Author Archives: davetcourt

If you had asked me 3 months ago, I would have said this has been an exceptionally bare and down year for film. Thankfully some of the fall titles managed to rise to the top, even giving us some genuine success stories. Leading the way would of course be Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle AfterContinue reading “End of the Year Reflections: Top Films of 2025”

The Stats: Total Books Read: 179 Shortest Book Read: The Grand Miracle (60 Pages) Longest Book Read: The Path Between The Seas by David McCullough (698 pages) The Breakdown of How I read: The Ratings (out of 5): Looking at my stats for this year, I feel really good about physical books still  leading theContinue reading “Top Reads of 2025”

“All stories have a meanwhile- an important thing that’s happening while the rest of the story moves along.” (How To Read a Book, Monica Wood) “But the rewards of a journey aren’t always immediate and aren’t always manifest. The point is, should we count milestones or miles? And the truth is I learned a lotContinue reading “End of the Year Reflections: The Story of My Reading Journey in 2025”

What is Rosebud A number of years ago I started a New Years Resolution Plan called Rosebud. I heard about it on one of the travel podcasts that I follow. The process essentially looks like this:Step 1: List Three Roses-This is the stuff that I would consider the greatest strengths, successes or accomplishments of theContinue reading “Rosebud 2026: A Conversation About Resolutions In the New Year”

There’s an anonymous quote from Nadiyka’ Gerbish’s book A Ukrainian Christmas, a book I finished this Christmas morning as I sit waiting for the family to get up (along with 8 cups of coffee, two more books, three christmas films and this blog post) that goes, “Light never fights darkness, but overcomes it with itsContinue reading “Making Everyday as Sacred as Christmas: Learning from History, Tradition, and Ukrainian Christmas”

In the most recent episode of the Give and Take podcast, titled The Gospels as History, with Edward J. Watts (#315), host Scott Jones talks with Watts about his “Gospel maximalist” approach to the story of Jesus, (a discussion he qualifies as a holiday themed episode) Watts is coming at this as a historian who’sContinue reading “The Gospels as Words, The Gospels as Narrative: How the History of These Compositions Brings Us Closer to Jesus”

I don’t know what happened on the mountain but something deep has changed. Cause who I was is not who I’m becoming, I’m not the man who came. I found love like I never thought I would. I found love like I never thought I could. But it didn’t happen the way I was alwaysContinue reading “End of the Year Reflections: How I went From The Waters to the Brain and What it is Teaching Me About The Nature of the World”

The above confession made by Colgan’s main character (Mirren) comes in the first pages of chapter 1 of her book The Secret Christmas Library, and my immediate reaction was that I felt seen. This describes the way I live my life (and the reality of how books occupy ever space of my home, my car,Continue reading “End of the Year Reflections: Reclaiming The Power of a Story”

The first movie I ever saw on the big screen was Lady and the Tramp. What added to the allure of this family affair, which reflected a spontaneous outing with my parents, my brother, my aunt, uncle and cousins to a since closed downtown Winnipeg movie theater, is the fact that we were expressly toldContinue reading “Netflix/Warner Bros and Hamnet: Grieving the Loss of a Life Long Love Affair With the Movies and Being Reminded of Why it Matters”

I have found myself coming back to this book many times over the years, but always by way of portions or summaries or external dialgoues about her ideas and her thesis. That it felt due time to finally sit down and read it front to back was an afterthought to the stars finally aligning. ThisContinue reading “The Myths We Live By: Some Thoughts on Mary Midgley’s Timeless Treaties.”