Book Reviews

The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society
Date reviewed: 30th Aug 2005
Author: Henri J.M. Nouwen
“In our woundedness, we can become a source of lif....click here for more. The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society
Date reviewed: 30th Aug 2005
Author: Henri J.M. Nouwen
Reviewer: Jess Boulton
“In our woundedness, we can become a source of life for others”

Although I studied theology, I am not used to ‘Christian or Church literature’. It is a surprising and different genre to most of us new to Church life. I must admit that I have only just ventured into this world. My first attempts were unsuccessful, but this book was recommended to me by someone who knows me well and so The Wounded Healer was more of a hit. I expect, therefore that you will know more about Henri Nouwen than I do. I am recommending it for other fledglings grappling with this genre because it is more likely to speak your language.

This is a book which though written more than a decade ago and therefore with less politically correct terms, still speaks to those of us who have grown up in a ‘counselling’ culture. It feeds into the ‘Generation X’ mentality which needs to understand faith through context and sense of self. For many this is likely to be a weakness, self-serving perhaps and dwelling within a ‘touchy-feely’ kind of language. For me though this is the beauty of Nouwen’s style since it connects to my own world and speaks of Christ in terms which I can understand. He avoids hypothetical ‘case histories’ or analogies and metaphors. This is not to suggest that he speaks from outside of any tangible situation, but he uses a less clumsy style so commonly shared among the limited amount of Christian literature I have encountered thus far.

Henri Nouwen speaks of a form of Christian life which operates from the understanding that we are all in it together. His perspective is not that this unifies our belief systems but that we all share the human condition. It is this to which he believes Christ speaks; it is this which we share. Having worked as I have and David has and possibly many others among you with people with Learning Disabilities he sees that this offers him humility. He found Christ among these people because their ‘ultimate concern’ to borrow from theological speak, was the receipt of love in all its manifestations. He asks us to consider our religious life from this view of God, our human capacity to need love.

Next up…something secular I expect

Jess x
Waking the Dead
Date reviewed: 28th Aug 2005
Author: John Eldridge
Have we domesticated Christianity? Could it be tha....click here for more. Waking the Dead
Date reviewed: 28th Aug 2005
Author: John Eldridge
Reviewer: The Revd Jayne Crooks
Have we domesticated Christianity? Could it be that without even realising it we have changed a faith that revolutionised the world to a religion that satisfies the minimal needs of its adherents for something to do on a Sunday?

In other words I found this a very challenging book! It looks at the things that really stir us, usually via our hearts. It asks us to re-look at the faith we share in God as Christians in the light of that heart need to be stirred, challenged and revived.

John Eldridge is a writer, speaker and counsellor of international acclaim. I have read three of his books and found them provoking, stimulating and of real interest. I commend his writing to you.
Mission Shaped Church
Date reviewed: 14th Aug 2005
Author: Church of England: Foreword by Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
This report is one of a very rare breed, a Church ....click here for more. Mission Shaped Church
Date reviewed: 14th Aug 2005
Author: Church of England: Foreword by Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
Reviewer: The Revd David Gould
This report is one of a very rare breed, a Church of England report that is being widely read!

Commissioned in the face of an apparently inexorable decline in participation in the life of The Church of England, with prophets of doom on every side, this report invites us to face and challenge the opportunities with which Christ presents us, namely the changing culture of the UK and the context in which we are called live.

It is that special hybrid that combines the wise insights drawn from real life parish experience with an attempt to do some coherent theological reflection. In outcome it is not afraid to make some radical reflections for all levels and expressions of church in England without denying or undermining that which makes the Church of England what it is.

It contains many questions for us to think about as it invites us to grapple with what we face in parish life rather than reach for the pending tray and hope they will go away when we look next...
Being a Priest Today: Exploring Priestly Identity
Date reviewed: 7th Aug 2005
Author: Christopher Cocksworth and Rosalind Brown
It is not too often that I read a book and I am so....click here for more. Being a Priest Today: Exploring Priestly Identity
Date reviewed: 7th Aug 2005
Author: Christopher Cocksworth and Rosalind Brown
Reviewer: The Revd David Gould
It is not too often that I read a book and I am so completely taken with it that I want others to read it so much, that I buy multiple copies of it! In fact I don't think I have ever done that before!

