12 Books Read in 2022:

1. Singapore Swing, John Malathronas, Summersdale, 2007, 318pp

I read this book as I’d been in Singapore in the past. Quite likeable, but including too many Buddhist myths: 2 stars.

2. Lion and the Unicorn – Gladstone v Disraeli, Richard Aldous, Pimlico, 2007, 368pp

I’ve been to Gladstones Library in North Wales several times, so this was an interesting book to read. It’s hard to work out who came out on top, as these men had both strengths and weaknesses. However, this is a great book and well worth reading: 5 stars.

3. A Field Guide to the British, Sarah Lyall, Quercus, 2008, 277pp

The author is American, and I’d recently read a book by her husband, Robert McCrum, ‘Every Third Thought’, about his stroke in London (very good). However, this book looks at the many differences between the UK and America. Quite interesting: 3 stars.

4. Conclave, Robert Harris, Penguin, 2017, 380pp

This is one of my favourite authors. This book is good, and I enjoyed it very much. It basically looks at ‘power’ in the Catholic Church as the Cardinals choose their next Pope. Definitely worth reading: 4 stars.

5. Prisoners of Geography, Tim Marshall, Elliott and Thompson, 2016, 304pp

An excellent author. I came to read this book quite late, but it is so good. It looks at ten regions and countries around the world, including Russia. I learnt so much from it. Do read it: 5 stars.

6. Crete (Travel), Fisher and Garvey, Rough Guides, 2022, 380pp

7. Crete (Travel), Marco Polo, 2018, 156pp

We visited Crete last year. These are the two books we took with us. Both very good: 4 stars.

8. Operation Mincemeat, Ben Macintyre, Bloomsbury, 2010, 414pp

Another good author – I love what he writes. This book looks at an Allied attempt at fooling the Germans in WW2. Good film too. It’s set in Spain, and apparently it changed the course of the war. Somewhat of an unbelievable plot, but it seemed to work: 4 stars.

9. Power of Geography, Tim Marshall, Elliott and Thompson, 2021, 380pp

More Tim Marshall, and more regions/countries of the world including ‘Space’ as well. Again, I learnt so much from reading this book. Please get one yourself, it’s very good: 5 stars.

10. Crossways, Guy Stagg, Picador, 2018, 416pp

An interesting author, and for Guy, this was a ‘secular’ pilgrimage as he’s a practising non-believer. Guy walked across Europe, through Turkey and he finished in Jerusalem, Israel. I heard him speak recently and enjoyed what he said. I like this book, and he is quite open about all that he saw en-route. A very useful book, and I hope you enjoy a good read too: 4 stars.

11. A303 – Highway to the Sun, Tom Fort, Simon and Schuster, 2019, 355pp

I live in the South-West of England now, and use this road quite frequently. It’s a much better road that the M4. This is an excellent book, and I really enjoyed reading it: 5 stars.

12. Andalucia and Gibraltar (Travel), Noble and Forsyth, Lonely Planet, 1999, 440pp

We visited Spain at the end of last year. This was a helpful book, although it was the first printing: 4 stars.

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Review – ‘Every Third Thought – on Life, Death and the Endgame’ by Robert McCrum

An exceptional book, even though it’s written by someone at the other end of the belief spectrum! I had my own medium stroke in March 2016, and this book was published in 2017.

It brings home the absolute finality of life, and of death. You cannot get around this, death will come anyway – regardless of how you feel. Death is on its way to all of us, ouch!

‘Witty, lucid and provocative, Every Third Thought is an enthralling exploration of what it means to approach the ‘endgame’, and begin to recognise, perhaps reluctantly, that we are not immortal’.

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The Title ‘Every third thought shall be my grave’, comes from The Tempest by William Shakespeare.

‘In 1995, at the age of 42, Robert McCrum suffered a dramatic and near fatal stroke. Ever since that life changing event, McCrum has lived in the shadow of death, unavoidably aware of his own mortality. And now 21 years on, he is noticing a change: his friends are joining him there. Death has become his contemporaries ‘every third thought’.

In the Introduction, Robert McCrum quotes William Goldman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – ‘Every day, you get older. Now that’s a law’.

McCrum states, ‘I felt it then, and still feel some 21 years later, a powerful need to explore the consequences, and perhaps the meaning of this very close call …. The event that I was learning to call ‘my stroke’ was an emergency that would not only transform my life, but also change my thoughts about dying and death for ever’.

In this chapter, Matter of Life and Death, McCrum quotes John Donne, Meditations 17 regarding ‘No Man is an Island’, and then describes his stroke: ‘In my head I could never go back to my old self. In darker moments I would mourn a former life. Now, each day is a reminder of human frailty’.

McCrum states later, ‘a self-assured generation, which has lived so well for so long, is having to come to terms with a complex but universal truth: make peace with death and dying, or find the inhibitions of everyday life in your final years becoming a special kind of torment’.

I know these feelings all too well. Going back to a former life is virtually impossible.

‘The endgame is a journey down a one-way street towards an inevitable destination that’s remains as mysterious and terrifying as it is well known … Empathy might be one key to unnecessary rapprochement with the terrors of imminent oblivion, just as personal candour will help to make peace with threats of extinction …. Sixty, they say is the new forty. Actually, sixty is still the old sixty’.

