takes a bet that he can't write a publishable book in 24 hours...24 hours that must be spent in a deserted (and haunted) hotel in a wintry, mountainous area. He tries to come through but his encounters with criminals, political blackmail, a lovely woman and, of course, the ghost, makes it look like his thousand dollar bet is sure to be lost. In fact, he may not even be around to pay off the debt!

Even though Cohan's legend emphasizes his contributions to Broadway's musical heritage, it turns out that Seven Keys To Baldpate was Cohan's most popular play. It has been revived many times over the years (Cohan himself starred in a 1935 production for the esteemed Player's Club) and it has been used as the basis for several film versions. Cohan starred in the first (1917) with the latest being The House Of Long Shadows (1983) which starred some of the leading actors in horror pictures of the century: Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, John Carradine, and Peter Cushing.

As visitors to The Book Den know, I'm always recommending older literature, classic stuff that we shouldn't let get away from us -- even if it means doing a little extra work to get it. George M. Cohan's splendid melodrama Seven Keys to Baldpate is just such a treasure.

One final note: the popularity of the play gave the title to a famous magic trick originated by Theodore Annemann back in 1931, a trick that you can still purchase (and by that name too) in magic stores today.

The Napoleons' Getaway

2008-11-20T16:48:00.007-06:00

Well, it's that time of year again and so late tomorrow afternoon Claire and I will be driving down to Nebraska City to join the rest of the Notting Hill Napoleons for our annual weekend getaway at the Whispering Pines Bed & Breakfast. It's always a delightful time and we look forward to it -- spending time with good friends; preparing (and eating!) delicious meals; plenty of conversation spread over diverse topics; selecting our books for the coming year; and conducting our traditional discussion of the year's Charles Dickens novel.

It's a wonderful part of our autumn. In fact, Claire and I have begun to treat it as the kickoff to our Christmas season.

This year we're trying an experiment for choosing next year's reading rota. Instead of debating our way through several different book lists offered by various members (a situation which has sometimes resulted in wounded feelings and other unfortunate and unnecessary problems), I suggested that this year we compile a common list. The members graciously agreed to give it a try.

All recommendations were therefore given privately to me along with the requisite information/sales pitch that the respective members wrote about each book. I then typed up the list with each recommendation in a form that was a) unedited, b) alphabetized by title, and 3) without reference to the identity of the submitter. Then each member was given a copy of this common list several days before our getaway weekend begins.

We will still vote in 2 or 3 stages to whittle our list down to 12 books (and an alternate) but I'm hoping this will spare the group from needlessly listening to someone reading printed handouts that are right before us (I hated that in school and I hate it still) as well as helping us avoid personal lobbying of one's recommendations. It is the latter that has been problematic.

Will it work? Who knows. It's worth a try, right?

At any rate, as to the tradition here at the Book Den to print "Denny & Claire's Annual List of Notting Hill Napoleons’ Reading Recommendations," that will still be in place. We will simply print here only the books that came from us. But I don't want to give the secret away until after this weekend's vote...just in case a cybersurfing Napoleon finds his way over here before then!

Ted Dekker Applies C. S. Lewis' "Latent Christianity" Principle

2008-11-13T15:15:00.004-06:00

Okay, I must admit from the beginning here that I had not heard of Ted Dekker nor of any of his popular works (novels and "graphic novels" both) until this afternoon when doing some research for next year's reading list for the Notting Hill Napoleons. Nevertheless, I found this essay in Dekker's blog of value. You may too. It concerns the limits, pressures and even the definitions of "Christian literature."

Watching people’s reactions to the themes in the movie House [the novel on which the film was based was co-authored by Dekker and Frank Peretti] has been interesting. The film as a whole is deeply influenced by everything from cinematography to acting to direction to score to special effects… the list is endless and the end product way beyond my control. But the story on which the movie is based was mine and reviewers reaction to the basic theme of that story interests me.

They fit into three broad categories that look something like this:

First, there are the Christian reviewers who act as so called experts on the value of a film, a quantity they derive by scoring negatives and positives for a final verdict. Like mathematicians using formulas, the more analytic among them give the end product either a thumbs up, or a thumbs down. For many of these, House was not Christian enough.

Then there are the hosts of Christians thrilled to see something hit the screen that isn’t blatantly Christian. As long as the theme is fairly plain, the mere absence of an overt Christian message draws cheers from them. In their view, House was just about right.

Finally there are the non-Christian reviewers. Reading their opinions, you might think House was blatant propaganda piece designed to shove the church down the world’s throat. In their view, House was far too Christian, nothing short of an evangelical sermon.

So which is right?...

Good question. So check out the rest of Ted Dekker's essay, "Latent Christianity," and see how this unusual writer is trying to apply C.S. Lewis' philosophy of art.

Catching Up!

2008-10-20T22:52:00.007-05:00

Among the stumbling blocks in my desire to keep current on The Book Den are the dramatic increase of activity in Vital Signs Ministries’ other cyberspace efforts, the extra time Claire and I now need to take care of my ailing mother (a joyful burden, I assure you) and, of course, my assumption of regular preaching duties down at Faith Bible Church in Omaha’s near south side.

But perhaps the greatest angst of the matter is just being so far behind with a decreasing chance of ever catching up.

Well, I may not be able to manufacture more hours in the day to overcome the first three difficulties but, doggone it if I can’t at least shake that last monkey off my back. So here's a post that covers (if only super quick) all the books from this last year I haven’t yet got round to.

Then maybe I can breathe again. So, here we go….

There was a handful of "modern" books that I managed my way through this year but few of them were very memorable. David Baldacci’s The Collectors was one of them. I picked it up in an airport for lack of anything better. If I remember correctly, it was passable but it wasn’t anything I’d recommend. I fared better with a couple of other airport purchases: P.D. James’ Death in Holy Orders and Clive Cussler’s Dragon. Cussler’s plots can be kinda’ wild but they’re very inventive, exciting and at least plausible within the framework of adventure fantasy he creates. Nice stuff -- somewhat reminiscent of Alistair MacLean.

Another modern novel that I’ve found in perusing this year’s reading list is Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks. It’s the new (and from what I gather) “authorized” James Bond book. I checked it out from my local library after reading a couple of good reviews. Both compared it quite favorably with Ian Fleming, the original creator of Bond, but as I’ve never read any of Fleming’s work except the book he wrote for his kids, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, I wasn’t able to judge. Perhaps Faulks gets to wear the mantle and produce more Bond novels. I'm happy for him but I don’t think I'll be among his readers. I didn’t find this one satisfactory. Maybe if I had read it on a plane...

2008’s reading included, naturally, the monthly selections of our ongoing literary society, the Notting Hill Napoleons. I’ve already commented on a couple of them in The Book Den this year: Victor Hugo’s Toilers of the Sea, which I liked, and Jessamyn West’s The Friendly Persuasion, which I also liked (though as a set of related short stories, not as a novel).

The NHN selections titles I didn’t cover were P.C. Wren’s Beau Geste, James Hilton’s The Lost Horizon (I’ve reviewed this in the Den a year ago), Anthony Trollope’s Dr. Thorne, Christopher Morley’s Parnassus on Wheels, Conan Doyle’s The Tragedy of the Korosko, H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines and Rafael Sabatini’s The Sea-Hawk. I found them all enjoyable and our discussions over them all were lively and thoughtful. Nevertheless, there were clear favorites for me: Parnassus and Sea-Hawk.

Still to come for this year’s Napoleons’ list? Nevil Shute’s Ruined City, Selected Stories by O. Henry (Barnes and Noble Classics Series) and Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. The last one I've commented on before in this post.