My sincere thanks go to my wife Gill who bought me a copy as part of a collection of gifts to mark my licensing here in Kings Norton. It looks at The Root of Priestly Life, The Shape of Priestly Life and the Fruit of Priestly Life. In so doing it demonstrates the profound importance of congregation and priest to each other as we together explore what it is to be caught up in worship and service to God. It is a delightful, amusing, painful book that I found myself reading like a novel at only two sittings, so compulsive are its threads that draw you on through its pages.

I commend it for all who are considering priestly ministry, for all who are served by priests and for all of us as we seek to pray and serve each other more intelligently. In this way may we grow ever more completely into the fullness that God has for us in community together.

As a staff team we will be reading it: do pray for us and consider reading it yourself!
Being Reconciled: Ontology and Pardon
Date reviewed: 1st Jun 2005
Author: John Millbank
Health Warning! If you have a towel and are prepar....click here for more. Being Reconciled: Ontology and Pardon
Date reviewed: 1st Jun 2005
Author: John Millbank
Reviewer: The Revd David Gould
Health Warning! If you have a towel and are prepared to soak it in cold water and wrap it round your head then that will be of help when tackling this volume! One journal describes the school of thinking that has produced this book as the most heavy weight theological movement twentieth century Christianity in England has produced!

The author takes us through some of the key doctrines of our faith covering evil, forgiveness, atonement and grace among others re-interpreting them through the understanding he develops of the word “gift”

Not for the faint-hearted this one and I am still struggling with it so would say, keep wetting the towel and plough on!
The Sacred Romance-Drawing Closer to the Heart of God
Date reviewed: 1st Jun 2005
Author: Brent Curtis and John Eldridge
This is a book that took me by surprise. Many of u....click here for more. The Sacred Romance-Drawing Closer to the Heart of God
Date reviewed: 1st Jun 2005
Author: Brent Curtis and John Eldridge
Reviewer: The Revd David Gould
This is a book that took me by surprise. Many of us know people who speak with a candour and frankness about things which we might choose to be more delicate or shy about. These two authors are almost painfully straightforward in their exploration of what it means to re-connect as they see it with our hearts. They argue that life numbs and boxes our hearts so that we no longer listen to them. They describe God as “The Ageless Romancer”, seeking us the object of his love. In so doing they took me through hurts and joys and reminded me of how easily the pursuit of efficiency and productivity and success in our personal or public life can cause us to lose touch with our hearts.

Thoroughly commended.
Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Detox Your Desk: Declutter Your Mind by Theo Theobold and Cary Cooper
Mag Issue: February 2008
We have already failed to keep our New Year’s reso....click here for more. Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Detox Your Desk: Declutter Your Mind by Theo Theobold and Cary Cooper
Mag Issue: February 2008
Reviewer: Rev'd David Gould
We have already failed to keep our New Year’s resolution (s) and are heading into the mood that nothing changes anyway so what’s the point in trying. Then one of the vicar’s has the temerity to suggest a self help book and a book of sermons as the review subjects for this months book review, can there not just be a let up, can I not just grow old gracefully, do I have to keep believing that there is something better round the corner if only I opened my eyes and made a little effort?

The big difference is that I am not simply reviewing books, I am trying only to review those books which I have read and have made a difference. In the first case I have been stirred by the oratory even on the written page, reminded again of what strong preaching is like when added to intelligent design, powerful delivery, perhaps we in Kings Norton would do well to stray into such material and be shaken a little, perhaps even stirred? As the author of this collection of sermons recognises powerful sermons do not always convey as well in written form, but these do. Those of us who preach would do well to remember that the written sermon does not always work when simply spoken out but that is another story! Coming from another era, another continent, and another tradition than our own this book reminds me at least that we can say how different it is today, in our place of work or living but actually, sadly, much that is the same the globe over is here and there, now and then the same. Do read and be provoked.

The second volume is very different. My study is now two bin bags lighter after reading the first few chapters alone and the process continued as I got into the book. It is disturbing, straight talking and written by and academic and a PR media person which must be about the most unlikely combination of authors as could be chosen. But it works, at least for me, and since I was given it for me that is good enough for me!

However, on the basis that I cannot be the only person in the world who if there desks were de-toxed could function more effectively, have more time for the creative rather than just hunting yet again for something that has gone astray then do consider this little volume! As I said I only review that which has changed me...

Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Published by Fortress Press
Price £9.99
ISBN 0 8006 1441 0

Detox Your Desk: Declutter Your Mind
by Theo Theobold and Cary Cooper
Published by Capstone
Price £9.99
ISBN 978 1 84 112787 3
Christian Wisdom: Desiring God and Learning in Love - Author: David F. Ford
Mag Issue: November 2007
I told myself I had to read this by the deadline d....click here for more. Christian Wisdom: Desiring God and Learning in Love - Author: David F. Ford
Mag Issue: November 2007
Reviewer: Rev'd David Gould
I told myself I had to read this by the deadline date for the November magazine and I have failed, I have only managed the first eighty nine pages so doubly short! Why then do I want to commend this to you? Because I have found it hard but riveting, opening of many new understandings and really gripping as the novels always have on them in the summer! So why would anybody want to read this who is not a theologian or studying theology? Because it brings alive in such a fresh way the whole way that scripture, the Bible, is approached. In particular Luke’s gospel, which has been the subject of our 10.30am services for many weeks now.

The first section of the book deals with an exploration of what we understand as being Christian Wisdom, with the unwrapping of so many places where wisdom cries from the pages of the scripture providing for us a means of accessing the text that moves it from being the pages of a manual, dry, unrelenting and to be avoided to a narrative that is part of our experience, that merges with our experience and has us caught up in the bigger narrative that is God in and through all.

The principles that are explored are timeless and could be applied to our reading of the bible in a detailed searching of texts or a more straight forward reading. I am amazed at the skill of the author as he makes such difficult concepts come to life and then take us as readers almost by the hand into things one would not have dreamt of trying to understand. Perhaps that is one of the qualities you need to be Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge…..

Only eighty nine pages but they have been rich reading and I will try and finish with an update for the next issue. Beware though if you try and get a copy, it’s not on some lists yet but Waterstones and Blackwells in Oxford have it on-line! If you only buy it and read chapter two it will have been worth the £15.99!

Revd David Gould

Author: David F. Ford
Published by: Cambridge University Press £15.99
ISBN978 0 521 69838 2
How Many Lightbulbs Does It Take To Change a Christian?
Mag Issue: June 2007
How many times have you bought a book that tells y....click here for more. How Many Lightbulbs Does It Take To Change a Christian?
Mag Issue: June 2007
Reviewer: Rev'd David Gould
How many times have you bought a book that tells you all the problems and then you have to go out and buy another book to find out how to address them? How often do sermons do the same?

Here is a little book that in sixty-five pages shows us the problems we face on all the major environmental issues of our day. It does so clearly and succinctly. It then addresses those issues with straightforward options that we can all understand and make use of in our own homes churches and lifestyle choices.

For example, issues around personal transport, energy-saving and community well being combine analysis, with a clear spiritual agenda and take us beyond the go by bus comments to ask deep and challenging questions. It’s more than saving money with insulation; it’s more than using the car less. Rather it’s about seeing our lives, God’s world, as it could and should be.

I have personally read a lot on these issues and like you have probably tried to make some changes. Here is book that takes us much further in a brilliantly packaged little volume. It even has the cheek to suggest we should change the light bulbs in our churches! As the corny old joke goes, change, in the Church of England, never!
Well perhaps after reading this we will see it is not only long overdue but eminently possible!

PS Perhaps every PCC should buy some copies to get the conversations going - now that really would be a change for the good!

Revd David Gould

Title: How Many Lightbulbs Does It Take To Change a Christian?
Authors: Claire Foster & David Shreeve
Published by: Church House Publishing
ISBN: 978 071514127 4 RRP: £4.99
Christianity with Attitude by Giles Fraser
Mag Issue: May 2007
Some thought last months book a little pricey. Som....click here for more. Christianity with Attitude by Giles Fraser
Mag Issue: May 2007
Reviewer: Rev'd David Gould
Some thought last months book a little pricey. Some think some of these books that I review are a little tough! I plead guilty on both counts. The first because it is a special edition and the second because I find I need to struggle with material in the same way as somebody in the gym needs to be challenged with bigger weights or faster times!

However, here is a book for all of you that have waited for one that is cheaper. As a bonus it’s made up of lots of short articles written by Giles Fraser in various newspapers, the Church Times and for Thought for the Day on Radio 4.

My warning is to try not to read too much at once, this man is not for the faint-hearted!
Included among the sections are: The bloody Church; The war on fundamentalism; Individualism, for and against; Sex Talk and Cowboys! These titles and others group his writings and enable a fascinating insight into the thinking of what I think are one of the most important thinkers in the Church of England today.