In chapter 2, Injury Time, McCrum describes ‘an emergent occasion’ on 27 June 2014 when he ‘tripped and fell’ in the street in London. He describes the fall, and of being taken into hospital by ambulance (again!). He talks about his life, of how he had ‘eaten paper and drunk ink’, both at the publishers, Faber and Faber and also at The Observer.

McCrum started to think about writing this book during that time: ‘Since 2014, and during 2015/16, the year in which I have completed the book, there have been sudden deaths, irruptions of pain and loss, unanticipated afflictions, and the nagging intrusion of what I now think as ‘the third thought’. My fall had dumped me, metaphorically, outside an almost tangible, and imminently dreadful, threshold …. From which there can be no turning away’.

In Forever Young, McCrum looks at the final years of his life and works them out to be ‘around 3650 days, 87,000 hours and 5.25 million minutes‘ of his life left! It’s quite scary to look at life in this way. But I have to say that when you have had a stroke that is precisely how life works. You actually need to know just how long you have got left. Will I have a stroke tomorrow, next year or a few years hence? No one knows. Quite scary.

McCrum goes on to say: ‘In truth, I am always a spectator. Now, reluctantly, I am also a couch potato’.

McCrum writes in The Skull of Man about the Brain – and how extraordinary the brain actually is: ‘it’s both banal and magical’. I never thought about my brain until I had had my stroke. Now, on most days, I often think about my thoughts and feelings, and how the brain is working to basically improve my life, even though sometimes it doesn’t feel like it! It truly is an astonishing part of the body.

McCrum then goes on to look at the Alzheimer’s disease, ‘going mad’ (in his terms) and then dementia. He picks this up in the next chapter, Silly of Me, and talks about how ‘the assault of old age on the brain can radically change the terms of the endgame: it can transform the physical encounter with ageing, death and dying into a crisis of consciousness and an attack on the Self …. The self is a fragile vessel at the best of times, and (whatever else it might be) old age is no longer seen as part of the ‘best of times’, if it ever was’.  Here McCrum speaks about Terry Pratchett and Prunella Scales, both of whom succumbed to their own dementia. All very sad.

In Losing the Plot, McCrum speaks about Dr Andrew Lees and his work on Alzheimer’s and dementia. Next, in ‘Do No Harm, McCrum talks to Henry Marsh, the ‘eminent brain surgeon’. Marsh writes, ’much of what happens in hospitals is a matter of luck, both good and bad; success and failure are often out of the doctor’s control’. Marsh goes on later to say: ‘the truth is that even now we don’t begin to understand how ‘matter’ (the brain) becomes ‘mind’ (consciousness). Quite a thought.

McCrum in Astride of a Grave writes about being ‘a patient’. He describes himself as ‘a bad patient’, and mentions that ‘a sick person is more restless, angry and difficult – ‘im-patient’ – than you would expect’. At the end of the chapter, McCrum writes, ’and here’s the rub. The real world is both achingly precious, and at the same time, indifferent to our plight’.

In chapters 10 and 11, The Will to Live and Person who was Ill, McCrum looks at two women who are dealing with this issue of dying. Fascinating stories. Then in Where are We Going (chapter 12), he looks with Max at Parkinson’s disease.

In The Good Death and Necessity of Dying, McCrum looks at ‘how to die well’ and then talks to Adam Phillips, a British physiotherapist and essayist, and a biographer of Sigmund Freud.

McCrum in Last Words talks about how many people that he has known have died during the writing of this book, and of how many are dealing with issues regarding their own deaths. It’s quite a long list!

In One Foot in the Grave, he writes about the late Clive James, and the details about James’s life. Clive was from Australia, and was a broadcaster and writer here in the UK. He was often on the television and I remember him quite well. James had an eight-year affair with someone in Australia, and was evicted from his home as a result. There were several reports of him being close to death, but he lived until November 2019. A probing chapter.

Staring at the Sun is a chapter about the Hospice movement, including Arthur Rank, culminating in the question, ‘What about assisted dying’? The final answer to this is, ‘they will have to go to Switzerland’. Quite a curious chapter!

In the Dying of the Light, McCrum talks to the novelist Salley Vickers, culminating in ‘Paschal’s Wager’; this starts from the ‘assumption that the stakes are infinite if there is even a small possibility that God does, in fact, exist’. McCrum does not believe this fact, and points to Richard Dawkins and ends with Montaigne’s advice, ‘We know not where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom’.

McCrum in the penultimate chapter, Nowness of Everything is reading the King James Bible for ‘the music of its language and the thrilling arrests of its narrative. Here is a cathedral of words whose expression of faith has no meaning for me, but whose sonorous periods make you want to weep’.

McCrum later states, ‘When I started to write Every Third Thought, I imagined that, through the putting of words on paper, I would arrive at the conclusion, as if at well-mapped destination. Vain hope: in the end, questions of life, death, and consciousness baffle and defeat the search for clarification. With no possible report from beyond the grave, and no other resolution available, we are left with this one basic option: to live in the moment while the moment lasts, and to become reconciled to the acceptance of our fate. Once upon a time, writing My Year Off provided a kind of resolution. This time, my investigation has yielded just one intransigent outcome: that there are only more questions, and an ever-deepening mystery’.