My non-fiction reading seemed especially limited this year. I guess most of the time I would normally have spent with non-fiction (primarily history, culture and theology) was taken up instead with studying for sermons. But there were a few I managed to squeeze in. Four of them were part of Vital Signs' Book It! series; one was a selection of the Omaha Chesterton Society; and one was just pure pleasure reading. They were: Judging Thomas: The Life and Times of Clarence Thomas by Ken Foskett; America Alone by Mark Steyn; The Prince of Darkness by Robert Novak; The Grand Weaver by Ravi Zacharias, Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and The Path to Rome by Hillaire Belloc. A few of those I did review in the Den here (Foskett, Zacharias, Ali which I talked briefly about over on Vital Signs Blog, and the one of this half dozen I’d most heartily recommend; namely, Novak’s compelling, fascinating autobiography).

Other non-fiction that I found time for included a richly detailed, exhaustively researched history by Alan Schom, One Hundred Days: Napoleon’s Road to Waterloo and one of the best biographies I’ve read in awhile, Fred Kaplan’s Dickens. Julian Symon’s Conan Doyle: Portrait of an Artist also fell in there sometime this summer but I wasn't too keen on it.

And, oh yes, a couple of non-fiction titles I found helpful in my preparations for my recent teaching stint in West Africa were The Christian Educator’s Handbook on Children’s Ministry by Choun and Lawson as well as Lawrence O. Richard’s A Theology of Children’s Ministry. But there's a rather limited audience for those last two, I’m afraid.

G.K. Chesterton reading is always popular around here and along with the casual reading of his essays this year, I also read his early novel, Basil Howe; his literary criticism, Tolstoy; and the essays collected in Brave New Family.

Finally, every year finds me re-reading some of my library’s dearest treasures and 2008 has been no exception. Among those favorites was a John Buchan tear I went on last winter. It consisted of Thirty-Nine Steps, Power-House, Greenmantle, Mr. Standfast, The Three Hostages, The Island of Sheep, and Huntingtower. There was also Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas tossed into the mix. I never tire of either author.

Okay then. My catch up post is complete. Well, pretty complete. I’m sure I’ve left out a couple of titles and I certainly haven’t done justice to any of them…but at least I’m caught up and can sleep soundly again. :)

Happy reading, guys.

Arthur Miller's Greatest Work Was Never Performed

2008-09-16T11:45:00.000-05:00

The American playwright Arthur Miller who died in February 2005 is remembered for many things: his most famous plays (Death of a Salesman and The Crucible), his marriage to Marilyn Monroe, his liberal social activism, etc. But there's something that is only now coming out about Arthur Miller that represents a personal selfishness and callousness that certainly contradicts his heretofore high reputation.

At the news of Arthur Miller's passing, the Denver Post called him "the moralist of the past American century." The New York Times praised his "fierce belief in man's responsibility to his fellow man." At his funeral, fellow playwrights Edward Albee and Tony Kushner celebrated his virtues, Albee even saying that Miller's life was a moral example for all of society -- "Here is how you behave."

But these praises would hardly have been as vaunted if people knew that Arthur Miller had completely abandoned his own son Daniel, consigning him to a cruel, loveless, unfathered life in mental institutions because Daniel was born with Down's syndrome, a condition for which he was punished by being wholly deleted from his father's life.

Below are excerpts from a well-researched, well-written Vanity Fair article by Suzanna Andrews. It was published last year. I hope it will encourage you to read her entire article. And I hope it will make you see more clearly the magnificent difference it makes (to individuals and the whole of society) when one truly values the sanctity of all human life. Thus, it's certainly not Miller of whom it should be said, "Here is how you behave" but rather people like Todd and Sarah Palin.

..."Arthur was terribly shaken—he used the term 'mongoloid,'" Whitehead recalled. He said, "'I'm going to have to put the baby away.'" A friend of Inge's recalls visiting her at home, in Roxbury, about a week later. "I was sitting at the bottom of the bed, and Inge was propped up, and my memory is that she was holding the baby and she was very, very unhappy," she says. "Inge wanted to keep the baby, but Arthur wasn't going to let her keep him."...

Within days, the child was gone, placed in a home for infants in New York City. When he was about two or three, one friend recalls, Inge tried to bring him home, but Arthur would not have it. Daniel was about four when he was placed at the Southbury Training School. Then one of two Connecticut institutions for the mentally retarded, Southbury was just a 10-minute drive from Roxbury, along shaded country roads. "Inge told me that she went to see him almost every Sunday, and that [Arthur] never wanted to see him," recalls the writer Francine du Plessix Gray. Once he was placed in Southbury, many friends heard nothing more about Daniel. "After a certain period," one friend says, "he was not mentioned at all."...

"Southbury Training School was not a place you would want your dog to live."

When it opened, in 1940, Southbury was considered one of the best institutions of its kind. Set on 1,600 acres in the rolling hills of central Connecticut, it was magnificent to behold, with porticoed, neo-Georgian red-brick buildings surrounded by endless lawns. It had a school and job-training programs, and its residents were housed in "cottages"—with their own living areas and kitchens. Well into the 1950s, Southbury was so highly regarded that wealthy families in New York City would buy country homes in Connecticut to establish residency so that, for a minimal fee, they could place their children there.

By the early 1970s, however, around the time Arthur Miller put his son there, Southbury was understaffed and overcrowded. It had nearly 2,300 residents, including children, living in rooms with 30 to 40 beds. Many of the children wore diapers, because there weren't enough employees to toilet-train them. During the day, they sat in front of blaring TVs tuned to whatever show the staff wanted to watch. The most disabled children were left lying on mats on the floor, sometimes covered with nothing but a sheet. "In the wards you had people screaming, banging their heads against the wall, and taking their clothes off," says David Shaw, a leading Connecticut disability lawyer. "It was awful."...

Bowen recalls the first time she met Daniel: "He was just a delight, eager, happy, outgoing—in those days even more so than now, because of his isolation." He showed her his room, which he shared with 20 other people, and his dresser, which was nearly empty, because everyone wore communal clothing. "I remember very clearly trying to respond with happiness, but it was very hard, because there was nothing there," she says. "He really had nothing. His sole possession was this little tiny transistor radio with earplugs. It was something you'd pick up at a five-and-dime. And he was so proud to have it. You couldn't help but think, This is Arthur Miller's son? How could this be?"...

In 1985, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Connecticut over the poor conditions at Southbury. The following year it ordered the state to close Southbury to new admissions. By then, Daniel was living in a group home with five housemates, and making huge strides. He had a lot to learn—how to live on his own, how to use public transportation, how to shop for groceries.

Experts say it is difficult to measure how much Daniel had been held back by years of living in an institution. Early-intervention programs, nurturing families, and special-education classes—all of which Daniel missed out on—have contributed to a 15-point rise in the I.Q. scores of Down-syndrome children in the last 30 years, says Stephen Greenspan, a professor of psychiatry and former president of the Academy on Mental Retardation. Today, many higher-functioning Down-syndrome children can read and write; some graduate from high school and even college. Chris Burke, the actor with Down syndrome, who played Corky on the television show Life Goes On, lives in his own apartment in New York and commutes to work. Daniel, by contrast, had to learn basic reading skills. He had to work on his speech, and people say it is still difficult to understand him unless you know him...

Today, Daniel Miller lives with the elderly couple who have long taken care of him, in a sprawling addition to their home that was built especially for him. He continues to receive daily visits from a state social worker, whom he's known for years. Although his father left him enough money to provide for everything he needs, Daniel has kept his job, which he loves and "is very proud of," according to Rebecca, who visits him with her family on holidays and during the summers. "Danny is very much part of our family," she said, and "leads a very active, happy life, surrounded by people who love him."

