Anyone reading this blog would be easily forgiven for assuming that I gave up reading sometime in Lent, and haven't so much as opened a book since.
Perhaps it was never realistic for anyone as personally chaotic as me to even attempt to keep track of my reading during the past months...A huge selection of library books has come and gone without my recording the fact, and the process of packing and unpacking boxed led to many happy reunions with old friends that just had to be read then and there.
I guess I've not been reading so many books of the "Must blog" variety recently as the bit of my brain that wants to do serious reflection has mostly been working on the direct experience of real life in Hill and Valley - but there have been some Really (and Fairly) Good Reads, both serious and less so, - and even though I read at an alarming speed I must surely be able to remember some of them...
Not necessarily highlights (though the fact that I can't remember any of the books I whizzed cheerfully through while on Polyphony during half term may just be significant) I'll see what I can do (in no particular order, and quite without links or reviews) from the most recent consumption...
Susan Hill: The Various Haunts of Men
The Pure in Heart
The Risk of Darkness
Ann Lamott: Travelling Mercies
Plan B
Donald Simpson: Blue like Jazz
Catherine Ryan Hyde: Pay it Forward
Susan Hope:Mission Shaped Spirituality
William Dalrymple: City of Djinns
: White Moghuls
David Jones: In Parenthesis
Rob Bell: Velvet Elvis
: Sex God
Tonight I'm heading off to bed to read Rebecca Tope: Death in the Cotswolds - which looks like unutterable tripe, but distinctly entertaining. Tomorrow being Friday ALL DAY I think I'm allowed it. The other book on my bedside table (Yvonne Warren's The Cracked Pot - the state of today's Anglican Parish Clergy) is not just work, but depressing work at that, so I'm definitely delaying that till after the weekend.
Tired now, and I've an early start to collect Hattie Gandhi from Bristol airport (lucky child has spent the last week in Crete with a uni friend) so I'll call it a day ...but there's another booky post on its way, inspired, of all things, by the highbrow sounding "Dean's Theology Group" - which is a much friendlier beast than its title might suggest.
More of that later.
That's lots of books! I salute you.fs
ReplyDeleteamen!
ReplyDeleteI love Anne Lammott and enjoyed Blue Like Jazz a lot. One of my student chaplains talks about it often - it made a real impact on her.
I've read a bunch of murder mysteries/trashy novels lately but one really good book I read was A Brief History of Anxiety (yours and mine) by Patricia Pearson (granddaughter of Lester B. Pearson for those of you who follow Cdn prime ministers).
Today I picked up Jesus Brand Spirituality: He Wants His Religion Back by Ken Wilson. Looks like it could be a good read.
Ooh, I read City of Djinns while in Delhi one time and loved it - there's something about reading about someone else's experience of a city whilst you're there. Not to mention he's so much more interesting on the history than a guide book.
ReplyDeleteAlso an Anne Lammott fan.