Later in the same chapter, McCrum turns to a new reading of A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. It’s fascinating to read this, by someone who clearly does not believe in God; ‘a confused non-believer’. I found these thoughts helpful as the author explains them in this book – Lewis’s book is capable of different interpretations. McCrum finds it very helpful, but it does not lead him to faith. Interesting. McCrum finishes by saying, ‘as a non-believer, I am glad to entertain the possibility of being pleasantly surprised. I have lived with the mystery of the brain, and I think I am happy to fade into a mystery beyond the magic of the cortex’.

In the final chapter, A Month in the Country, McCrum details his short list of ‘dos and don’ts’: 1. Try to keep fit, 2. Accept your fate and insignificance and 3. Live in the moment. It’s a short list, but somehow I feel that he is quite right.

McCrum celebrates the idea of ‘now-ness’, and ‘living in the moment’. To him, ‘the mystery of death and dying is only equalled by the mystery of life and living’. He ends up by saying, ‘in truth, there is no other sensible narrative available. Unless you believe in an afterlife – which I don’t – then this must be the only way forward’.

McCrum does speak about the sad end of his marriage to Sarah Lyall; ‘our love died, for no obvious reason, a painful admission’. This, I found, terribly heart-breaking.

In conclusion – last Sunday, we were eating lunch in a pub in Somerset and this quote was up on one of the walls: ‘What the caterpillar calls ‘the end of the world’, the master calls a butterfly’.

‘Every Third Thought’ is a lovely book, if somewhat bleak. I truly appreciated reading it. It helped me work through everything I have experienced, since March 2016, when I had my own stroke. Always hard to get over.

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‘Every Third Thought – on Life, Death and the Endgame’

Robert McCrum

245pp, 2017, Picador

Hardback, ISBN: 978-1-5098-1528-9

Review – ‘The Face Pressed Against a Window – The Bookseller Who Built Waterstones’.

This is a fine book, particularly if you want to know more about how ‘Waterstone’s the Bookseller’ was built. Waterstones is a great business, and despite many earlier difficulties, it continues to be very good at its business. I do trust that this will continue well into the future.

The book is well written, and the author is keen to speak quite a lot about his own background before the growth of Waterstone’s. I don’t think I’d realised before, but the Waterstone’s book chain was being established from 1982-1993, whilst I was at STL Distribution in Carlisle, Cumbria.

In my view, Sir Tim (81) is first a businessman and then a bookseller. However, his bookshops are extremely good, and have stood the test of time for a very long while. Tim sold Waterstone’s to WH Smith’s eleven years later (they had sacked him previously). Wonderful!

Happily, Sir Tim Waterstone gave me a foreword to my own book on ‘Your Christian Bookshop – A Complete Resource’ (Jay Books) in 1992. I was clearly aware of him, but I had no idea that Waterstones would become the extensive business that now covers the whole of our country.

He says in the foreword, ‘I believe that the world of Christian bookselling is ready to go through the same revolution that general bookselling has been going through in the last few years. There is nothing to fear’.

Tim’s book is in two parts. Firstly, there is the overview of his own life – from his childhood in Crowborough (he didn’t get on with his own father at all), as a colonial boarder in Warden House, onto Hawkeshurst Court and then to Tonbridge School. Onwards to St Catharine’s College in Cambridge, and then some time in India to join a Calcutta broking firm, before then embarking on his own Bookshop chain, Waterstone’s.

During this time in India, Tim married but in a few years this marriage broke up. However, Tim says really nothing in the book about this time, and actually later on, the same happens again – and again nothing is said. Between all of this, Tim had a depressive breakdown, but fortunately this did not occur ever again.

The second part of the book looks at how Tim started Waterstone’s. On returning from India, Tim joined Allied Breweries followed by WH Smith. Whilst in America, working on behalf of WH Smith’s, he was dismissed by the WHS Chairman who apparently said to him, ‘We don’t really mind what you do now, though we wouldn’t want you to go straight out and open a load of bookshops in competition with us. That we would stop!  Tim writes, ‘I was angry, but at the same time I was exhilarated’.

The idea that stood out for me was just how much time he had put into growing his own Bookshop business. It was clearly part of him. Sir Tim had been looking at this idea for a long time before starting the business in 1982.

Initially, Waterstone’s was actually a ‘rollercoaster ride’ and Tim put in a lot of his own money in those early days. He was able to obtain bank lending at a time when retail was doing very well (there was no Amazon, for example), and Tim knew exactly what he wanted from his own Book chain.

His mantra was ‘perfect stock, perfect staff, perfect control’.

I guess he sold it at time when a number of factors were coming into retail, which ultimately affected how, good or bad, these businesses would become. Following that first sale to WH Smith, Waterstones went through a 10 year period – under HMV Media – when it really struggled. Tim was part of this till 2001, and eventually he had to stand down, upset by all that was happening around him.

Ultimately, in 2011, Tim became the Chairman of the new company with James Daunt as CEO, and owned by the Russian billionaire, Alexander Mamut. Interestingly, Tim still speaks very lovingly about Waterstones as a business, and his comments – now – about the Elliott Advisors involvement in the business are very illuminating (p273).

I wish Waterstones well. They have an excellent brand, and many book lovers would generally buy from them, as opposed to Amazon. Most UK towns and cities have a Waterstones present, and I trust that this will be the case for a long while yet.

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The Face Pressed Against a Window – The Bookseller Who Built Waterstones

Sir Tim Waterstone

323pp, 2019, Atlantic Books

ISBN: 978-1-78649-634-4

Review – ‘In the Days of Rain’ by Rebecca Stott.