Going Back to "Catch the Wind"

2008-09-16T11:42:00.002-05:00

Remember Donovan's "Catch the Wind"?

It was the first single (1965) for this Scottish folk singer and one of his best. At the very least, the song contained some of Donovan's clearest lyrics, a soft and straightforward love song to which just about anyone could identify. "Catch the Wind" was one of two cuts on Donovan's Greatest Hits album (1969) that I played over and over when living in my first apartment. I sometimes still do.

The other song was "Jennifer Juniper," a song inspired by Jennifer Boyd, then a sister-in-law of George Harrison's. But if there was really any heavy passion in the air when the song was written, it must have dissipated for not long after the recording was made, Boyd married somebody else...Mick Fleetwood. And the Juniper bit? That apparently was the name of a boutique Jennifer Boyd once managed. (Jennie's photo, by the way, accompanies the song lyric below.)

I print the lyrics of both songs below but you might want to read through them while actually listening to Donovan sing them. You can do that through these nifty You Tube clips: "Catch the Wind" and "Jennifer Juniper." So, have a cup of tea and enjoy a few 1960's reflections courtesy of Donovan Leitch.

"Catch the Wind"

In the chilly hours and minutes,
Of uncertainty, I want to be,
In the warm hold of your loving mind.

To feel you all around me,
And to take your hand, along the sand,
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.

When sundown pales the sky,
I wanna hide a while, behind your smile,
And everywhere I'd look, your eyes I'd find.

For me to love you now,
Would be the sweetest thing, 'twould make me sing,
Ah, but I may as well, try and catch the wind.

When rain has hung the leaves with tears,
I want you near, to kill my fears
To help me to leave all my blues behind.

For standin' in your heart,
Is where I want to be, and I long to be,
Ah, but I may as well, try and catch the wind.

"Jennifer Juniper"

Jennifer Juniper lives upon the hill,
Jennifer Juniper, sitting very still.
Is she sleeping ? I don't think so.
Is she breathing ? Yes, very low.
What ya' doing, Jennifer, my love ?

Jennifer Juniper, rides a dappled mare,
Jennifer Juniper, lilacs in her hair.
Is she dreaming ? Yes, I think so.
Is she pretty ? Yes, ever so.
What ya' doing, Jennifer, my love ?

I'm thinking of
what it would be like if she loved me.
You know just lately
this happy song
it came along
And I'd like to somehow try and tell you.

Jennifer Juniper, hair of golden flax.
Jennifer Juniper longs for what she lacks.
Do you like her ? Yes, I do, Sir.
Would you love her ? Yes, I would, Sir.
What ya' doing Jennifer, my love ?

Jennifer Juniper, Jennifer Juniper, Jennifer Juniper.

(This next and last verse is simply the French version of the first stanza.)

Jennifer Juniper vit sur la colline,
Jennifer Juniper assise très tranquille.
Dort-elle ? Je ne crois pas.
Respire-t-elle ? Oui, mais tout bas.
Qu'est-ce que tu fais, Jenny mon amour ?

Jennifer Juniper, Jennifer Juniper, Jennifer Juniper.

A Return Note About G.K. Chesterton

2008-09-16T11:40:00.000-05:00

Dear Gina,

I couldn't agree with you more. As a delighted reader of GKC for decades now, I recommend Chesterton more than any single author -- not because he's necessarily the best for every reader or topic (and not because I'm a co-founder of the Omaha Chesterton Society!), but because "the apostle of common sense" has more wonderful, enlightening things to say about so very many things than anybody else. And he says them with not only his famous paradoxical style but with depth, humility, and rollicking good humor.

Thus, I'll recommend Chesterton to the same fellow to whom I've just recommended Francis Schaeffer whereas, later in the day, I'm suggesting GKC to fans, respectively, of James Thurber, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kenneth Grahame or Malcolm Muggeridge. This is a most unique and magnificent thing.

No, Chesterton isn't right about everything. In particular, I find him a bit naive regarding Distributism and he's frequently unfair and even out to lunch on Puritanism. In addition, he almost assuredly drank too much and his positivity towards the French Revolution makes for a glaring inconsistency in his work.

But, I stand by Chesterton as a friend and admirer...and and one who openly acknowledges the immeasurable worth he has been to me for nearly 4 decades through his wisdom, courage, kindness, and his love of life, truth and humanity.

And, as to your final question, Gina. The latest GKC work I read was his first novel, Basil Howe, while the next up in the OCS rota is a collection of his essays and articles on life issues and ethics assembled by Ignatius Press entitled Brave New Family.

Blessings,

Denny

Being Friendly Persuaded

2008-09-16T11:02:00.003-05:00

With the expansion of Vital Signs Blog (not to mention the development of our podcast service, Exposition 101; our new Russian-language website; and my assumption of teaching duties at a small inner-city church), my contributions here at The Book Den have become few and (very) far between. Sorry.

To remedy that, I am having Claire put on my schedule at least one hour a week designated exclusively for writing posts for The Book Den. Material will not be a problem – I’ve continued reading as much as always – so I think you’ll see a dramatic change here. In fact, given the fact that Claire has promised to crack the whip to see that that weekly hour is well spent, I’m sure of it.

That hour starts right now with a brief review of one of our recent Napoleons of Notting Hill selections, Jessamyn West’s The Friendly Persuasion. I hadn’t voted for this book when our group arranged our schedule last November but I nevertheless found the book interesting and enjoyable. At least, it was enjoyable when I began to realize that what Jessamyn West had written was not actually a novel, but a collection of short stories scrunched together to seem like a novel.

The stories were actually published in different American magazines over a period of many years. Understanding this allows the reader to forgive what would otherwise seem serious defects in the work. If you think The Friendly Persuasion to be a novel, you might (as I did) deem it awkwardly episodic and inconsistent in characterization, theme and purpose. But if you take it as a collection of short stories, the expectations shift and Mrs. West’s impressive talents can sometimes really delight you. And with those talents, she opens up a delightful assortment of homey adventures as lived by Midwestern Quakers in the mid-19th Century.

Some of the stories definitely work better than others. No surprise. And I should probably admit that I never became fond of the reappearing protagonists. In fact, one of them, Eliza Cope, I found downright irritating. But the plots of some of the chapters/stories were insightful and well-crafted, especially “The Battle of Finney’s Ford,” which explores the issues of patriotism, pacifism, courage, conscience, and family ties and “The Meeting House,” a tender description of how two of West's most compelling characters contemplate the bad breaks (and sheer brevity) of life. Very moving.

There were other chapters too that I really liked: “Shivaree Before Breakfast,” “The Vase” and the comic relief of “First Day Finish” – all which make for enjoyable and soul-satisfying reading on their own.

So, again, as long as you don’t insist on The Friendly Persuasion behaving like a novel, it has plenty of highlights that will illumine a few hours of your evening. Enough that it just might have earned, if only retroactively, my book club vote.

All for One...and Alexandre Dumas for All

2008-07-11T15:53:00.004-05:00

Having stayed up half the night to finish Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers (actually, it was my fourth or fifth reading of this great novel -- not at all excessive for someone of my lengthening years), I'm compelled to recommend Dumas all over again for anyone who loves historical fiction, anyone who loves long novels of adventure and romance, and anyone who loves writing that is dramatic, imaginative and exhilarating.

Dumas' characterizations of Louis XIII's skilled young swordsmen (d'Artagnan, the proud young idealist with the deadly sword; Athos, the enigmatic intellectual with a mysterious tragedy in his past; Porthos, the affable but vain hedonist; and Aramis, the theologian who is a Musketeer for but a little while) are among the most finely-drawn and most beloved in literature. Dumas brings them not only to life but into the reader's deep and long-lasting affection.

