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Greetings all! I’m back from a 14-day road trip with my family. We covered ten states, three national parks, at least one national monument, and Canada. All in all we have been in Abilene just 10 days out of the last six weeks. In a word, it’s good to be home. Read on for all the news and links that are fit to print. News I’ve got roughly three weeks to do three things: finish and submit the tech manuscript, prepare for the fall semester, and catch up on all my backlogged reading, reviews, and essays. Once those are done, I’ll be able to breathe again. The fall is going to be busy, but with the book and some other deadlines out of the way, it shouldn’t be too bad. I’m teaching three courses, back to back to back on Tuesday/Thursday, so that’ll leave three days per week to focus on other things. As always, please do check out my books on Amazon: Letters to a Future Saint is $17.88 and The Church is $7.81. That’s two books for less than $25. What are you waiting for? Writing Two new pieces: Later this month I’ll have two reviews coming out in CT one week apart. Appearances Two pods: I’ve got one guest appearance on another podcast in the bank; my guess is that it’ll come out sometime this month or next. I also ended up making an appearance in the following stories: Blog Nothing at all! More this fall, I think, when I’m in the office with twenty minutes to kill in between meetings. For now, the micro blog is where the action’s at: lots of pictures from my travels as well as links to what I’m reading. Links Some odds and ends: Read my buddy Myles Werntz’s latest piece on church division, then go buy his new book on the topic: a great title and cover, plus a foreword by Ephraim Radner. What else could you want? I loved reading how much Alan Jacobs loves Ulysses. Matt Zoller Seitz writing about Clueless at thirty years is self-recommending. Matthew Crawford on Platonic mathematics is self-recommending. Read Justin Smith-Ruiu’s long essay for Liberties about analytic philosophers and World War II. Thanks, but no thanks. Via Leah Libresco Sargeant and Ross Douthat, I now know Galway Kinnell’s poem “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps." And now you do, too. Somehow I learned quite a bit in this brief bio, or rather obit, of the late Pope Francis by Madoc Cairns. Christopher Caldwell reviews Paul Elie. Also read Caldwell on AI and humanistic learning, one of the better minor interventions in the conversation on this topic. Read Aaron James on the Catholic Beethoven. Ah, “want” and “choice,” those simple, univocal terms. I’m glad we cleared that up. Everyone was sharing Richard Brody’s defense of the traditional review, and aside from the requisite bit of overwrought silliness about criticism being progressive rather than conservative, it’s as good as advertised. I wanted to say that Jackson Lears reviewing Richard Beck’s Homeland for the LRB is required reading, but I was disappointed by the number of straw men on display. Still recommended, but with a sigh and an asterisk. Speaking of Jackson Lears: I’m no one’s idea of a Reaganite, but Lears' take-down of Reagan inadvertently sketches a portrait of the president, not as an inflexible warmongering ideologue, but as a sensible balance of principle and pragmatism who loved his country and sincerely desired and worked for peace. All the references to the nineties and aughts and even the past twelve months seem to reveal that the target of the review’s ire isn’t Reagan so much as all that came after him, claiming his mantle.
Forthcoming Expect reviews of Alec Ryrie’s new book on “the age of Hitler” and Jonathan Linebaugh’s new book on Scripture. My review of Phil Christman’s new book on why Christians should be leftists should be in the next issue of First Things; online around mid-September, I’d guess. Later this fall and winter, expect essays and reviews in Commonweal, The Heythrop Journal, Pro Ecclesia, Modern Theology, Arc, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Hopefully also the announcement of a new book contract! Stay tuned. As ever, thanks for reading. Peace, Brad
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