This is a brilliant book.

The Times reviewer described it as ‘compassionate and furious’ and ‘an intense accomplishment’. I truly enjoyed it. It helped me understand some of what happened in my own family in the Exclusive Brethren in the 1960s. No one really told me very much about it all.

I have three older brothers, and I am the youngest in our family. I’m not sure that being in the Brethren really bothered me too much. By then, we had left the ‘Exclusive’ Brethren and had gone to another church in Oxfordshire in 1963. I guess this church was still Brethren in character, but some of the wider practices had been put aside by people, including my parents, who did not agree with such terrible concepts.

However, for my eldest brother this was not really true, and for a number of reasons he walked away from Christianity. I have thought much about this throughout my life and recognise why he did this. Overall, the Exclusive Brethren was a cruel system, and if you did not agree with the way they worked, then it would be very bad for you – and my brother was in that category. I do not blame him for this at all.

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The author, Rebecca Stott, was born in 1964 – 7 years after me! She is currently Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, UK. Rebecca is also an historian and wrote this book, In the Days of Rain: A Daughter, A Father, A Cult, in 2017. The book won the 2017 Costa Book Award. She has three grown up children, Jacob, Hannah and Kezia, and lives in Norwich.

Rebecca writes well, and she is very articulate. Her family went back over four generations – over 100 years – in the Plymouth Brethren, and her grandfather was a trustee of the Stow Hill Bible and Tract Depot, near Brighton. Her father also did well, and preached in many countries, ministering for the Exclusive Brethren. Initially the Plymouth Brethren were ‘just good men walking in the Lord together, trying to find a way of living according to Paul’s gospel’. Later it all went very wrong ……

The Exclusive Brethren ‘collapsed’ in July 1970. This happened in Aberdeen, Scotland and caused ructions across the world. J.T. Taylor Junior, the Brethren ‘Man of God’, slept with a married woman in Scotland, and it was this that caused a separation of ways within the Brethren. It split the worldwide movement right down the middle.

However, there are still 45,000 Exclusive Brethren across the world, 16,000 of them in the UK. That’s a lot of people. This sect is still here, ‘they blend in’, and now is even on the Internet!

The book details how when the family left, it all came to a shuddering halt. Her father ended up going to prison due to gambling debts. When he came out he worked at the BBC for a while, but again his gambling caught up with him, and he ended his days in Norfolk completely going against any of the Christian teachings which he himself had preached years before. All in all, an appalling and sad tale.

Rebecca herself ‘came out’ from the Exclusive Brethren with her family but clearly looking back on it, understands a lot about what was being taught. She was horrified by the emphasis of the Brethren only having the ‘Brothers’ preaching and teaching! Sadly, she talks about her ‘father and grandfather as ministering brothers in the most reclusive and savage Protestant sects in British history’.

For Rebecca, her use of Brethren language is remarkably classical. She uses the very words that I can remember hearing as a child. These were very different phrases to what you would normally hear in a church, such as ‘caught up in’, outside in the world it was ‘dangerous’ and where ‘Satan lived’. The Bible was the ‘Scriptures’.

Rebecca describes the fault lines between faith and doubt, duty and love. To her, doubt and love were in short supply within this sect. Then I remembered this quote by a Captain in a Roman legion in Libya: There are in life but two things to be sought, Love and Power, and no-one has both”.

It seems to me that Rebecca’s understanding of her Brethren past remains. To her, this is an area of her life that continues through to now. I suspect that this will not ever leave her.

See also: www.brethrenarchive.org

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In the Days of Rain – A Daughter, A Father, A Cult

Rebecca Stott

394pp, 2018, 4^th Estate

ISBN: 978-0-00-820919-3

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Review: The Church in Madras (Rev Frank Penny) 1904-12

‘The Church in Madras’

A 3-volume red hardback set (I.88.1) housed in Gladstone’s Library, Hawarden, Wales.

Written by Rev Frank Penny from 1904. Final volume published in 1912.

Frontispiece: Presented by the Secretary of State for India (1905, Vol 1-2), Presented by the Secretary of State for India in Council (1912, Vol 3).

Vol 1    1640 – 1805     Inc. St Mary’s, Madras, page 81

Vol 2   1805 – 1835     Inc. St Stephen’s, Ooty, page 320

Vol 3    1835 – 1861     Inc. All Saint’s, Coonoor, page 169

It was thrilling to see on page 196, the word ‘should’ written in pencil in the margin by William Gladstone replacing ‘shall’, proving that Gladstone himself read these volumes!

The East India Company (EIC)

The EIC was neutral about Christianity and its work, but their Charter of 1698 (renewed in 1792 by William Wilberforce) required them to employ Chaplains. These, in turn, had to be approved by the Bishop of London and had to be from the Protestant Communion.

However, the EIC officially discouraged and sometimes prevented the work of missionaries and Christian mission. The Royal Danish Mission and the SPCK (mostly Germans) worked in the south of India for the ‘Great principle of the duty of promoting Christian Knowledge’. There was therefore a marked difference between the work of the EIC Chaplains and that of the SPCK missionaries.

Fifteen Churches were built within the bounds of the Madras Presidency by the Company and six or eight more were built privately.

By 1835-61, 41 Churches had been built in India.

