Welcome to a special Christmas edition of the Rikoschet podcast. I'm Peter Robinson.

Born and raised in South Dakota, Joseph Bottom, or as his friends know him, Jody, spent a

decade and a half back east, first as an editor of the weekly standard, and then as editor of first things. And then Jody, spent a decade and a half back east, first as an editor of the weekly standard,

and then as editor of first things. And then Jody returned to the Black Hills of South Dakota.

He is a writer and poet, and he has a daily poem with commentary on a substack called Poems

Ancient and Modern. But we today are going to be discussing Jody's spectacularly,

heartbreakingly beautiful new book, Frankincense, Gold, and Murr, A Christmas Christomathy,

three beautiful and engrossing short stories and 12 really luminous essays. And if you think I'm

going over the top, because Jody is an old friend, that's not true. I've said many nasty

things about him behind his back. But what I'm saying now, I believe every word of this.

The book, in fact, the book is so good that all his friends hate him for having

been able to produce such prose. Jody, welcome.

Oh, thank you, Peter, for having me.

Okay, listen, why on earth would you use a highfalutin word such as Christomathy?

Let's just get this cleared up right away. Christomathy in the title.

Well, it's ancient Greek. It's an ancient Greek word for a collection. And I only know it, Peter,

the same way you should know it, because H. L. Mankin, whom every writer secretly wants to be,

used it as the name in the name of one of his

collections of selected essays, a Mankan Christomathy.

And I think he ran across it in a dictionary somewhere.

You know, he was a kind of word maven or word hoarder or something, and he ran across it somewhere and thought, well,

what the hell?

...