New Kid on the Blog

Yes, having managed all of the posts for the last month i can proudly (i mean that in the proper sense of a sense of positive achievement rather than the deadly sin variety) display the survivors badge for NaBloPoMo. Not sure where in the sidebar I will put it, but it looks like this Thanks to Quilly for the very encouraging comment on my last post! I will aim to pepper my blog liberally with profound thoughts! And if I get some time over the next few days I will endeavour to tell you a little of what's gone on in my universe for the past month...

Made it! OK, so you're sick of seeing all the books in my library and I'm kind of out of ideas, so its pretty much a good thing that NaBloPoMo is over! The best is saved for last It's a bit of a cheat saying the Bible really - not so much a book as a library. Also having this as my book of the day might make me look a bit of a holier-than- thou type - but please let me assure you that I am holier than nobody! The amazing thing about the Bible, well one of the amazing things about the Bible, is that there's no end to it. By that I mean you could read it again and again and see new stuff all the time. I do believe God speaks through the Bible, sometimes as much through the stuff that is all mixed up in culture and misunderstanding (I'm pretty sure there's a fair amount of that in there) as the stuff which is clearer and more obvious. It's a lifetiime study, and the meaning only really comes out when we do the reading in partnership with God. But that...

Saving some of the best until last here is one of my favourite books of all time.. So good that even though it is out of print, as far as I can tell, I will still recommend it. Though i see Amazon have a variety of imprints available through their marketplace, and I am sure Amazon.com do as well as our .co.uk branch! The story of the quest for truth and meaning, as seen through the eyes of a supermarket trolley - Scepticism inc is a funny, thoughtful, satirical look at philosophy, institutional religion and ultimate truth. Bo Fowler takes us throught the development of 'metaphysical betting shops' with a funny and intelligent look at the nature of belief, of not believing, of wanting and not wanting to believe - most of the angles covered in the belief department there! It's fun to read and contains lots of food for thought (a sort of metaphysical shopping trolley then) - it does make you ask lots of questions but at the same time you can just lose yourself in the su...

We're on the home stretch! I have really enjoyed revisiting these books over the past four weeks, and resolved to look out a few again, including today's offering Poems on the Underground is a very simple idea, put a selection of poetry throughout the London Underground system and let people read poetry as they travel around. When I was a student in London I used to love seeing new poems and encountering old favourites as I zipped (or crawled, depending on the time of day) around the capital. The version of this shown on the left here is not the one I own, so I don't know the exact contents, but the previous editions such as the one on the right have combined modern and classic poetry in an inspired selection. In fact it was on the tube , as we call the Underground, that I encountered for the first time Walt Whitman's poem, possibly my favourite poem but then I'm still finding out more, 'What am I after all?' which was in previous editions of poems on t...

Still NaBlo posting, i have surprised myself really this month! A fun offering which I have used lots of times to tell the Christmas story in a different way! It's not one which can be reviewed at length, which is probably a good thing as I am prone to waffle. It tells the nativity story, with very bright, cheerful and funny illustrations, from the perspective of a grumpy inkeeper, with a surprise ending.. It is a delightful book, and though 'Jesus's Christmas Party' is meant to be a children's book, it will appeal to most people who read it. Not all, there are always some grumps :-)

I haven't had time to post today, so with about ten minutes to go to make the deadline here's a quick thought for a book which you might like... Though best known for his Narnia Chronicles, C.S. Lewis was also concerned to try and explain something of what it means to be a Christian and of his own experience of faith. Into the midst of his writings on faith comes Mere Christianity which is a classic of modern apologetics. By which I mean that C.S. Lewis does a good job of explaining in a relatively straightforward way what Christian faith is about. The drawback is that it is dated and it is written in a particular style and reflects particular social norms of the time, ie the late 1950s and some of the timeless truths of Christian faith seem to be obscured, or at least not as clearly stated, because they become linked with a certain time and place. Despite that, there is a certain longevity about this book, purely because Lewis writes so well!

A good day today, a couple of services, one of which had four baptisms, and after a quick visit to both of the post baptism parties I then got to enjoy a small but perfectly formed Evening prayer from the 1662 book of Common Prayer. Nice. So here I am getting ready to have some supper and thought that in order to keep up this post a day lark I would get back to basics today. Lots of people ask me about prayer, and it seems to have been a theme at a lot of meetings and in a number of encounters I have had lately. So Christian Prayer for dummies seems a good book to recommend. Of course, as most people probably know, its not really for dummies, in the sense that much of the information in the series is well researched, well written and well presented - at least the ones I've read. This is no different, it actually gives a very good broad brush picture of the variety, nature and purpose of Christian Prayer. It is easy to read, with some good cartoons in! The content is very good...