See also – Bishop Stephen Neill, ‘The History of Christianity in India’.

Review – The Song of Songs: Exploring the Divine Romance

Charlie Cleverly is a fine devotional writer. As well as being Rector of the well-known St Aldates Church in Oxford, England, he is rapidly taking his rightful place among the best of our contemporary writers of faith. Every time Cleverly publishes a new book, I wait with some anticipation.

This latest book on Solomon’s Song of Songs is very good, but perhaps for me, not as impactful as his earlier, ‘Epiphanies of the Ordinary’, which to my mind was extra-ordinary – and a unique contribution to modern devotional writing.

However, we should be grateful to Charlie for opening up again what, to so many, is an inaccessible book in the Bible. I was brought up on the poetry of the Song of Solomon. My father loved it, but in the tradition of his day, regarded it purely as an allegory describing Christ and His church. Of course, it’s far, far more than that and Cleverly cleverly brings allegory and reality together, ensuring that the book is once again made relevant to today’s church and to wider society.

For my part, I think I’ve always regarded the biblical book as far more than allegorical. As an adolescent growing up in a rather rigid church environment, the text of the Song of Solomon was often an exciting and (yes, I’ll admit it!) earthy distraction in an otherwise dull church service! It was possible to be seen reading the Bible, but to be enjoying it at the same time, perhaps for all the wrong reasons!

I read Charlie Cleverly’s new book on holiday whilst staying at a couple’s only resort. The upside of the many attractive qualities of human love was clearly evident around us! His celebration of human sexuality together with the divine romance as laid out in Solomon’s ancient song is very beautiful, as is the biblical text itself.

Cleverly’s writing is wise, clear, deep, evocative and contemplative, much as in the Song itself. One detects shades and hints of the Puritan Divine in his writing. Here are eighteen chapters covering the eight chapters of the Song of Solomon in some considerable depth. In strict terms, this is not really a commentary, but more a devotional exploration of the Divine Romance and the ‘Kiss of God’.

If anything, the book may be overly long, perhaps relying too much on quoting swathes of text from the Church Fathers. Cleverly is at his best here in his application of the Song of Songs to the Church in today’s culture. I valued his perceptive point that ‘society is obsessed by sex and the Church obsessed by marriage’– and that both such emphases are wrong! He is clear that true marriage is a ‘passionate monogamy’ and has ‘exclusive permanence’. However, he is sensitive to singleness and celibacy, but oddly silent on the persistent matter of homosexuality in human relationships.

Cleverly’s notion of the pressing need for ‘Finding your voice’ (or helping to express yourself intimately) in life and relationships is also powerful and telling, and worth the price of the book alone. He writes movingly of the winter of loss and bereavement, and of the ‘dark night of the absence of God’.

I appreciated his profound insight that churches may be better if ‘presence-led’ rather than ‘purpose-driven’! The final chapter is a wonderfully uplifting rehearsal of the truth of the Maranatha future return of Jesus Christ.

Could his book have been shorter? Possibly, but actually I’m glad that it isn’t as there is much to go over again in the future. Overall, a more than worthwhile book for anyone involved in the intricacy of life’s often complex relationships.

THE SONG OF SONGS: EXPLORING THE DIVINE ROMANCE

CHARLIE CLEVERLY (HODDER FAITH)

ISBN 978-1-444-70204-0

Review – Latest Spirituality Titles: 10 to Watch – Summer 2015

Here is a personal selection of my top ten ‘to watch’ Christian titles from the many hundreds published in the current sales period:

BLESSING 

To ‘bless’ someone is spiritually powerful, but what does it actually signify? In this accessible paperback (part of the Faith Going Deeper series), Andrew Davison lays out a comprehensive framework covering the theology and practicalities of Blessing. Superb – I loved it – if with a rather unimaginative jacket!

DEEP CALLS TO DEEP – SPIRITUAL FORMATION IN THE HARD PLACES OF LIFE

Tony Horsfall is a past speaker at CRT, and an accomplished leader of spiritual retreats. This new book of reflections is based on the Jewish Psalms, and of particular help to anyone going through difficult times. It’s also a book for group use, with material and questions designed for this purpose.

DELIGHTED IN GOD: GEORGE MULLER

Roger Steer’s biography of Muller is a classic. Published again as part of CFP’s HistoryMakers series, this book recounts the amazing story of this Victorian Christian who built five large orphanages in Bristol, relying on the scriptural principle of faith to raise the necessary funds.  A ‘must-read’.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD: A THOUSAND YEAR JOURNEY FROM PSALM 23 TO THE NEW TESTAMENT

Magisterial – the only word to describe Kenneth Bailey’s books. Now this very welcome addition. Bailey writes in a unique way looking at scripture through Middle Eastern eyes. He’s one of those few authors who, in whatever they write, are always worth reading. Simply wonderful. I loved it.

HILDA OF WHITBY – A SPIRITUALITY FOR NOW

The North Yorkshire fishing port of Whitby rates as one of my favourite UK places. I’ve long been fascinated by the haunting ruins of its vast cliff-top Abbey. Nearly 1400 years ago, St Hilda, a Celtic nun, established the northern centre of Christianity here. This is Hilda’s inspiring story, expertly told and a pleasure to read.

