This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (3,070) on Friday, September 15, 2023. For the past few months, it seems, the world has divided itself into three warring camps: those who believe that AI (artificial intelligence) is the greatest thing since sliced bread; those who think AI is a moral abomination and • Read More »
Archives: books
Crimes and thrills in Icelandic fiction, more on the JFK assassination, and more of the Thinking Machine: newsletter, September 8, 2023
September 8, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, fiction, history, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (3,070) on Friday, September 8, 2023. I came across this quotation the other day: When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime • Read More »
Britain’s secret assassination squads, more on JFK, and journalists covering crazy statements: newsletter, September 1, 2023
September 1, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: baseball, books, fiction, history, journalism, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (3,070) on Friday, September 1, 2023. People should be careful about what they say, about the words that they use. That’s a bit of age-old wisdom that good parents teach to their children. Sometimes people say crazy things, and everyone who hears what they say • Read More »
The JFK assassination and the world awry, Harvey Firestone, the Georgia indictment, and more Jacques Futrelle: newsletter, August 25, 2023
August 25, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, history, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, August 25, 2023. Whatever your politics—and that’s a topic I generally try to avoid addressing directly in this newsletter—if you take the time and effort to read the indictment delivered last week against the former president by the district attorney of Fulton • Read More »
Clara Barton, the Thinking Machine detective, and Kurt Vonnegut on book banning: newsletter, August 18, 2023
August 18, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, fiction, history, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, August 18, 2023. This year, at my house, has been officially declared The Year of the Tomato. Home-grown tomatoes take a prominent place in our garden each year. They are planted carefully and with a real sense of anticipation. We have • Read More »
David Ignatius and the understandable espionage novel, Obama’s stand against book banning; newsletter, August 4, 2023
August 4, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, history, journalism, newsletter, writers.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, August 4, 2023. My recent reading has taken me into the Book of Exodus and the story of the descendants of Abraham in Egypt. This story was first written down nearly a century before the time of Christ, and in oral tradition, • Read More »
Dorothy L. Sayers, the state of the bees, and the Great Hiatus of Sherlock Holmes: newsletter, July 28, 2023
July 28, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, fiction, history, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, July 28, 2023. A question that frequently comes my way these days is, “How are the bees doing?” My typical response, unless the inquirer desires more details, is a simple, “They’re doing well.” During July and August in my region, bee • Read More »
The Dreyfus affair, more Chesterton, and plenty of reader reaction: newsletter, July 21, 2023
July 21, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, fiction, journalism, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, July 21, 2023. A couple of Saturdays ago, I made the “supreme sacrifice.” Saturday is my day to meet some of my friends for breakfast, and we get there as soon as the restaurant opens at 7 a.m. But on this • Read More »
Sarah Howe, gay rights activist Frank Kameny, and more of G.K. Chesterton: newsletter, July 7, 2023
July 7, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, fiction, history, journalism, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, July 7, 2023. If you search for “the most spoken word in the English language,” as I did recently, you will come up with a variety of interesting results. I had a particular candidate in mind, and I wanted to see if • Read More »
Helen Kirkpatrick, ethical behavior, the fountain pen, and more Father Brown: newsletter, June 30, 2023
June 30, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, fiction, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, June 30, 2023. And here I was thinking that some things would be pretty obvious to any reasonably intelligent person: One of the big news stories of the spring was that two Supreme Court justices had accepted money from an individual for • Read More »
Susan Glaspell, The Resurrection of Father Brown, and the value of exercise: newsletter, June 23, 2023
June 23, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, fiction, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, June 23, 2023. We have all heard this message many times before: Exercise, in almost any amount, is good for your body. The research is also increasingly pointing to the fact that exercise is good for your mind. Study after study shows • Read More »
Jim Bouton’s Ball Four, Ann Radcliffe and Women With Words, and the importance of writing: newsletter, June 16, 2023
June 16, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: baseball, books, newsletter, Women writers and journalists, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, June 16, 2023. The public discourse these days has created an equivalent to “climate change.” It’s “doom.” But what if climate change doesn’t mean doom. What if it’s something different, something we never seem to consider. Author and historian Rebecca Solnit has • Read More »
Nellie Bly, Women With Words, and the first Wild West adventure stories: newsletter, June 9, 2023
June 9, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, newsletter, Vietnam Voices, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, June 9, 2023. It is something that during the majority of my working life I would have disdained and dismissed with disgust. The people who practiced it, I would have said in my youthful and middle-aged arrogance, were lazy, unmotivated, and a • Read More »
A special offer on Women With Words, Chesterton on wedding vows, and the most dangerous female spy: newsletter, June 2, 2023
June 2, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, journalism, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, June 2, 2023. Some years ago, I had a colleague—a man I liked and deeply respected—who asked me to read and edit an article that he was writing. He was a good writer, and I willingly took on the task. As I • Read More »
Francis Walsingham, the Elizabethan spymaster, moving the bees in a bait hive, and more: newsletter, May 19, 2023
May 19, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: baseball, beekeeping, books, fiction, history, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, May 19, 2023. This newsletter will have something special for its readers during the month of June. First, in each weekly edition, we will present one of the chapters of my latest book, Women With Words: Female Journalists and Writers (Heads and • Read More »
Anne Perry and her secret, John Creasey and his readers, and blooms for the bees: newsletter, April 28, 2023
April 28, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, history, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, April 28, 2023. Occasionally, people say in my presence that they do not want to live until the age of this number or that. Usually, it’s 90 or 95 or 100. The often unstated assumption behind that sentiment is that they will • Read More »
John Creasey, Constitutional what-ifs, the second Black MLB player, and a package of bees: newsletter, April 21, 2023
April 21, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, fiction, history, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, April 21, 2023. Someone pointed out once that the American Constitution guarantees its citizens many legal rights such as the right to a fair trial and protection against undo government intrusion. The reason it does so, it is said, is because the • Read More »
The Golden Age of Sports Writing, the non-extinction of bees, and the Father of American illustration: newsletter, April 14, 2023
April 14, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, fiction, history, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, April 14, 2023. There is an essential fact about honeybees that has been obscured by more than a decade of reporting in the news media about them. That fact is this: Honeybees are not dying, and we are nowhere close to losing • Read More »
The ‘Mother of True Crime,’ the Grand Review, a Lenten devotional and more: newsletter, April 7, 2023
April 7, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, fiction, history, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, April 7, 2023. I am fascinated by what I sometimes call the “miracle of growth.” It is something of a cliche to say that a tiny acorn can turn into a giant oak tree, but it is also literally true. A kernel • Read More »
William Hone and the fight for press freedom, more on bees and swarms, Women With Words; newsletter, March 31, 2023
March 31, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: books, fiction, history, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, March 31, 2023. Life begins on Opening Day. The Major League Baseball season began this week. Despite all the innovations, the game remains much the same as it was played 150 years ago. A pitcher who delivers a high heater is liable • Read More »