As one person said to me recently, he seems to be one of that rare breed of clergy who are prepared to say what they believe and believe what they say, source protected!

Giles Fraser will certainly not become a Bishop for keeping his views to himself or for merely saying what is comfortable and acceptable and for that Thank God! He comes over for me as a breath of fresh air and woe betide anybody who tries to pigeon hole him into one church party or another, just turn to the next article and be confounded realising that here is somebody who really is pushing the boundaries and trying to help the rest of us do the same and avoid falling into the rut of thinking like the rest!

Remembrance Sunday, p40 and Walk the Walk, Junk the Junk p53 are two that should be read by many, others will be attractive to different people, all I suspect will blow away the cobwebs. Enjoy!
reviewer Revd David Gould
Christianity with Attitude
Author: Giles Fraser
ISBN 978 1 85311 782 4
Christianity Rediscovered by Vincent J. Donovan
Mag Issue: April 2007
I first read this book a few years after it first ....click here for more. Christianity Rediscovered by Vincent J. Donovan
Mag Issue: April 2007
Reviewer: Rev'd David Gould
I first read this book a few years after it first came out in 1978 and it has been republished in 2003. It is currently quoted on the Fresh Expressions website and I quote what a few people some known and some not have said of it recently, beginning with a quote from the author describing his quest for truth:
"The experience of discovery such as I am describing is rather more like the loneliness of a person who has climbed to a mountain peak and sees spread out around him the most beautiful panoramic vision and vista and finds it completely impossible to describe that vision, or even to discuss it, except with someone who agrees to climb that peak in turn."

-a blogger who describes some of the issues this book raised at a Beer and Books evening for men this year:
“universalism, the essential truth of the gospel, cultural interpretation of Christianity”

- Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury:
“One of the great books of mission theology in the last couple of decades, known to many here I’m sure, is Vincent Donovan’s great work “Rediscovering Christianity” about his experience in East Africa as a primary evangelist. There is much in that that’s of great help, but one of the interesting principles on which he works or worked in East Africa was that he would go, he would tell the story, he would sow the seed and leave some suggestions, and go away somewhere else and come back and see what had happened. What had actually been created as a result of that encounter? And, of course, what he found, not wholly surprisingly, was that it was the sort of thing that you might very well call a church. It was a community which struggled to keep itself open all the time to the action of God in hearing the stories and breaking the bread. It was a community that struggled to show in its mutual relations what kind of God it was, who was believed to have acted to bring this about. And I think it’s that kind of model, that kind of principle that we are more and more being driven to. Here is God doing something, here is God in Christ drawing people together in a certain shape of community of common life.” Keynote address: Mission-Shaped Church conference 23 June 2004.

Can there be many such books which have inspired so many over so many years as this. I challenge anybody to have completed their reading on mission theology not to include this seminal volume and say there reading is complete. I commend it to you.

Revd David Gould
Christianity Rediscovered by Vincent J. Donovan
Published by Orbis
ISBN 1-57075-462-4

Power and Passion: Six Characters in Search of Resurrection - Samuel Wells
Mag Issue: March 2007
This book is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Offici....click here for more. Power and Passion: Six Characters in Search of Resurrection - Samuel Wells
Mag Issue: March 2007
Reviewer: Rev'd David Gould
This book is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Official 2007 Lent Book and with that on a sticker staring up from the cover you may well dismiss it if you tried his recommendation last year…

However you would miss not only a good book but one from who Dr Williams calls an “outstanding thinker and an outstanding pastor”. Dr Williams also says that he found in this volume “an encounter with the crucified and risen Jesus”.

So, does the book live up to the Archbishop’s words? I picked it up and flipped through it and noticed first of all the very straight forward language, language that nonetheless succeeded in handling some hard thoughts. I liked the way that a series of characters was treated to a thorough examination, comparisons made across the gospels and explorations were made into background that let one enter into the stories of the peoples’ lives.

I bought the book and quite soon into it realised that the Archbishop was right, that here was a person used to dealing with people in a parish and not shying away from hard thinking. Samuel Wells looks at the whole issue of how passion and politics relate, about what happens if our understanding of politics has no place for resurrection and then the big question, We are God’s passion; is he ours?

The characters examined are Pontius Pilate; Barabbas; Joseph of Arimathea; Mrs Pilate…yes that is not a misprint; Peter and Mary Magdalene. After each is a series of questions and a prayer which invite us to allow time for thoughtful reflection and the recognition that, speaking for myself, I learnt something new about each person as I turned the pages of this fascinating book.