But if his heroes inspire delight, his villains inspire a spiritual dread unmatched by anyone but Dickens. For instance, Dumas' Cardinal de Richelieu is, despite his high ecclesiastical position, a most irreligious and venomous dissembler. Both by the sleaziness of his machinations and his nearly unlimited power to bring them to success, the reader's nerves are constantly on edge. But the more forthright evil of M'Lady, though more contained than Richelieu's and content to win more intimate victories (especially for vanity and vengeance) is even more hideous and terrifying.

But, amid the sinister schemes of the Musketeer's enemies, there are plenty of moments in which the heroes triumph...and triumph with grace, courage, inventiveness, skill, high principle, camaraderie and much good humor. Way beyond pleasure reading then, though immensely pleasurable it will be, The Three Musketeers makes excellent reading for any adventurer who desires to pursue the same ideals.

The Book Den Caption Game: Volume 3

2008-05-27T14:06:00.008-05:00

"Journalism constructs momentarily arrested equilibriums and gives disorder an implied order. That is already two steps from reality." (Thomas Griffith)

"Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive." (G. K. Chesterton)

"People accuse journalism of being too personal; but to me it has always seemed far too impersonal. It is charged with tearing away the veils from private life; but it seems to me to be always dropping diaphanous but blinding veils between men and men. The Yellow Press is abused for exposing facts which are private; I wish the Yellow Press did anything so valuable. It is exactly the decisive individual touches that it never gives; and a proof of this is that after one has met a man a million times in the newspapers it is always a complete shock and reversal to meet him in real life." (G.K. Chesterton)

"‘Honest journalism’-- whatever that paradox may mean." (James Agee from Let Us Now Praise Famous Men)

"The lowest form of popular culture -- lack of information, misinformation, disinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people's lives -- has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage." (Carl Bernstein, reporter)

"But what is the difference between literature and journalism?...Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all." (Oscar Wilde from The Critic as Artist)

"I still believe that if your aim is to change the world, journalism is a more immediate short-term weapon." (Tom Stoppard, British playwright)

"In journalism it is simpler to sound off than it is to find out. It is more elegant to pontificate than it is to sweat." (Harold Evans, British journalist & publisher)

"Journalism is the ability to meet the challenge of filling space." (Rebecca West)

"Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another." (G.K. Chesterton)

"Surely the glory of journalism is its transience." (Malcolm Muggeridge)

"Editor: a person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed." (Elbert Hubbard, 1856 - 1915)

"A newspaper consists of just the same number of words, whether there be any news in it or not. (Henry Fielding, 1707 - 1754)

"Journalism never admits that nothing much is happening." (Mason Cooley)

"Once a newspaper touches a story, the facts are lost forever, even to the protagonists." (Norman Mailer)

"Publishing is a business, but journalism never was and is not essentially a business. Nor is it a profession." (Henry R Luce, publisher)

"Evidently there are plenty of people in journalism who have neither got what they liked nor quite grown to like what they get. They write pieces they do not much enjoy writing, for papers they totally despise, and the sad process ends by ruining their style and disintegrating their personality, two developments which in a writer cannot be separate, since his personality and style must progress or deteriorate together, like a married couple in a country where death is the only permissible divorce." (Claud Cockburn, British author, journalist)

"Newspapermen learn to call a murderer 'an alleged murderer' and the King of England 'the alleged King of England' to avoid libel suits." (Stephen Leacock, 1869 - 1944)

"Ideology, politics and journalism, which luxuriate in failure, are impotent in the face of hope and joy." (P.J. O’Rourke)

"I read no newspaper now but Ritchie's, and in that chiefly the advertisements, for they contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper." (Thomas Jefferson)

"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." (Thomas Jefferson)

A Review Requirement?

2008-05-27T12:06:00.003-05:00

"I never read a book before reviewing it,
it prejudices a man so."
Rev. Sydney Smith (1771-1845)

What is The Omaha Chesterton Society Reading This Year?

2008-05-27T11:48:00.004-05:00

Among the things I missed posting (in that inexcusably long hiatus from the Book Den) was the 2008 reading schedule for the Omaha Chesterton Society. I finally remedy that now.

February 11th – Chesterton on Tolstoy. (Available in the Collected Works: Volume XVIII, published by Ignatius Press.)

April 14th – The Path to Rome by Hillaire Belloc -- (We thought we’d read one by GKC’s greatest friend.)

June 16th – Basil Howe -- This is GKC’s first novel. (Available in the Collected Works: Volume XIV, published by Ignatius Press.)

August 11th – Brave New Family by G.K. Chesterton (Collected essays)

October 13th – On Lying In Bed and Other Essays by G.K. Chesterton. -- This is a collection of some terrific great essays and short prose pieces. Since the book has quite a few in there, we will only read the first 45. Don't fret; they're all short! (The book is edited by Alberto Manguel and published by Bayeux Arts.)

December – As in the past, we will try to get as many folks as we can together for a Chesterton-themed Christmas celebration.

Death at Suppertime

2008-05-23T15:19:00.005-05:00

This striking, timeless poem by Phyllis McGinley expresses a wise (if yet sardonic) understanding of just how powerfully media has encroached upon that crucial hour once reserved for family meals. And though what this media assault prevented (i.e. the calm, healthy and spiritually enriching experience of the family meal) ended up having its own disastrous consequences, the cultural damages were worsened by the content of the media itself, the introduction of graphic, leering, non-stop violence into childhood.

And this poem was published in The New Yorker in December of ....... 1948!

Death at Suppertime by Phyllis McGinley

Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupation,
That is known as the Children's Hour.

That endeth the skipping and skating,
The giggles, the tantrums, and tears,
When, the innocent voices abating,
Alert grow the innocent ears.

The little boys leap from the stairways,
Girls lay down their dolls on the dot,
For promptly at five o'er the airways
Comes violence geared to the tot.

Comes murder, comes arson, come G-men
Pursuing unspeakable spies;
Come gangsters and tough-talking he-men
With six-shooters strapped to their thighs;

Comes the corpse in the dust, comes the dictum
"Ya' better start singin', ya' rat!"
While the torturer leers at his victim,
The killer unleashes his gat.

With mayhem the twilight is reeling.
Blood spatters, the tommy guns bark.
Hands reach for the sky or the ceiling
As the dagger strikes home in the dark.

And lo! with what rapturous wonder
The little ones hark to each tale
Of gambler shot down with his plunder
Or outlaw abducting the mail.

Between the news and the tireless
Commercials, while tempers turn sour,
Comes a season of horror by wireless,
That is known as the Children's Hour.

Beyond the Stars -- Randy Alcorn Can't Wait to Get Started

2008-05-23T15:10:00.005-05:00

On Randy Alcorn's blog (Randy is the Director of Eternal Perspectives Ministries and a talented, principled and best-selling author), he jots down a wonderful "reading remembrance" from his childhood.

...I vividly remember forty years ago looking through the kids fiction section in the old Gresham library, and discovering a book I checked out numbers of times over the next years: Stadium Beyond the Stars, by Milton Lesser. It centered on a journey to the interplanetary Olympics.

Not a great book by literary standards, but a wonderful book to me to this day, not simply the book but how the book fed my longing for something greater, for adventure beyond my world. As C. S. Lewis said of George MacDonald's Phantastes, "it baptized my imagination."

It was a great joy to hunt down Stadium Beyond the Stars online a few years ago, to order and reread it and be taken back in time forty years and forward in time a few hundred years. When I see it on my shelf my heart is moved.

