It was my birthday at the weekend. As I spend a large amount of my time commuting, I tend to read a lot. That’s why the tag “book review” is the most frequently used on this blog. The reason for a recent relative paucity over the couple of months has been because I’ve been reading much longer books. I am extremely grateful to my family who know me well and utilised the Amazon wishlist I set up and I got a lovely pile of books, along with a copious amount of chocolate.
I had a great day with most of the family, frantic kids & all. They seem to think I’m an OK uncle and I like giving cuddles and tickles and posing questions that make them think, questioning their assumptions. They, in turn, like to whisper to one another conspiratorially and try to trick me.
So on Saturday night I sat down and tried to order my reading. You may notice a tendency that my reading is roughly split between theology, science, fiction and “other,” where the latter may include history, business, philosophy or just anything that takes my fancy. I wanted to order it so I’d try and alternate the style of book I’d be reading, as well as who the book was from.
So here’s the list I’ve come up with. You can expect to see reviews of the following over the coming months:
The Return Of The Native by Thomas Hardy
Did St Paul Get Jesus Right? by David Wenham
Churchill’s Empire by Richard Toye
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
God’s Philosophers by James Hannam
The Historical Reliability Of The Gospels by Craig Blomberg
Kokoro by Natsume Soseki
Map Addict by Mike Parker
Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth Bailey
The Limits Of Science by Peter Medawar
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
The Early Church by W.H.C. Frend
Histories by Herodotus
The Double by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis
On Space And Time by various contributors including Alain Connes, John Polkinghorne & Roger Penrose
The Iliad by Homer
Jesus And The Victory Of God by N.T. Wright
The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
When I piled them up on top of one another, the pile was 16.75 inches high. I sometimes get asked how I manage to cope with 2.5-3.5 hours of commuting per day. With this lot on my bag, I’ll be looking forward to getting on an early slow train, where I can grab a seat and lose myself in each and every one of them.
Enjoy. I think the Kenneth Bailey book is fantastic (and is a key into his other work - some of which is on the web). Tom Wright is well worth a read and I have jealousy pangs about the Blomberg book. I need to get hold of that.
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