JESUS WITHOUT BORDERS

I enjoyed this book although it’s terribly American.  However, that’s the point. This is a collection of travel stories as the author journeys from the USA Bible belt to a dozen different countries, looking at Church life and meeting with Christians. The chapter on his visit to England will make you smile!

POPE FRANCIS: THE AUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY

Jorge Bergoglio or Pope Francis has been in office for two years. The only authorised biography to date, this book fleshes out the man and his ministry in a series of revealing conversations. Written by two journalists, it provides a clear and comprehensive picture of this most unconventional of Popes.

THE THIRD TARGET

Written by a New York Times best-selling author, and in the style of Spooks and Homeland, this novel pushes all the buttons for a gripping read. Highly topical; ISIS, Al Qaeda, Israel, America and Syria are all in the story. There is not that much fiction on our shelves that appeals to men, but this is one such novel that can be recommended with confidence.

THE THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE MAN

2015 marks the 70^th anniversary of TTTE. Who doesn’t love these stories and who cannot recite the names of most of the engines? Yet we know a lot less about Thomas’s creator, Reverend W Awdry. Here Brian Sibley, the best-selling biographer of C.S. Lewis, unlocks Awdry; train enthusiast, storyteller, family man, eccentric, pacifist and pastor.

WHERE IS GOD AT WORK?

Has the Church given the world of work short shrift over the years? This book explores the importance, indeed the imperative, of taking your faith to work with you. The author, an ordained C of E priest, is also a tax specialist in a major corporation. He reflects on the challenges and opportunities provided to Christians by their working environment. Innovative and practical.

Metadata for these titles:	Author	ISBN
Blessing (Faith Going Deeper)	Andrew Davison	978-1-84825-642-2
Deep Calls to Deep	Tony Horsfall	978-1-84101-731-0
George Muller: Delighted in God	Roger Steer	978-1-84550-120-4
Hilda of Whitby: A Spirituality for Now	Ray Simpson	978-1-84101-728-0
Jesus without Borders	Chad Gibbs	978-0-310-32554-3
Pope Francis: The Authorised Biography	Rubin / Ambrogetti	978-1-444-75251-9
The Good Shepherd: from Psalm 23 to NT	Kenneth Bailey	978-0-281-07350-4
The Third Target	Joel C. Rosenberg	978-1-4964-0531-9
The Thomas the Tank Engine Man	Brian Sibley	978-0-7459-7027-1
Where is God at Work?	William Morris	978-0-85721-628-1

This article was written in March for publication in Together Magazine (May to June 2015).

These titles can be purchased via any good Bookshop or from clcbookshops.com

Review – Latest Spirituality Titles: 10 to Watch – Spring 2015

Whoever said that Christian books are boring? Not so . … here is a personal selection of my ‘Ten to Note’ Christian titles from the many hundreds published in the current period:

40 Days, 40 Bites: A Family Guide to Pray for the World

Simply superb! If you missed this, you’ve missed a treat. This is Operation World Lite for all the family. Colourful and informative, a really outstanding package which deserves to do well. The maps, charts and prayer points enable adults and children to learn together whilst praying for the world.

Footsteps of Jesus: Pilgrim Traveller’s Guide to the Holy Land

Despite the perceived and sometimes real dangers, people still travel to Israel. I went there last year and I’m sure I would have benefited from this new BRF guide. The truth is that, alongside a Rough Guide and the Lonely Planet, you need to take a spiritual guidebook as well. This should be the one.

In God’s Hands – Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book 2015

At the heart of Archbishop’s Tutu’s faith is an unshakeable belief in the infinite value of every individual. This, coupled with his unwavering declaration of the love of God for everyone regardless of colour or faith, makes this paperback a profound reflection for the forthcoming season of Lent.

Love so Amazing: 40 Reflections on my Favourite Hymns

I love hymns. I collect books of hymn stories. Hymns are in danger of being lost to our culture. BBC TV’s ‘Songs of Praise’ has probably done more than most churches in keeping hymns alive in the national consciousness. Presenter Pam Rhodes selects her personal choices in this small hardback.

Miracles

Sub-titled, ‘What they are, why they happen and how they can change your life’. Is this rather hefty hardback the definitive work on the subject of Miracles? You must judge for yourself, but it comes with some weighty endorsements, and attempts to navigate the middle ground between the extremes of enthusiasm and scepticism.

The New Rules for Love, Sex and Dating

I heard Andy Stanley preach at his mega-church in Atlanta last year. He is the son of the better-known Charles Stanley. Above all, Andy Stanley came across as sensible, realistic and down-to-earth, with none of the usual trappings of American superstar preachers. This book deserves to do well.

On Rock or Sand: Firm Foundations for Britain’s Future

The Archbishop of York always seems such a joyful, solid character, and a far better role model for this country than so many of our politicians. In this book, John Sentamu edits various contributions looking at the essential values required to build a just, sustainable and compassionate society for the Britain of the future.

Presence and Encounter

I met David Benner at a counselling conference in Singapore. He had the most extraordinary impact on my life, introducing me to the constancy and beauty of God’s presence. I view that moment as a clear spiritual turning point. Anything written by Dr Benner is well worth reading – very slowly!

When God Breaks In

Yes, it’s the same Michael Green – back again with a fascinating book of how Christianity is thriving and growing around the world. For me, the interest lay in his chapter of how spiritual renewal came to Singapore. Sub-titled ‘Revival can happen again’, this is truly a faith-building and timely book.