I think of how God had his hand on my life long before I was in high school, when I read for the first time a book that really captivated me...the Bible. That Book came alive to me when I met the Author, who soon became my best friend. Can't wait for all the adventures He has awaiting us, His children, in the new universe...

Over Sherlock's Shoulder: Detective Writers Before Conan Doyle

2008-05-22T14:24:00.004-05:00

Edgar Allan Poe is widely credited with formulating the genre of the modern detective story during the 1840s. His "tales of ratiocination" featuring the detective Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin present his detective arriving at a solution through an organized method of detection. As Poe states in The Murders of the Rue Morgue, "The analytical power should not be confounded with simple ingenuity; for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is often remarkably incapable of analysis."

Emile Gaboriau established the detective story, or roman policier in France, and like Poe, was an influence on Dr. (later Sir) Arthur Conan Doyle. His detectives, le père Tabaret, and Inspector Lecoq , were introduced in L'Affair Lerouge. Although their methods utilize deduction, some devices of melodrama are also included in Gaboriau's tales.

In his novels of the 1860s, Wilkie Collins achieved remarkable success with sensational fiction, most notably The Woman in White and The Moonstone. The Woman in White presents a mystery which makes full use of details of Victorian society and psychology. The opening scene possibly recalls Collins' first meeting with his mistress Caroline Graves.

Although little read today, Fergus Hume was one of the best-selling authors of detective fiction during the nineteenth century, and was the first to sell over one half million copies of one novel. His first novel, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, was initially turned down by the Australian publisher George Robertson, who felt that Australian authors would not sell well. The privately printed Australian first edition of 5000 copies is one of the most sought after mystery novels, with only two copies known to be in existence...

From the "Predecessors and Contemporaries" page of the Bloomington by Gaslight: Sherlock Holmes in the Lilly Library ( Indiana University) web site. (The above photograph is of the statue of Sherlock Holmes at Meiringen, Switzerland created by British sculptor John Doubleday. The photo was taken by by Juhanson with a Canon EOS 10D camera.)

Of Sabbatini, Hugo...and Keith Hernandez?

2008-05-22T11:50:00.006-05:00

Among the books read during my regrettable hiatus from The Book Den were two superb adventures that were part of the Notting Hill Napoleon schedule, Rafael Sabatini’s Bellarion The Fortunate and Victor Hugo’s Toilers of the Sea. Both were captivating, wonderfully written and inspirational. And though I should mention that you just might feel the same disappointment that I did about the very conclusion of Toilers of the Sea, I still recommend them both.

Toilers of the Sea is certainly a beautifully crafted novel and Hugo held my rapt attention through even unusually long descriptive passages. His breadth of vocabulary was remarkable. (Plenty of thanks on that score goes to the translator too, of course.) In addition, Hugo's novel was poetic, sensitive and imaginative. It is a fairly long book but I'm pretty sure you won't tire of it. The drama is intense; the philosophical considerations are profound; and the characters in the 18th Century Guernsey maritime culture Hugo portrays will stay with you – pleasantly and for a long time.

Toilers of the Sea came to our attention, by the way, through John Malek’s hearing a hearty recommendation of the book from none other than Keith Hernandez, the former National League MVP who is considered the best defensive first baseman to have ever played. Being a Yankee and Rockies fan (Hernandez was a Cardinal, Met and Pirate), I was a little skeptical at first. But "Mex" was right. Toilers of the Sea was a first-rate novel.

The other book I mentioned above, Rafael Sabbatini’s Bellarion The Fortunate, was also loved by the Napoleon’s when we read it in August. It is a stirring novel set amid the turbulence of Italy’s city-state wars of the early 15th Century.

Sabbatini has become a favorite of the ours (Claire’s and mine and now the entire the NHN company) and the reasons why are exhibited in plenty in Bellarion. The author effectively sets the stage for the most engaging of foreign adventures but he accomplishes much more than what usually goes for “escapist fiction.” Sabbatini teaches, stimulates and challenges the reader. He writes fine literature – and like the best of classic adventure writers (Dickens and Dumas are at the top of this list for me), he writes literature that’s an absolute blast to read!

So for religious and military history, for romance, for intrigue, for cultural and strategic comparisons, for a thrilling ride with a witty hero and, yes, for a whole lot of pure fun, put Rafael Sabbatini’s Bellarion The Fortunate on your list for summer reading.

Over 16 Years of Books: The Notting Hill Napoleons' Reading List to Date

2008-05-14T19:49:00.005-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I posted the Notting Hill Napoleon's reading schedule for 2008. And I promised that I would soon give you the entire list from our sixteen plus years of reading and discussing classic (and, of course, on occasion a few not-so-classic) novels.

I've taken the liberty of putting asterisks in front of the titles of Claire's and my favorites. I'm sure that the other members (currently Quint & Carol, John & Barb, Chet, Bill & Karin, Karla, and Ruth -- others over the years have included Tom & Jane, Robert, and Jo) would place their marks in different places.

In the same vein, I've put a simple dash (signifying a minus sign) in front of the ones I've considered clunkers! And if there's a question mark in front of the title, it's because I was either out of the country or for some other reason didn't read that month's book. And, quite probably, there's a few I've put question marks in front of that I did read but just don't remember at all.

1992
* 1) A Man Called Thursday by G. K. Chesterton
2) Inferno by Durante degli Alighieri (aka Dante)
3) 1984 by George Orwell
4) The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
* 5) One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
- 6) The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain)
* 7) Bleak House by Charles Dickens
- 8) The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
9) Christmas Stories by George MacDonald and The Fourth Wiseman by Henry Van Dyke

1993
1) Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- 2) Shadows in the Grass by Karen Blixen (aka Isak Dinesen)
3) The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas
4) The Power by James Mills
5) The Merchant of Venice by Edward de Vere (aka William Shakespeare)
* 6) The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K.Chesterton
7) That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis
* 8) Our Town by Thornton Wilder
* 9) First Circle by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
* 10) A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

1994
1) Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
2) Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
* 3) Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
4) One of Ours by Willa Cather
5) Love’s Labour’s Lost by Edward de Vere (aka William Shakespeare)
* 6) The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexander Dumas
7) Four Faultless Felons by G.K. Chesterton
* 8) Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
? 9) The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
? 10) Billy Budd by Herman Melville
* 11) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

1995
* 1) The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
2) Club of Queer Trades by G.K. Chesterton
? 3) The Source by James Michener
4) O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
* 5) Henry V by Edward de Vere (aka William Shakespeare)
* 6) Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
7) The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
8) Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
* 9) David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

1996
- 1) The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner
* 2) War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
* 3) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
* 4) The Children of Men by P. D. James
* 5) The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin
* 6) Taming of the Shrew by Edward de Vere (aka William Shakespeare)
* 7) Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore
* 8) The Ball and the Cross by G.K. Chesterton
- 9) Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
* 10) Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh
- 11) Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
* 12) Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

1997
* 1) Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
2) Spring Came on Forever by Bess Streeter Aldrich
? 3) Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz
4) The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond by G.K. Chesterton
5) Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
* 6) Julius Caesar by Edward de Vere (aka William Shakespeare)
7) The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper
* 8) Old Mortality by Sir Walter Scott
9) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
10) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
* 11) The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

1998
* 1) The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
2) The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
3) Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather
4) How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
5) The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
6) A Midsummer Night's Dream by Edward de Vere (aka William Shakespeare)
* 7) Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott
8) The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
* 9) The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
10) The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
* 11) Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
12) Snow by Calvin Miller