You will receive this magazine a little after the start of lent. Do not let that deter you from adding this book to your next shopping list! It may well have the effect of changing how you approach lent this year, adding to the richness of all you have brought to your Lenten journey over the years.

Power and Passion: Six Characters in Search of Resurrection by Samuel Wells
Published by Zondervan RRP £8.99 (ISBN 0-310-27017-0)
Last Rites: The End of the Church of England by Michael Hampson
Mag Issue: February 2007
Like Christianity itself the demise of the Church ....click here for more. Last Rites: The End of the Church of England by Michael Hampson
Mag Issue: February 2007
Reviewer: Rev'd David Gould
Like Christianity itself the demise of the Church of England has often been predicted. More often this is by those outside its sphere or by those who have something to gain or something they want to strike back at the church for. Rare then it is for somebody who has spent thirteen years of his life as a priest and crucially retains a hope for the Church of England to conclude that, without radical change, this really is the end of the Church of England.

I read many books, often improving books that aim to show how the Church, you and I can be more useful in God’s hands as the agent of witness to Christian faith. The last I read was by many serious thinkers, many of whom I had met or even knew. However it was only when I read this book that I realised how distant they all were from the day to day life we all have as priest and people. Here is a book by an insider, somebody who until very recently was caught up in the day to day of parish life as a priest. Because of that alone I found myself needing to listen carefully to what he had to say.
Michael traces the fault lines in the Church of England from the reformation onwards and how even now that event or series of events finds visibility today. He argues that many of today’s issues so often reported in the press are the visible parts of the otherwise submerged iceberg. He recounts tales from his own experience with a piercing candour that made me wince.

Finance, theology, organisation, lack of hope, declining attendance, moribund, ineffective priests colluding with an almost casual hope that perhaps all is not as bad as it seems contrive together to paint a deeply gloomy picture. Out of that gloom comes the hope after radical change, surgery would be a better word, that there remains hope. That would need a leap of imagination and faith probably not seen since the reformation but he persists with the possibility.

This is why at the end of the book I want to commend it. Perhaps read it for Lent and reflect on the way things are in your experience, how much needs to be changed, or does it? One of the most disturbing statistics was that most of those ordained with Michael gave up ordained ministry before he did and, for varied but similar reasons of disillusion, depression and deep frustration with the organisation amongst other things.

Not an easy read, not easy to dismiss either because when hope remains in the writer I do think it must be taken seriously. My fear is that his words will be dismissed by those who have to strong a hold on the keeping of things as they are which brings me back to how distant so many writers are from the coal face. Michael is not distant and he deserves a hearing…

Revd David Gould

Last Rites: The End of the Church of England
Author: Michael Hampson
Published by Granta £12.99
ISBN 1 86207 891 2
Spirituality in the City - by Andrew Walker
Mag Issue: January 2007
This is a very interesting little book, which cons....click here for more. Spirituality in the City - by Andrew Walker
Mag Issue: January 2007
Reviewer: Karen
This is a very interesting little book, which consists of a number of essays by prominent theological writers. Their aim is to increase our understanding of spirituality in the reality of a modern day urban setting.

Personally, I am not keen on books filled with short stories or essays. I like to stick with one author and feel I can really get to grips with them, however, I found this book fascinating. The varying ways that the writers see the city environment and the opportunities that it offers is compelling. Instead of being disappointed when one essay finished I found myself reading on to see how the next writer had recorded or dealt with the problems they experienced, in what capacity and with what results.

In Kings Norton, we are only on the borders of the city limits and yet many of our problems are exactly the same as those to be found within this book. People living in poverty, people who search for spiritual meaning in their lives but cannot engage with the mainstream Church, people who feel they have no voice and no power. I found this book immensely helpful, not so much in finding all the right answers but at least in demonstrating some of the right questions to start asking.

At times it is all too easy to fall into the trap of separating our spiritual life from the context in which we live. This book shows how important that context is and as Andrew Walker completes his essay by saying:
“For Dietrich Boenhoffer, freedom existed in courageously grasping reality… this is at the heart of what we do, all the while being reminded that we remain, both individually and communally, wonderfully enfolded by God.

