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Tower and Town, December 2014

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Reading This Christmas

The Narrow RoadOnce the Christmas festivities are over I relish a somewhat quieter period to do some more extended reading. This year’s Booker Prize Winner The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan, and The Children Act by Ian McEwan, are already on my wish list but I’ve also been eyeing the many interesting books there are in Mustard Seed.

I’m longing to have a read of Rowan Williams' (former Archbishop of Canterbury) new book Meeting God in Mark, Pokharawhich looks full of fascinating and accessible insights into Mark’s Gospel. As the lectionary readings for this Church Year are focussing on Mark, this book seems even more relevant. Over the years, I’ve found Rowan Williams writings incredibly helpful in exploring and thinking about the Christian faith in deeper ways. Timothy Radcliffe OP says,

‘This wonderful book shows how Mark’s beautiful and subtle Gospel still challenges our understanding of God and of how God works in our lives. It is written in a clear and vivid style and I could not put it down.’

Also on Mustard Seed shelves are the Grantchester Mysteries written by James Runcie (son of another former Archbishop of Canterbury!), which are an intriguing collection of short stories based upon the fictional life of an Anglican priest turned detective living in Cambridge in the 1950s. Some of the stories have been televised and certainly made entertaining viewing. What I expect to like in these novels is not only the crime genre itself, but also the gentle signposts signifying that life and people are not always as we expect them to be and the subtle reminders of faith in everyday life, e.g:

‘Love was the most unpredictable and chameleon of emotions, sometimes sudden and unstable, able to flare up and die down; at other times loyal and constant, the pilot flame of a life. Sidney [the priest] touched his hands together in prayer. Then he gave himself up into silence. How we love determines how we live, he thought.’

Deborah Reynolds

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