1999
1) Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
* 2) Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
3) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
* 4) Watership Down by Richard Adams
5) The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness de Orczy
* 6) Macbeth by Edward de Vere (aka William Shakespeare)
* 7) The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas
* 8) August 1914 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
* 9) Waverley by Sir Walter Scott
* 10) Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
* 11) A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt

2000
* 1) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
2) Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
3) The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
4) My Antonia by Willa Cather
5) The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
6) Romeo and Juliet by Edward de Vere (aka William Shakespeare)
* 7) Quentin Durward by Sir Walter Scott
* 8) Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
9) The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
* 10) Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
- 11) Lilith by George MacDonald

2001
1) Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy
* 2) The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
* 3) Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott
* 4) Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
- 5) Giants in the Earth by Ole Edvart Rolvaag
* 6) Hamlet by Edward de Vere (aka William Shakespeare)
7) The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
* 8) The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesterton (our first re-read)
9) All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
- 10) The Good Earth by Pearl Buck
* 11) Sir Nigel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
* 12) Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

2002
* 1) The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
* 2) The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
3) Moby Dick by Herman Melville
? 4) The Chosen by Chaim Potok
5) Officers and Gentlemen by Evelyn Waugh
6) The Tempest by Edward de Vere (aka William Shakespeare)
7) Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling
* 8) The Flying Inn by G.K. Chesterton
* 9) Animal Farm by George Orwell
10) The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson
* 11) Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens
- 12) Skipping Christmas by John Grisham

2003
1) Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
2) Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
3) Magnificent Obsession by Lloyd C. Douglas
4) The End of the Battle by Evelyn Waugh
* 5) Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
* 6) Othello by Edward de Vere (aka William Shakespeare)
7) Gods and Generals by Jeff Shaara
* 8) The Bride of Lammermoor by Sir Walter Scott
? 9) The Once and Future King by T.H. White
* 10) Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
* 11) Manalive by G.K. Chesterton

2004
1) The Human Comedy by William Saroyan
2) Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
* 3) Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
4) The Desert of Wheat by Zane Grey
5) The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
* 6) Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini
7) Tom Sawyer by Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain)
8) The Wreath (First part of Kristin Lavransdatter) by Sigrid Undset
9) Southern Mail by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
* 10) Hard Times by Charles Dickens
11) True Grit by Charles Portis

2005
1) Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian
2) Black No More by George S. Schuyler
3) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
* 4) The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
* 5) Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
* 6) Guy Mannering by Sir Walter Scott
7) Huckleberry Finn by Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain)
* 8) Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
* 9) Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot
10) Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
* 11) Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens

2006
1) The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
2) Rodney Stone by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
* 3) Pied Piper by Nevil Shute
* 4) Ben Hur by Lew Wallace
? 5) The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
* 6) The Antiquary by Sir Walter Scott
* 7) The Hounds of God by Rafael Sabatini
? 8) North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
9) The Warden by Anthony Trollope
* 10) Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather
* 11) The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
* 12) A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg

2007
* 1) The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
- 2) Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
3) Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
* 4) A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
5) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
6) The Song of Roland edited by Dorothy Sayers
* 7) Witch Wood by John Buchan
* 8) Bellarion the Fortunate by Rafael Sabatini
? 9) Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
10) Tales of the Long Bow by G.K. Chesterton
* 11) Bleak House by Charles Dickens
12) The Good Shepherd by Gunnar Gunnarsson

Rather Thin Soup

2008-05-14T18:27:00.007-05:00

I was concerned that my frustration with Ravi Zacharias’ The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives, was going to put a bit of a downer on our evening’s discussion of the book. I need not have worried. The seven others involved all had pretty much the same reaction. We found it too anecdotal, too arbitrary and generally unconvincing in its stated purpose. Once we realized we had all experienced the same kinds of disappointment, we were free to go ahead and enjoy the discussion, including those elements of the book which we did, in fact, find interesting and helpful.

For instance, among the things we liked were some of his stories. They certainly made you believe that Zacharias would be an interesting, stimulating fellow to spend an evening with. However, we agreed that even his best stories often seemed to drop down into the text without a lot of real sympathy to the context. I often found myself wondering – “Well, an interesting story, but what’s his point? How does it prove or even effectively illustrate his argument?”

Surprisingly, only one of us had ever read a Zacharias book before. And, between the 7 of us, that involves about 220 years worth of reading Christian literature. But we did know his reputation as a skilled and highly principled apologist. And, ironically, I'm sure that it was that very reputation that set us up for our disappointment with The Grand Weaver. We were looking for progressive, persuasive argument, something more akin to Norm Geisler (his frequent colleague) or to Schaeffer, Lewis, or Chesterton. Yes, there certainly were glimpses of that tradition in The Grand Weaver, but only glimpses. The lack of organization, poor or no transitions, a weaker biblical support for specific points than what we expected --- it just wasn’t a book that any one of us could recommend to others.

Again, I will reiterate that there were parts of the book that we appreciated. Several of his stories, as I mentioned, are memorable and useful. His quotes of Muggeridge and Chesterton; his comments about the intriguing John Howard; his retelling of an Arnold Fine story; his chapters on calling and worship (my favorite parts of the book, hands down) – all these we appreciated.

But we wanted more. We expected more.

One in our party that night expressed her belief that Ravi Zacharias’ reputation was so well-established by so many people we respect that we probably shouldn’t take The Grand Weaver as a typical example of his work. In fact, his solid reputation combined with some of those sparkles that did shine through in the book, were persuading her to give the guy another chance. A couple of us agreed and so we will probably tackle another of his books sometime. But The Grand Weaver? I'm afraid none of us were willing to give it anything but the most limited of endorsements.

Waugh on Huxley

2008-05-13T12:41:00.005-05:00

On December 23, 1937 Evelyn Waugh reviewed for Night and Day Aldous Huxley's Ends and Means: An Enquiry into the Nature of Ideals and into the Methods Employed for their Realization. Waugh entitled his column, "More Barren Leaves."

Ends and Means performs what most of Mr Huxley's lighter work has recently promised - a full-dress parade of his multifarious studies and of his ruminations. I do not suppose that the author himself would claim any finality for his conclusions. Like all thinking beings, he is in motion - in his particular case a painful motion, so burdened is his mind with superfluous luggage. Now and then he pauses to report progress.

There is no reason to suppose that in ten years' time he will hold any of the opinions he holds today; that is one of the great embarrassments of lonely and individual thinkers. No doubt it is convenient and clarifying for him to sum up now and then; but there is every mark of incompleteness and hesitation about Mr Huxley's present position. He has gone too far for the left-wing middlebrows, not far enough to be able to offer any more attractive goal than theirs. He eschews all the poetic-prophetic swoopings from point to point that have made the 'thinking aloud' school popular in the past.

It is a dull book.

One is often obliged to read dull books if one is to understand the world about one. Most of the great movements of history have been founded on dull books, but these have all, by their abstractions and syllogisms, led to sensational and world-shaking conclusions; Mr Huxley's exposition leads only to what Mr Huxley is thinking in 1937.

It is a thesis which arouses few emotions except impatience; he knits away, taking now an objective, now a subjective point of view. As might be expected he refers casually to an enormous number of authors who are unknown to most readers -- Kierkegaard, for instance. Now it so happens that I have a friend who has made a prolonged study of Kierkegaard, so that I have heard a good deal about him from time to time. I always thought that he was the peculiarity of my friend -- indeed I sometimes suspected he was an invention; so that when, in his last book of essays, Mr Huxley began to quote him too, I displayed the passage m corroboration, which we all thought sadly needed, of Kierkegaard's historical existence. So far from being flattered, my friend exhibited the bitterest exasperation and said that Mr Huxley's acquaintance with the master must be of the slightest and his comprehension nil.

I report this for what it is worth, showing the dangers of being a know-all.