Karen Urwin

Spirituality in the City - by Andrew Walker
ISBN No: 0281057036
The Christmas Mouse - authors: Toby Forward and Ruth Brown
Mag Issue: December 2006
Most of us have heard, perhaps seen, the classic C....click here for more. The Christmas Mouse - authors: Toby Forward and Ruth Brown
Mag Issue: December 2006
Reviewer: Rev'd David Gould
Most of us have heard, perhaps seen, the classic Charles Dickens story, ‘A Christmas Carol’. We have been enchanted by the tale... unless we were present at the production that had your reviewer in a starring role, but that is another story best left untold…

This book was a gift to a child and then I thought, having read it why should adults not enjoy it as well? It has been part of the pile of Christmas books special to us for some years. For that reason, I commend it to you now.

Mice replace the people. Tim is the poor mouse, Ben the affluent one, who has no time for Christmas. The stage is set for the re-telling of this story. This time it is about a plum... and who may like to have one.

I must not tell you more so that when you buy the book you will turn its A4 pages of beautiful pictures and discover for yourself the power of the story. Told through the eyes of the mice, scampering through the skirting and making their discoveries about what is right and wrong, good and bad, hopeful and disappointing in our lives that so often come to a head at Christmas. We learn something new through the ‘unbidden stranger’, discover something more in the familiar

places we inhabit and realise afresh that we know only a little of what there is to know about ourselves and others and God in all.

Perhaps some part of us could come to this book as a child and discover something new of God and what this Christmas is all about. Even through the eyes of a mouse…
Happy Christmas!
Revd David Gould

The Christmas Mouse - authors: Toby Forward and Ruth Brown
Published by Red Fox
ISBN 0099451557
On Being Liked: James Alison
Mag Issue: November 2006
First, I did not want to go to Greenbelt, Christia....click here for more. On Being Liked: James Alison
Mag Issue: November 2006
Reviewer: Rev'd David Gould
First, I did not want to go to Greenbelt, Christian art and music festival for the uninitiated, but I was encouraged to do so by those who thought it would be good for me. I confess to a secret thought that it would probably be good for me but could not admit that having allowed myself to say no at first! Anyway, I went with thousands of others to Cheltenham Racecourse where the event is held … and wow! It was brilliant, absolutely, unreservedly brilliant!

Amongst all the crowds and crowded seminar programme there were two seminars by an itinerant Catholic priest/theologian/writer who has spent most of his working life in South America. He writes as one who has had to contend with those who, in the hierarchy of the church and its pews, see gay people and especially ordained gay people as something to be avoided, shunned and vilified. I do not share that view and thank God for the ministry of James as expressed both in the three books I have now read and his seminar I heard at Greenbelt.

He is compared by one critic to CS Lewis: “Not since CS Lewis has an English Christian summoned his readers into such holy conversations”. I could stop this review with that quote but, I add my own, as I cannot resist!

James has enabled me to see familiar scriptures in a new light, from a new angle. He has brought to that task a way of doing theology that opens the scriptures in a new and refreshing, and most importantly, life giving way. Further, he has enabled me to see in a new way how I am before God and that we, God and I, us together with God, are caught up in something that is wonderful and life giving and empowering.

In this book, he ranges across the significance of violence in the Christian world and how destructive it is in the emotions and speech and lives of so many who call themselves Christian. The need to move away from resenting the life situations that confront us sometimes, in order to discover a safe place to receive. He speaks too about the barriers we can put up to becoming the new creation that God invites us to be as forgiven and loved. Yes, we may know these things but do we really live them?

This book, along with ‘Undergoing God and Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay’, will challenge and lead into new places, places of refreshment and hope. They are not easy, they are hard, and some of the hardest reading I have done recently, but it really does pay the effort. I very much hope to be able to invite James to come to Birmingham next year so that we can take the opportunity to sit under his very special and life-giving ministry.

Published by Darton, Longman and Todd ISBN 0 232 52517 X
The Righteous Men By Sam Bourne
Mag Issue: October 2006
The blurb on the back of Sam Bourne’s first novel ....click here for more. The Righteous Men By Sam Bourne
Mag Issue: October 2006
Reviewer: Pauline
The blurb on the back of Sam Bourne’s first novel claims that it is ‘more readable that the Da Vinci Code’. But is there any truth to the claim and what questions will it raise?

The novel starts at a cracking pace with a murder in the first three pages – one of many that pepper the five hundred or so pages. And all have a twist. There follows a kidnap, cryptic clues and codes. Add in some computer whizzery, a bit of technology and some old fashioned thuggery and you have the novel.