The Wisdom House

Hodder Faith do produce attractive books. This title is elegantly packaged and makes a lovely gift. I enjoyed this book of ‘life-lessons’. As a grandparent, so much of what Rob Parsons writes resonated with me. This is vintage Parsons: thought provoking, faith-full and wise. This really is a significant book.

This article was written in November 2014 for publication in Together Magazine (January to February 2015).

These titles can be purchased via any good Bookshop or from clcbookshops.com.

Bibliographic Metadata
Title	Author	Publisher	ISBN
40 Days 40 Bites: A Family Guide to Pray for the World	Trudi Parkes	Christian Focus	9781781914014
Footsteps of Jesus: Pilgrim Traveller’s Guide to the Holy Land	Perry Buck	BRF	9780857463456
In God’s Hands (ABC Lent Book 2015)	Desmond Tutu	Bloomsbury	9781472908377
Love so Amazing: 40 Reflections on my Favourite Hymns	Pam Rhodes	Lion Hudson	9780857215703
Miracles	Eric Metaxas	Hodder Faith	9781473604766
The New Rules for Love, Sex and Dating	Andy Stanley	Thomas Nelson	9780310342199
On Rock or Sand: Firm Foundations for Britain’s Future	Editor: John Sentamu	SPCK	9780281071746
Presence and Encounter	David Benner	Brazos Press	9781587433610
When God Breaks In	Michael Green	Hodder Faith	9781444787962
The Wisdom House	Rob Parsons	Hodder Faith	9781444745665

Review – Latest Spirituality Titles: 10 to Watch – Autumn 2014

Here is a personal selection of my top ten ‘to watch’ Christian titles from the many hundreds published in the current sales period:

EAGER TO LOVE

Spirituality writer, Richard Rohr’s books are always eagerly awaited. In this new hardback, Rohr, himself a Franciscan friar, looks closely at ‘the alternative way’ of St Francis of Assisi, one of the Christian church’s most popular saints. All in all, this is an attractive package with a stunning cover.

GATECRASHING

A remarkable book and a content-rich ministry title from one of the UK’s newest publishers. Gatecrashing is the account of the ‘24-7 Prayer Ministry’ as it has developed on the non-stop party island of Ibiza. This book deserves to do very well and is well worth stocking in some depth.

GROWING UP SOCIAL

OK, so how long do you spend on a screen these days? For children, the statistics relating to screen time are astonishing. Gary Chapman (of 5 Love Languages fame) and Arlene Pellicane look at ways in which families can ‘remain relational’ despite the continuing impact of technology. A timely title.

HEART OF A LIONESS

A moving testimony of a life lived with ‘sacrifice, courage and relentless love’ among the children of Uganda. Irene Gleeson or ‘Mama Irene’ describes an incredible journey of faith which led eventually to Africa and to her work for justice and child advocacy. A strong cover; this should do very well.

JOURNALLING THE BIBLE

Spiritual Journalling is becoming increasingly popular. Corin Child, a Norfolk vicar and the vice-chair of ACW, demonstrates some creative ways to help engage with this spiritual discipline. It’s practical, easy-to-use and includes 40 ‘road-tested’ writing exercises. This surely is the type of book that cries out for effective hand-selling!

KILLING LIONS

There are not many books out there that appeal to younger men. Bestselling author, John Eldredge has teamed up with son, Samuel to explore what it means to be young and male in a western culture. Here is a series of meaningful conversations between a father and son. A fascinating topic.

PLAY THROUGH THE BIBLE

Hurrah – it’s the sequel to Bake through the Bible which I just loved! Here are stories and activities for 20 weeks of games, crafts and play with young children which explore the Gospel of Luke. Described as fun and messy, obviously just right for a grandparent to buy for a grandchild, I think!

RUNNING INTO NO MAN’S LAND

The well known World War 1 poet, Woodbine Willie was not a soldier, but an Anglican chaplain who won the Military Cross for bravery. This account of his life is beautifully written, each chapter is engaging and it deserves to reach out to a very wide audience. Thought-provoking and well timed.

SURPRISED BY SCRIPTURE

Not another Tom Wright, I hear you say! Described as ‘thoughtful and provocative’, here is a collection of sermons and talks that seek to show how Bible principles can be applied to pressing contemporary issues. It’s sure to sell well, so you’ll need to extend your shelf space yet again for Professor Wright!

VANISHING GRACE – WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE GOOD NEWS?

Journalist and popular writer, Philip Yancey asks why the church tends to so often stir up negative vibes in our society. Here he poses the question, ‘How is Christianity still relevant in a post-Christian culture’? Yancey is one of the best writers of our time, with his books already regarded as classics.

Killing Lions	John & Sam Eldridge	Thomas Nelson	9781400206704
Eager to Love	Richard Rohr	Hodder Faith	9781473604018
Journalling the Bible	Corin Child	BRF	9781841017365
Surprised by Scripture	Tom Wright	SPCK	9780281069859
Running into No Man’s Land	Jonathan Brant	CWR	9781782592655
Vanishing Grace	Philip Yancey	Hodder Faith	9781444789027
Heart of a Lioness	Irene Gleeson	Authentic	9781780780474
Growing up Social	Gary Chapman	Moody Publishers	9780802411235
Gatecrashing	Brian Heasley	Muddy Pearl	9781910012093
Play through the Bible	Alice Buckley	Good Book Co.	9781909559196

This article was written in August for publication in Together Magazine (September to October 2014).

