It’s back to fiction with a taste of poetry, toward the end, this week. First up, is an excerpt from Andrew Klavan’s novel The Identity Man, a book Brad Thor described as “a masterwork by an author clearly at the top of his game.”

Next is an excerpt from Looking for the King, a novel featuring C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and others from Oxford’s well-known Inklings. Joseph Pearce, author of Tolkien: Man and Myth, described Downing’s novel as a “superbly gripping novel about dreams coming true… Lewis and Tolkien come alive as real-life characters, playing their sagacious parts to realistic perfection as the protagonists follow their Arthurian quest pursued by deadly enemies. For lovers of Arthurian romance and for admirers of Tolkien and Lewis, this is indeed a dream come true!”

Then it’s on to a man whose work greatly influenced Lewis, Tolkien and other Inklings. Below is Chesterton’s short story about a ‘Superman’ who bears little resemblance to the character created by Jerry Siegel.

Wright’s Writing Corner returns. I round things out with a sample of John Donne’s poetry and, of course, a bevy of links to stories, news, opinion and reviews from around the inter-webs.

Excerpts and Short Fiction:

Essays and Commentary:

  • The Idea of the Book – What is a book? It’s harder to define than you think.
  • Reading Together – On discovering group reading.
  • Slow Down – T. M. Moore looks at the ways poetry can help us pay attention to the individual moments of our too-hurried lives and see the beauty and truth we would otherwise miss.

News and Reviews:

The Writing Life

Poetry Corner:

Lovers’ Infiniteness by John Donne

If yet I have not all thy love,
Dear, I shall never have it all ;
I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move,
Nor can intreat one other tear to fall ;
And all my treasure, which should purchase thee,
Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters I have spent ;
Yet no more can be due to me,
Than at the bargain made was meant.
If then thy gift of love were partial,
That some to me, some should to others fall,
Dear, I shall never have thee all.

Or if then thou gavest me all,
All was but all, which thou hadst then ;
But if in thy heart since there be or shall
New love created be by other men,
Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears,
In sighs, in oaths, and letters, outbid me,
This new love may beget new fears,
For this love was not vow’d by thee.
And yet it was, thy gift being general ;
The ground, thy heart, is mine ; what ever shall
Grow there, dear, I should have it all.

Yet I would not have all yet.
He that hath all can have no more ;
And since my love doth every day admit
New growth, thou shouldst have new rewards in store ;
Thou canst not every day give me thy heart,
If thou canst give it, then thou never gavest it ;
Love’s riddles are, that though thy heart depart,
It stays at home, and thou with losing savest it ;
But we will have a way more liberal,
Than changing hearts, to join them ; so we shall
Be one, and one another’s all.