There are very few subjects on which I can hope to dispute with anyone of Mr Huxley's voracious reading, but I must admit to impatience at all his very frequent references to the Catholic Church. On this subject he gives verdicts so silly that not only a recently instructed convert but the most lax and casual 'born Catholic' can expose him. When one finds an author at sea in subjects of which one has some acquaintance one is less inclined to accept him on those of which one is ignorant.

The disability lies deeper than imperfect knowledge. It is in Mr Huxley's machinery of thought. 'The human mind,' he says, 'has an invincible tendency to reduce the diverse to the identical. That which is given us, immediately, by our senses, s multitudinous and diverse. Our intellect, which hungers and thirsts after explanation, attempts to reduce this diversity to identity...We derive a deep satisfaction from any doctrine which reduces irrational multiplicity to rational and comprehensible unity. To this fundamental psychological fact is due the existence of science, of philosophy, of theology. If we were not always trying to reduce diversity to identity, we should find it almost impossible to think at all.'

This seems to me the reverse of the truth. What our senses, unaided, perceive is far from multitudinous and diverse. We begin life in a world of practically uniform phenomena. A stretch of country to the Londoner, a street of houses to the Australian, a crowd of men and women to the book-worm, present no points of peculiarity; the trees and crops and lie of the land, the nature of the soil, require a long apprenticeship before they reveal their individual characters; a row of buildings may be a mere horizon of masonry or, to the instructed, an intricate narration of history.

Men and women are only types - economic, physiological, what you will - until one knows them. The whole of thought and taste consists in distinguishing between similars. Mr Huxley carries his enthusiasm for reduction so far that he will claim identity between radically dissimilar things upon the strength of any common, or apparently common, feature. It is the old Golden Bough trouble at its worst.

(Source: The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh. 1983. Little, Brown and Company)

Lake Segden

2008-05-09T14:37:00.004-05:00

Here's another of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "prose poems" which he sometimes called, "tiny stories." It is called "Lake Segden" and like others I've posted (and will post), it comes from from Solzhenitsyn's Short Stories and Prose Poems published by Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1971. The Bantam paperback came out in 1972.

No one writes about this lake and it is spoken of only in whispers. As though to an enchanted castle, all roads to it are barred and over each one hangs a forbidding sign—a plain, blunt straight line.

Man or beast, faced by that sign, must turn back. Some earthly power has put that sign there; past it none may ride, none may walk, crawl, or even fly.

Guards with swords and pistols lurk beside the path in the nearby pine grove.

You may circle and circle the silent wood searching for a way through to the lake, but you will find none and there will be no one to ask, for no one goes into this wood. They have all been frightened away. Your only chance to venture through will be one afternoon in the rain along a cattle track, in the wake of the dull clink of a cowbell. And from your first glimpse of it, vast and shimmering between the tree trunks, you know before you reach its banks that you will be in thrall to this place for the rest of your life.

Segden Lake is as round as though traced out with a pair of compasses. If you were to shout from one side (but you must not shout, or you will be heard), only a fading echo would reach the other bank. It is a long way across. Woods immure the lakeside entirely, a dense forest of row upon unbroken row of trees. As you come out of the wood to the water's edge, you can see the whole of the forbidden shore: here a strip of yellow sand, there a grey stubble of reeds, there a lush swathe of grass. The water is smooth, calm, and unruffled, apart from some patches of weed by the shore, the white lake bed gleams through the translucent water.

A secret lake in a secret forest. The water looks up and the sky gazes down upon it. If there is a world beyond the forest, it is unknown, invisible; if it exists, it has no place here.

Here is somewhere to settle forever, a place where a man could live in harmony with the elements and be inspired.

But it cannot be. An evil prince, a squint-eyed villain, has claimed the lake for his own: there is his house, there is his bathing place. His evil brood goes fishing here, shoots duck from his boat. First a wisp of blue smoke above the lake, then a moment later the shot.

Away beyond the woods, the people sweat and heave, whilst all the roads leading here are closed lest they intrude. Fish and game are bred for the villain's pleasure. Here there are traces where someone lit a fire but it was put out and he was driven away.

Beloved, deserted lake.

My native land …

Wolfe on the Prowl

2008-05-09T13:58:00.005-05:00

Here's a fascinating set of five vidcasts (courtesy of Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson, Stanford University, and National Review Online) entitled "The Word According to Tom Wolfe." They are only about 6 minutes long but each one is yet riveting and thoroughly enjoyable.

Tom Wolfe, of course, is the author of numerous bestselling works of fiction and non-fiction. Among these are The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (1965), The Pump House Gang (1968), The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968), Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers (1970), The Right Stuff (1979), The Bonfire of the Vanities (1985), A Man in Full (1998), Hooking Up (2000), and I Am Charlotte Simmons (2004). He is at present working on a novel due in 2009, called Back to Blood.

In the first installment of "The Word According to Tom Wolfe," he discusses with Peter Robinson the written word in its various popular forms and describes the novel as a genre "dying a horrible death." He talks about his latest book still in progress. The second continues with Wolfe talking a bit about his own work (he suggests his novels are perhaps more journalism than literature) and about one crowd of dilettantes he definitely doesn't write for, the “charming aristocracy.”

In chapter three of "The Word According to Tom Wolfe," the writer that many think is America's greatest of the modern era, discusses the power of the word to change history and culture. He looks briefly at Darwin, Marx, Freud, and Edmund Wilson as examples. The fourth interview segment expands on evolution. Wolfe, not a card-carrying Darwinist by any stretch (see this Book Den post) argues the differences between man and animals are most dramatically highlighted by the matter of language.

And, finally, in the fifth and last chapter, Peter Robinson elicits provocative statements from Wolfe about Eisenhower, Reagan, patriotism, and George W.Bush.

Really interesting stuff.

A Semicolon Summer Reading List

2008-05-07T17:34:00.004-05:00

Sherry who blogs at Semicolon describes herself most pleasantly as a "former librarian, homeschool teacher, scary conservative, member of her own vast right-wing conspiracy, and committed till she dies and goes to heaven Christ-follower." Nothing to argue with there.

I've enjoyed her blog over the last couple of years and I am always impressed with her devotion to the benefits of reading good books. At Semicolon, she makes challenges, holds contests, reviews books, invites recommendations from others, gives extremely interesting reading lists (age-appropriate even), and more -- all to get others involved in the moral stimulation and grand adventure that comes from fine literature.

In this particular post, Sherry gives the following reading list for her 13-year old daughter's summer regimen. The girl, obviously a bright and well-read kid already, must read at least 10 from the list and memorize two poems. And with completion of the "course," the 7th-grader wins a book and a restaurant outing of her choice.

Now, kids like this one are not usually motivated by the prizes involved. (As if I would know -- academic awards being noticeably absent from my childhood.) Sure, prizes are nice. But what I think kids know (even instinctively) is how cool it is that somebody would go to all this trouble to guide, oversee, and be proud as punch over your exploits. That's a real motivation motor for you.

Anyhow, here's the reading list for "Brown Bear Daughter:"

1) Romans.
2) I Samuel.
3) Thomas Costain's The Conquering Family.
4) Shannon Hale's Book of a Thousand Days.
5) Paul Little's Know What You Believe.
6) Hilary McKay's Forever Rose.
7) Geraldine McCaughrean's The White Darkness.
8) Gemma Malley's The Declaration.
9) Catherine Marshall's Christy.
10) Don Richardson's Peace Child.
11) Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.
12) Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
13) James Sire's How to Read Slowly.
14) Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

For the annotated version, just click on over there. In fact, you'll even find Semicolon's own reviews for several of these titles. And that's not all. You'll also find reading lists for two more of her children. And as she explains in an earlier post, she makes lists for her older kids too (18, 20, and 22). And even for her husband!