These titles can be purchased via any good Bookshop or from clcbookshops.com.

Review – 18 Bookshops by Anne Scott (Sandstone Press)

Quirky, original, wonderful writing;  a celebration of 18 bookshops in the life of the author; half of them set in Scotland with the rest in London (5), Oxford (1) Ireland (2) and New York (1). However, this is a storybook, not a travelogue. Nor is it a bookshop guide, as I thought at first.  I bought 18 Bookshops supposing it to be a book about shops. I was wrong. Instead this is an adventure story – about all that is excellent in making good literature available and of its potential for massively widening our horizons.

The book is beautifully descriptive, and at times deeply insightful about what is of value in literature and bookselling. It also pays homage to that very good office of ‘Bookseller’ in hushed tones.

This volume is a pleasure to handle; a solid hardback beautifully produced and packaged, with orange and black leaves and end-covers, and a black and orange typeface. There are no page numbers but surprisingly it’s easy to find your way around the chapters. I do hope numbers are not added to any reprint as it would so spoil this delicious little book. Here are 18 short chapters to read and savour; it’s very difficult to read this book in a hurry. It’s a book clearly forged in Scotland with a Scottish slant and a Celtic view; and all the better for it.

If you love bookshops, you’ll love this book. It captures the essence and atmosphere of a good bookshop perfectly. We need to guard such treasure before it soon becomes a thing only of its past. You’ll have to buy the book to see which shops are selected and if you know any of them? However, be aware that several of them are from as far back as the 1500’s and many are long gone. Each chapter evokes the wonder and power of literature as seen through the eyes of owners and customers of these very diverse shops. Spanning many centuries and winsomely written, it has real emotional appeal to all lovers of physical books and physical bookshops. In an age of simply clicking a mouse to purchase a book, we need to be reminded of this pleasure.

Chapter 7 contains the delightful story of Robert Louis Stevenson, then aged 5, entering James Smith’s bookshop. Stevenson in his later memoir tells of the transforming effect that this Edinburgh bookshop had on his imagination; ‘the place smelt of Bibles and it was wonderfully dark’. In Chapter 9, another Edinburgh bookshop, the Grail Bookshop is the subject. Anne Scott writes, ‘This bookshop gave me more than just books’. Bookshops do that to you. The chapter evoked strong memories for me of a rather different bookshop, owned by the Church of Scotland and also in George Street where I too spent much of my time. Both these shops are now closed; ‘defeated chiefly by rising rents in George Street’.

Scott writes of ‘a Bookman’ in Chapter 10, not ‘bookseller’. Note that subtle distinction; good book people don’t just sell books. I like that description. I think I’d like to be known as such. She writes of one volume, ‘No-one closes this book unchanged for it releases dreams’.  In Chapter 11, the doorway to an Oxford bookshop is described thus; ‘The entry loudly and harmoniously belled’.  There seems a wistfulness and a longing running throughout the book.

I enjoyed Chapter 12 with its history of bookselling in London (and of Paternoster Row in particular) interwoven into the story of Thomas Davies, a Scot, an actor, a bookseller and quite a character it would seem. Davies was a friend and contemporary of both Dr Samuel Johnson and James Boswell. Johnson’s father had been a bookseller in Lichfield. His son had ‘seen the suffering caused by failing custom, broken orders, lost money, and the fickleness of the trade’. Quite an apt narrative for the book trade! An English Heritage blue plaque is now assigned to Tom Davies bookshop near Covent Garden.

Chapter 14 comes with a good description of a good bookseller: ‘Here is an owner who reads her visitors and leases out time to those who need it, who want it in this place’. For me, Chapter 15 is THE chapter in the book. It’s called ‘Leaving’. I read it twice – it’s beautiful, haunting and sad; a love story involving the author and a bookshop overlooking Waverley Station in Edinburgh. This is very personal writing indeed, with hidden depths in its language, hinting at a monochrome past but now a life transformed by all that’s best in British literature.

Chapter 17 on Kenny’s Bookshop, Galway contains a description of the perfect bookshop, ‘to sit somewhere out of the way and look: to read and buy, and read and leave, and return’.  This shop has now moved online. Anne Scott comments, ‘I send for books, pay in silence online: but the book comes in and is real then, though from whom and by whose hand, I can never know’.

The final chapter covers an occult bookshop in London. For me, this is the poorest of the chapters and sad to end such a delightful book on such an unsatisfactory note.

18 Bookshops is as much about good literature as it is about bookshops; the subversive impact of a well-written book on the mind and the imagination down through the ages. It contains the manifesto of why I personally have been involved with books all these years.

I think I must write my own ‘18 Bookshops’ before it’s too late. It’s not quite the same to describe 18 websites! If I did, I’d have to include a far-too-short visit to Maria Brothers in Shimla, Northern India – a musty, dusty shop full of old volumes and maps left over from when the British left India, where stock crumbled in your hand as you explored but which was a treasure house of old books in which to browse. I still vividly recall this shop as I write.

That’s what all bookshops can and should do – I commend 18 Bookshops to you as a celebration.

Final note – I do find it offensive – given the subject matter – that this book is advertised by Anne Scott’s publishers as available via Amazon of all places!