Free America, The Front Porch Republic, and America’s Decentralist Tradition
The contributors to Free America belonged to one another and to the vision of a humane society, one founded on distributed property. Just because this vision has been drowned out by the purveyors of the bigger-is-better and the latest-is-greatest doesn’t mean a decentralist vision is not worth defending and, even more so, practicing.
Culinary Plagiarist: An Interview with the “Author”
Recently FPR's Bar Jester sat down with the Culinary Plagiarist to discuss a new book by Jason Peters, The Culinary Plagiarist: (Mis)Adventures of a Lusty, Thieving, God-Fearing Gourmand.
Work and Prayer: The Brief Friendship of Thomas Merton and Wendell...
Berry wrote in one of his letters to Merton that “you are one of the few whose awareness of what I’m doing here would be of value to me.” He is acknowledging that he and Merton lead lives of similar mission, lives shaped by work and silence.
For the Hog Killing, 1979 and the Work of Photography
Perhaps the appealing vision of neighborliness that For the Hog Killing, 1979 presents, and the image of agricultural community that it provides, can challenge those of us who are encouraged by the book to channel our memory into the practice of hope.
Tanya Berry’s Faithful Art
Women like Tanya bring artistry and honor to everything they touch: the homes they inhabit, the land they steward, the children they raise. These photographs are testimony to the clear, sharp eye of a woman who is herself an artist—and who brings that artistic gaze to every endeavor she undertakes.
On Flannery O’Connor and Jack Black
Maybe O’Connor’s narrative can teach us that people—and the places they call home, the places that form them—need not be defined by their flaws.
They Stood On Their Feet
The poetry in this book captures some of those everyday moments and holds them up in a light that makes possible another kind of clarity, not that of simply worded declarations on a page, but that which concerns our own selves and souls.
Thinking about the Post-Pandemic (and, Maybe, the Post-Suburban) Neighborhood
Chuck Marohn's work, whatever disagreements one may have with it, gives us some good counsel on where to start changing suburban-addicted minds and fiscal incentives.
Imagining Divine Participation
No matter how fallen or distant from God the world around us may seem, the distance is never absolute.
Consider the Forest: A Review of Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life...
If a human timescale—privileging our experience and our hopes—is insufficient to understand the forest, then maybe we will be provoked to reconsider both the human and forestal timescale.