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: history
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 »
Jacques Futrelle: The Problem of the Stolen Rubens
August 23, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: fiction, history.MATTHEW KALE made fifty million dollars out of axle grease, after which he began to patronize the high arts. It was simple enough: he had the money, and Europe had the old masters. His method of buying was simplicity itself. There were five thousand square yards, more or less, in the huge gallery of his marble • 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 »
Alfred Thayer Mahan and the might of seapower, James Baldwin on the role of the artist, and the clerihew: newsletter, August 11, 2023
August 11, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: baseball, fiction, history, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, August 11, 2023. The limerick has been a part of my very limited poetry knowledge for as long as I can remember, but I have just recently encountered the clerihew. That is a four-line, semi-nonsense poem that usually is biographical. That is, • 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 NYC Shakespeare riot of 1849, Alan Furst, and a bit on college admissions procedures: newsletter, July 14, 2023
July 14, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: baseball, fiction, history, journalism, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, July 14, 2023. College admissions procedures have, once again, become big news. A recent Supreme Court decision has “outlawed” some “affirmative action” procedures by those who determined who gets in and who doesn’t at certain colleges and universities. I have put some • 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 »
More on Francis Walsingham, Walt Whitman, loving your enemies, and more: newsletter, May 26, 2023
May 26, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: baseball, beekeeping, fiction, history, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, May 26, 2023. The New York Times recently reviewed a book a few years ago that I have not read but whose title I certainly agree with: Love Your Enemies. The book is by Arthur C. Brooks, who is among other things • 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 »
Paul Laurence Dunbar, bait hive success, an apology, and wonderful reader reaction: newsletter, May 12, 2023
May 12, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: baseball, beekeeping, fiction, history, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, May 12, 2023. Sometimes you have to simply accept responsibility. That happened to me last week when my website crashed and burned. The technician employed by my hosting service, the guy who took my call, was a terribly nice fellow, but it • Read More »
The Great Defender, a population explosion, and a newspaper article that turned into a famous poem:newsletter, May 5, 2023
May 5, 2023 | By Jim Stovall | No Comments | Filed in: baseball, beekeeping, fiction, history, journalism, newsletter, writers, writing.This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, May 5, 2023. During my nearly four decades as a college professor, I cannot remember a course that I taught where I did not take attendance—and emphasize to the students how important it is that they “show up.” Students would express a • 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 »