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#6–Elmet: Heartlands Best Reads of 2019
We’re halfway through the best reads of the year. We’ve had poetry, history, and an African adventure tale. How about a mythic journey into the Yorkshire woods? Fiona Mozley’s debut novel, Elmet, is the story of a wild man, his vulnerable son, and his ferocious daughter. It is also one of the best pure stories I… →
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#7–The War Before the War: Heartlands Best Reads of 2019
A second history book makes the list in the #7 spot of our annual countdown of Best Reads. Anthony Delbanco, The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War, focuses on a potent symbol of antebellum America, the fugitive slave, and shows how the unspooling… →
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#8–These Truths: Heartlands Best Reads of 2019
Jill LePore’s These Truths: A History of the United States came out in 2018 but I got to it this year and was glad I did. The audacity of a one-volume history covering a 500+ year arc of the American story, especially when that story has become so contested and fragmented, was a thing to behold.… →
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#9 – Out of Darkness, Shining Light: Heartlands Best Reads of 2019
As we continue the countdown of best reads of 2019, we come to Out of Darkness, Shining Light by the Zimbabwean author Petina Gappah. It’s a vivid imagining of the company that escorted the body of Dr. David Livingstone, the famed explorer and missionary, back to the coast following his death in central Africa. Gappah’s novel… →
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It’s Time for the Heartlands Best Reads of 2019! #10 – Uncommon Prayer
This is the 3rd year for the highly-anticipated Heartlands Best Reads list. If you want to check out previous years you can look here (2018) and here (2017). How does a book make the Heartlands list? Well, the main limiting factor is that Alex Joyner has to read it during the year. It’s been another… →
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In Memoriam: Bess Sheldon
On November 8, 2019 we celebrated the life of Commander Bess Bryant Sheldon, most everybody’s Aunt Bess. These were my remarks at the service: So let me start by acknowledging that you don’t get to be a pastor to your own family. People know you too well. You might get called upon to do the… →
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The Rough Beauty & Devotional Poetry of Kimberly Johnson
About halfway through Kimberly Johnson’s 2002 poetry collection, Leviathan With a Hook, you find yourself face-to-face with the themes that have since come to characterize much of her work: a moment that opens the world, a rich encounter with nature and transcendence, and a little hint of disturbing fire. It’s all right there in “Up… →
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In Memoriam: Walking Liberty for Pete Joyner
On December 14, 2019, a memorial service was held for my father, Ulysses Percy “Pete” Joyner, Jr., at Trinity United Methodist Church in Orange, Virginia. I shared this witness to his remarkable life. The last time my father remembered seeing his father was on an evening in May 1940. The family was reeling from the… →
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Love And Fire Children: Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here
I don’t know why it’s the late spring of 1995 when Nothing to See Here begins. Perhaps it’s because it’s a time blessedly free of cell phones and texting and the narrative complications they introduce. Maybe it’s because politics had a few more norms such that a main character who is a senator could imagine… →
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Deep Ellum B.C.: Anti-Semitism at the Table
The great Streetlight magazine has a new essay of mine up on their blog today. “Deep Ellum B.C.” hits all your favorite topics: Book stores, writing groups, and anti-Semitism. Enjoy. –Alex →
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