But Sherry explains why she does this in a disclaimer she makes lest readers think she was some kind of book bobby: "I don’t give them summer reading lists in order to control their reading or to make them read books that they don’t want to read. They often ask me for suggestions of books to read, so I’m trying to include on their summer reading lists books that they would enjoy but that they haven’t remembered to try or I haven’t remembered to suggest."

Anyhow, get on over to Semicolon sometime soon. You'll find it a fascinating yet very homey spot.

Women Making the World Better, Not Worse

2008-05-06T12:34:00.008-05:00

A Guest Column from Claire Hartford

This past Saturday, Linda Aldrich, Ruth Denzler, Cindy Nelson, Carol Coppi, Linda Scheffler and I got together for a spirited book discussion and tea. As we enjoyed our brunch casserole, buttered scones, and Vienna tea served in a beautiful Belarusian tea set (the tea and tea set both brought home from Denny's latest trip to eastern Europe), we discussed Kate O'Beirne's spirited book, Women Who Make the World Worse: How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Schools, Families, Military, and Sports. As you might guess from the title, it was a book that at various points saddened us, infuriated us and made us laugh. And it certainly gave plenty of illustrations of the conviction we all already shared; namely, that the modern feminist movement has hurt women much more than helped them.

For instance, O'Beirne quotes many sources who were (and some still are) very sympathetic to certain goals of modern feminism but had, nevertheless, been forced by the facts to admit that the movement had produced some clearly awful conditions. This was especially profound in the feminists' destructive impact on marriage, family, and the sanctity of life. Yes, feminism has opened doors of opportunity but too often those doors have given unobstructed entry to easy divorce (with its appalling devastation to women and their children), sexual promiscuity (with the attendant crises of alienation, guilt and STDs), crimes against women, sex selection abortion, and the destruction of innocence and femininity.

Mrs. O'Beirne does an excellent job in relating the historic ideals of classic feminism (protection, voting rights, equal pay for equal work, etc.) and how dramatically those ideals differ from the goals of the "late-model feminism" that has made the "worlds" of school, family, the military, school athletics, and more...worse. She is particularly adept in showing how feminism has created anti-boy attitudes which have been forced into the culture -- with tragic effects on boys and girls. Guys just don't have much of a chance to be guys in almost any arena anymore. And that hasn't made the world better for girls. Like O'Beirne shows with example after example, it has created vast and severe new problems for both sexes.

Another point of unanimous agreement between Kate O'Beirne and the six of the ladies gathered for this book discussion/tea was that an unlimited demand for abortion is modern feminism's most devout ambition. Consequently, the movement, at its very core, has become something mean and reprehensible. It now fully deserves to be opposed by everyone of good will and good sense -- women and men. How terribly twisted that the pivot of the radical feminist movement should be the license to brutally destroy one's children!

All of us agreed enthusiastically that Kate O'Beirne's Women Who Make the World Worse was a book well worth reading. Indeed, part of our discussion dealt with how we could best encourage others to read it. We also agreed that simply criticizing the radical feminist movement was not enough; we need to follow through with our responsibilities to be women of sense, compassion, balance, justice, femininity, kindness, strength and faith. The best way to counter the ugly damages caused by modern feminism on us and our culture is provide a winsome alternative; that is, to shine forth the virtues of women as God designed.

It was a splendid way to spend a Saturday midday -- delicious tea, great food, and the stimulating fellowship of women who love God, their families, and their communities -- in short, women who make the world better!

The Shootist: A Hit and a Miss

2008-05-06T12:22:00.004-05:00

One of our favorite Western films is The Shootist, with John Wayne in his last (and one of his most compelling) movie roles. It also starred Lauren Bacall, Jimmy Stewart and Ron Howard with small but wonderful parts played by Richard Boone, Hugh O'Brian, Scatman Crothers, Harry Morgan, John Carradine, Sheree North and Rick Lenz. Therefore, we thought we might also enjoy the Glendon Swarthout novel on which the film was based.

Uh...we didn't.

Sherlock Holmes Most Oft-Observed Truth

2008-05-05T18:00:00.002-05:00

What was Sherlock Holmes' deepest conviction? Well, it could well be the philosophical observation stated by the great detective, according to Dr. Watson's records, on four different occasions:

* Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth. (The Sign of the Four)
* How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? (The Sign of the Four)
* We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. ("The Bruce-Partington Plans")
* When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. ("The Blanched Soldier")

Sir Walter Raleigh Rediscovered

2008-05-02T12:12:00.003-05:00

The following verses were found in the Bible of the gallant Sir Walter Raleigh after his beheading in the Tower of London. They have long been believed to be the last lines he ever wrote.

"Even such is Time, that takes on trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days:
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust!"

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) was, of course, a flamboyant and skilled English sailor who served his country in various adventures - some in military endeavors, some as explorer, some in court intrigues, and some as pirate. Yet Raleigh was also an accomplished writer and poet whose work was largely forgotten -- with the exception of such perceptive antiquarians as C.S. Lewis who praised Raleigh as one of the "silver poets" of his age.

Perhaps Raleigh's reputation among modern readers will be raised, however, as people take advantage of new internet "publishing" opportunities which provide formerly unavailable texts. Yes, you've got to read them from a computer screen or take the time to print them out. But, c'mon; they are free after all. And, in the case of Raleigh's History of the World, A Discourse of the Original and Fundamental Cause of Natural War and several others, there isn't any way most of would ever be able to read these intriguing texts at all.

This collection of Sir Walter Raleigh material (established through the very impressive online Luminarium Anthology of English Literature ) includes a remarkable array of Raleigh's works available from Google books. Give it a look.

Books Change Lives

2008-05-01T11:08:00.005-05:00

I have, over on Vital Signs Blog, a post about Jane Brennan, a professional counselor in Colorado, who was once a member of NOW and a volunteer for Planned Parenthood but is now an outspoken pro-life champion. In fact, she has devoted her private counseling practice to offering post-abortive women a safe place to reconcile unresolved grief and loss. Also, she is a leader in her state's Silent No More Awareness Campaign and has written a compelling book, Motherhood Interrupted, Stories of Healing and Hope after Abortion.

Well, from Jane Brennan's biography located on her web site ( a site where the visitor can read excerpts from the book, order it, and look at some other very helpful articles) come the paragraphs below describing the power of books to enlighten, challenge, and change human hearts.

...Personally helpful to me was a book by Christina Hoff Somers called Who Stole Feminism? In this book, Somers talks about how a certain group of women have betrayed society's women by pitting them against men and are promoting a dangerous agenda. The author talked about extremists positions held by certain feminists which didn't resonate with the average American woman. This is exactly what I had been feeling but couldn't find the right words to express myself.

Another eye-opener for me was Rush Limbaugh's first book The Way Things Ought to Be. Reading this book was a huge step for me because, at the time, Rush Limbaugh was the devil incarnate to groups like NOW. After reading it, though, I thought, "This guy isn't so bad. He actually makes sense on all the issues of the day, especially abortion and the unborn child's right to live", which was a position I hadn't previously considered...

Instead of 4 Books, 4 Volumes of One Book

2008-05-01T10:55:00.005-05:00

Our old friend, Ron Prenot responded to our return to the Book Den and my "What Books Would I Recommend If I Were Catholic?" post with the following e-mail:

Denny and Claire,

Hooray! You're back. I've been moping since August.

I'd recommend Summa Contra Gentiles for any non-Catholic. After all, that's for whom Aquinas wrote it.