The last couple of months have been nuts so I’ve not even had the chance to crack on with new treasure maps. Various links have been piling up so here’s a mega-bumper stash…
Sacred Treasure
- Philip Yancey tells the story of Ernest Gordon, a British officer a Japanese POW camp in Miracle on the River Kwai.
- Historian Martyn Whittock considers whether or not Christian Nationalism is a contradiction in terms.
- My friend Andrew Roycroft is on a bit of a roll in meditating on aspects of The Lord of the Rings:
- The Culturist is one of my favourite sources of fascination. Here’s just a selection:
- Why read the classics?
- What happens when a society stops reading (engaging with Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451)
- How do you defeat evil?
- The Unsung Hero of Lord of the Rings
- Are you smarter than a Coal Miner?
- I don’t generally think of myself as a tapestry kind of guy (and I don’t know many who are!). But I found these Flemish examples depicting the Passion astonishing and compelling. (HT Victoria Emily Jones)
- Victoria also linked to this astonishing musical moment: a Jewish cantor and Sufi mystic join the Argentinian folk-rock singer León Gieco in covering his 1978 song which is essentially a prayer not to be insensitive to injustice. Perhaps in these dark days such collaboration is only possible on the other side fo the world. But leaving aside any theological condundra, it is a beautiful demonstration of what is possible. An English translation of the Spanish is found here.
Topical Treasure
- If you want reliable and historically informed takes on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent conflict, one of the best is Prof Timothy Snyder. I’ve read several of his books (including the gruelling but vital Bloodlands), and his substack is excellent. Here’s one piece on Fighting Fascists in Ukraine and then one on the War of Exhaustion in Ukraine (both from September, which is actually the same time I was there).
- A lifelong friendship: A Chinese student in London and a Swiss pensioner in London
- Extraordinary WhatIf with the Duke of Portland and Franz Ferdinand… would the First World War have been averted?
Quirky Treasure
- How to understand all the elements in Classical Music titles
- Twice a year, on the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn the sun passes directly overhead. So no shadows… as in Hawaii here
- Some wonderful street art by Serbian mural painter Artez and some work by the Dutch artist Jan Is de Man
- The nature artist Andy Goldsworthy has been a favourite for years. Here is a retrospective from Edinburgh of 50 years of work.
- Photography often features on Treasure Maps. Here are some recent highlights:
- Winners of 2025 Exposure One competition for monochrome images.
- If anything, these from the 2025 Black and White awards are even more effective
- Gianluca Rubinacci is a landscape photographer who only really got going in 2020! Stunning (see below).
- Asia in all its glory from Zay Yar Lin (from Myanmar)
- Suíssas has a lot of fun juxtaposing familiar objects in famous places.
- Winners of the 2025 Mangrove Photography Awards
- A Mexican photographer hangs out on a freeway bridge capturing Monterrey workers going to work in pickups
- A photographer hangs out on the same street corner in New York for years…