What makes the novel of interest is its links to the Bible and the Jewish community. There are links to the story of Abraham and the people of Sodom and to Proverbs 10. The main story links to the Jewish tradition of tzaddikim – the righteous men. These are men who appear to be unpleasant but who use this to hide their good deeds. The ancient story talks of the lamed vav – which talks of thirty six righteous men who uphold the world, without them the world collapses. So what will happen if someone starts to kill the righteous men ? The book offers one possible answer; the real answer is up to you. Either way, it’s a very entertaining read. But as a rival for Da Vinci – possibly not.

Publisher - Harper Collins Available Paper Back and Hard Cover
The Kite Runner
Mag Issue: May 2006
Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner genuinely is a ‘....click here for more. The Kite Runner
Mag Issue: May 2006
Reviewer: Jess
Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner genuinely is a ‘must read’. You must read this book. Khaled Hosseini is an Afghani writer now a resident Dr. in America. He takes us on a journey from in the lost world of his beloved motherland, his home country pre-Christmas 1979. He accompanies us through the Russian invasion through to post 9/11. His tale of guilt and redemption places the specific details of these historical events within a context which could easily have been your story or mine had we born in this totally ‘other’, ‘Eastern’ place. The story is only fictional in that he makes it an illustration, paints a picture of the commonplace, something which is remarkable for all the wrong reasons. This story is only a novel because it is, for so many of our brothers and sisters normality. We could only have read it here from our comfortable sofas through the eyes of someone who has become ‘like us’. We could only have read it as a beautiful piece of work, because if it had said ‘True Story’ on the front cover we may have been unable to pick it up.

From a rich canvas of pomegranate trees and the freedom of bright jewel - coloured kites flying in blue, cloud studded skies the story runs on the tail of the kite into another kind of cloud. Hosseini’s narrator Amir moves from the warmth of kindred spirits to the billowing clouds of disintegrating planes crashing from the blue, crumbling Twin Towers and the other bright colours of the Stars and Stripes of that great democracy across the pond.

Read this book, even as it makes you weep, because if you read this book you will have crossed the continents of place and time viewing it all through the eyes of one of whom Jesus once said ‘the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these’. But does it? It doesn’t look like much of a heaven to me.

Khaled Hosseini’s masterpiece The Kite Runner can be bought from any bookshop anywhere in the world. It won’t cost much, when you think about it. If you are feeling ethical or broke, borrow my copy.

Author: Khaled Hosseini
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 0747566534
priced £7.99
Book Reviews
Mag Issue: March 2006
From the sublime... The Oxford Bible Commentary Th....click here for more. Book Reviews
Mag Issue: March 2006
Reviewer: Karen
From the sublime...
The Oxford Bible Commentary
This recently produced book would be very useful to anyone wishing to learn more about the context and meaning behind bible text.

It has been written by a team of seventy scholars from both Christian and Jewish traditions around the World and it works through the bible providing 'easy to read' information on each book and following this with a commentary covering every verse.

I bought it on recommendation after finding the 3D course that I am currently attending was leaving me with questions I couldn't answer and we didn't have time to go into. This commentary has done a wonderful job of filling in the gaps.

It is a considerably weighty tome and not a book to read for leisure but if you, like me, are seeking answers to questions, I can state with a degree of confidence that this book will `fit the bill'.
...to the ridiculous!

And you really don't get much more ridiculous than this book.

13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear
(Author Walter Moers)

It is, surprisingly enough, not written for children although teenagers may enjoy it, if they have the stamina (the page count goes over 700!)
I start a book and can't sustain my interest. I have not had the same problem with 'The 131/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear' who starts out life by being rescued from floating in a walnut shell towards a whirlpool and continues with his numerous adventures and near disasters, being taught how to talk by two argumentative waves, almost swallowed by a carnivorous plant and nearly drowned when flooded out of the labyrinth of tunnels he had previously been lost in, in the midst of the Gloomberg Mountains!

No brain power is required to read this book. It is very easy, simplistic and ludicrous but I can assure you that it will bring a smile to your face, if you can suspend your disbelief to this extent.

Parish Book Reviews
Below are 19 book reviews from Parish Newsletter or Parish Magazine.
On this page you will find reviews of books that you may find of interest. The views expressed are those of the specific reviewer and do not represent the views of the Parish or the PCC.