Keeping up the posting, only a week more to do for NaBloPoMo. I've just got back a couple of hours ago from 36 hours away in North Wales at the Rural Theology Association conference, it was a good time of chatting, learning, thinking and praying about issues pertinent to those in rural ministry and the ways in which the Church can and should respond to the challenges of life in the countryside at this time. So today's book, Theological but not exclusively Rural! In many ways this was a book that profoundly affected many Christians in the UK and could even been seen as part of the birth of the 'emergent' Church in the UK ( Although 'emergent' is usually used to describe a particular movement in the US Church). Dave explores and offers his own contribution to the debate about where the Church is going in the late 20th (when it was written) and early 21st Century. It's a book about the roots of the church and the confusion between Church tradition and Christ...

Another post for NaBloPoMo A deeply passionate and sometimes disturbing book De Berniers has a way of weaving the comic with the tragic which seems to hit the spot every time. Amidst the gentle life of a greek village he weaves stories of love, hate, pain, despair, joy, hope and some of the most stomach churning atrocities committed in war. This is a powerful novel, and not an easy read, I found some of the descriptions of tortures and mutilations committed in the Greek-Turkish war extremely disturbing, yet I am really pleased to have read this novel. It makes you think about what makes us human, and indeed what makes us inhuman. Read it, it is worth the effort.

Here's a light hearted offering for today. Have you ever felt frustrated that there are no words to describe everyday occurences which we all go through? For instance, who has not felt the need for a phrase to describe the feeling of sitting on a warm toilet seat? Or the emotions felt when first riding off on a new motorbike? Or the guilt felt when caught pulling hairs from one's nose and secreting them in one's pocket? Well all this and more can be found in ' The Meaning of Liff ' - a wonderful companion that uses place names from the most obscure parts of the United Kingdom, and indeed all over the world, to give us the vocabulary we really need. Often imitated, never bettered, The Meaning of Liff is wonderful! And I know this sounds like a sales pitch, but I do love this book, and think every home should have one. though some of the ruder ones might need to be kept from the children!

Very tired today after a late night coming back from London. This morning had lots to say but have lost energy to say it due to meetings and assembly at the local school, i also have a meeting tonight so I might leave what I was going to say until another day. So I thought I would go ahead and post my book for today, its another of the ones that have been hanging around in the sidebar for ages, and by the end of the month i do plan to change them all! But even though it has had a tacit plug by being in my sidebar, I think I'll say a bit more about it because it is the book that we have chosen next for our 'book club'. Brian McLaren infuriates some, and works others into an almost idolatrous frenzy. I happily fall between the two. I do like his style, and I think he is saying some valuable things to the Church and about Christian faith in general. In a society where any kind of spirituality seems valid, or at least that's the impression that is given, McLaren is act...

Book club last night went well. We talked through and around John Ortberg's 'God is closer than you think' which is a great book. I have previously recommended this as part of my post a day for November , so I am going to move on and recommend a book i should be reading TODAY because I want to use it as a basis for some thoughts tonight.... So Prayer is perhaps one of the most difficult things for many of us to get a handle on, particularly when we feel prayers aren't answered, or that we aren't quite sure what the purpose of prayer is. In fact, this is what I am meant to be talking about at Holy Joes this evening, so when I have some thoughts together perhaps I will get back to you on that. From what I have read of this book so far, it has some very good thoughts on the subject. Interestingly it relates to a lot of what Ortberg says in God Is Closer Than You Think , when he talks about when God feels absent and what our prayers do and don't or may or may n...

Today's post for NaBloPoMo - or GloBloPoMo as some are keen to call it, because it does seem pretty widespread... I realise that my usual wit and wisdom, or rather the trivia interspersed with occasional deep thoughts, have been absent as I've focused on NaBloPoMo but I hope a few of these books may strike a chord with you, gentle readers. We have a book group tonight, so I'll tell you a bit about that tomorrow. I can't remember if I've already mentioned the book so before posting tomorrow I will check! Anyway, today's book is funny, clever, and worth a look. If you've ever felt that the world has gone even more crazy for strange ways of talking and thinking over the past few years, this one is for you. Taking to bits our strange western culture in a humourous and thought provoking way, Wheen's style is clever, but not too smug, and well informed without being intellectually snobby. It might be easy at first glance to dismiss the book as the grumblin...

As it's Sunday, another bit of Theology for today's post. It also chimes with the sermon that I might post later... Richard Burridge's 'Four Gospels, One Jesus' is a great introduction to thinking about the 'agenda' behind the Canonical Gospels. By that I mean it offers and overview of each of the Gospels and the particular concerns of each Gospel writer. It's easy to think of the Christian Gospels as all one lump of the same type of writing but Burridge talks of the distinctive nature and flavour of each Gospel in easily understood, well explained ways. As theological books go, I found it very exciting, it made me look again at why the Gospel writers constructed their books in the way they did, and it reminded me how rewarding it can be to spend a little time in study to really get more perspective and more of an understanding of these amazing books in our Bible. Very highly recommended indeed

has certainly kept me thinking and writing, and revisiting a few books which I am really enjoying thinking about again, and today's is no exception The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffeneger is a great book, a wonderfully written novel with a huge scope. I love books with big imagination, and this is biiiiiiiiiiiig imagination. A man with a kind of genetic time-travelling disorder flits back and forth through time without being able to control these journeys. It could have descended into a kind of farce with him nearly meeting himself over and over, but it doesn't - there's lots of touching and thought-provoking encounters with the woman who becomes his wife, and lots of reflection on the nature of time, life and who we are. It's a very striking and powerful book, though some of the language in it will upset those of a delicate constitution, it is a great novel.

Sixteen days straight without missing a post, some kind of record, except when I had that blog madness a year or so ago and posted lots and lots and lots and lots etc Not that I'm getting a huge number of comments on this series of books - obviously not firing the popular imagination.... But, this is what I've committed myself to and I am nothing if not stupid, I mean, committed. Today's choice is a bit of heavy theology Actually 'truth is stranger than it used to be' is more philosophy than theology, I think, and if someone wants to pick me up on that definition, then the comments section is open for business anytime! But this book looks at cultural shift and the features of the societal change and 'world view' often termed 'postmodernity'. About which I did a whole load of posts starting here . I do enjoy thinking about this subject, though I realise that some disagree with the very concept of 'the postmodern', but I don't think we ca...

Still going, and haven't got to any books I want to read yet... until now, that is, so I can't review it, so any comments, thoughts on this would be welcome... I like Adrian Plass, faithful, funny and fairly thought provoking (couldn't think of any more alliterations there). So is his take on the Bible going to be worth reading? He tends to retain a fairly conservative theology whilst being willing to take a few risks with what he says, so perhaps this book will be challenging, or perhaps it will be a way of trying to explain bits of the Bible that don't fit with retaining a conservative viewpoint. I wonder...

Hey, in stark contrast to my NaMoWriMo progress, I've managed at least one post a day for my NaBloPoMo! So here's another one... Definitely a modern fave for today's choice Donald Miller, though some of what he says seems much more conservative than the central premise of the book, offers a broad and thoughtful look at the state of Christian Faith today. It's all about looking at 'spirituality' in a new way. Whilst holding on to the core values of following Jesus, with plenty of illustrations from his own spiritual journey, he seeks to question lots of the baggage that we put on faith in the name of the Church. It's a personal reflection, and doesn't claim perfection, and as such is a glimpse into the search for meaning in our present generation. It's a very easy read, with no taxing theological verbage, and at the same time is filled with the presence of Jesus walking alongside this guy in his search for meaning. It's a good book.

Another day, another book, life has left me feeling slightly grumpy and somewhat bemused at the machinations of the church, but going into detail won't help so I won't say any more. So what better than something funny as an antidote... Terry Pratchett has a great style, a seriously funny attitude and a turn of phrase that can have you aching with laughter. His mythological, mystical realm of 'discworld' is full of wit and wisdom, and reflects the absurdity of our own world whilst being totally enclosed in a world of his own. This is a world of magic, dragons, monsters and mayhem, with wizards in the 'unseen university' who have little clue of what the world is about, witches who are basically purveyors of common sense and a small group of people who do have a clue desperately trying to keep things together. The Colour of Magic is the first in the series, of which there are lots now, and the beginning of a long and very funny journey. As you can see it has b...

Today's NaBloPoMo post is a spiritual classic God of Surprises is one of those books I can't say much about, you need to read it for yourself. It's about spirituality always having the ability to surprise, and the book does too. It's not a high-fallutin' kind of spirituality, but accessible, easy to grasp (though hard to practice) and full of depth and riches. A book to come back to again and again.