How Faith Changes

This book* by Ruth Perrin is an absolute marvel of qualitative research in the complicated theological and cultural context that is millennials. She interviewed 47 young people from across 23 Protestant denominations, all living in Newcastle upon Tyne, the Tees Valley or Northumberland, and who had all been actively-affirming Christians in their early 20's - now aged 29-37, she explores a rich and deep and thoroughly challenging set of ways in which their faith has been knocked, changed, reformed, dropped, and so on. I've probably read this more like two or three times because it spoke so deftly into the particular kinds of things I've seen young Christians wrestle with (often, as she discusses, largely without helpful support from church families, for a number of reasons) and the fallouts of these issues; though not wishing to simply offload an attempt at a personal summary of her whole arguments and methodologies (fascinating though these are), particularly because she has a fuller book about the same thing coming out soon and I'd rather discuss it in detail then (as I will definitely be getting a copy when it comes out in January). Not much point making a recommendation to you, dear audience, when there is very little chance you would be able to acquire a copy of this particular book either - but it was a highly informative and illuminating exploration of the field and would probably surprise most readers as to the fluidity of religious faith and some of the dynamics underlying this.

* No link on this one, sorry! I know it's against my own rules but hey, it was a limited run exclusively shipped to church research folks and I can't find a page for or about it online anywhere. Check out her blog Discipleship Research though. And consider pre-ordering her next wider-audience book which will probably build on a lot of the research discussed in this.

the Tale of Pigling Bland

This book by Beatrix Potter (available free online from that link, albeit with only one illustration) is, pardon my French, really fucking odd. I'd read it to the same kid I read this to, only he didn't really enjoy this one as much, because it's a lot longer - and as much as we Brits all have deep-rooted cultural memories of how much we love Peter Rabbit I started to wonder reading this whether this is just a subconscious myth of denial, because either those books must be far better than this one or Beatrix Potter was just not a very good children's writer (especially compared to A. A. Milne or Jacqueline Wilson or Anthony Horowitz or Julia Donaldson), or maybe she properly hit her stride with Peter Rabbit and Pigling Bland was left to rot on the dump of Things That Didn't Make It - frankly, I spent the first ten minutes of the reading increasingly wondering whether it was in fact some kind of spoof akin to the Ladybird ones, and genuinely had to apologise to my three-year-old audience to check the publishing info page to realise it was a legit Beatrix Potter - but whatever the case, I found it quite entertaining as it was just so bizarre, with enormous gaping holes in every aspect of its narrative (which, if it could be said to be comprehensible at all, was of utterly no consequence) and new characters on every page and an overarching narrative that started nowhere, traversed through nowhere, and seemed then to conclude nowhere, with a giant bunch of nonsense spouted by anthropomorphic pigs in between.
Probably one to skip.

Hold Your Own

This book is a collection of poetry by Kae Tempest, of whose other stuff I've read I'm a big fan. Based on the ancient Greek story of Tiresias, the poems here are bound together in a sequence that follows through childhood, manhood, womanhood, and 'blind profit' - each layering continually circling, reflecting, with a deftness of social commentary and a relatableness that quite belies the ostensibly lofty or complex bundle which are hallmarks of why Tempest is one of the world's most famous working poetic artists. Feelings will fly in all directions and thought-provocation oozes from every page, as the fine [im]balances between subtlety and poignancy wrestle each other across the themes and narratives in recognizable conflicting archetypes that shout with a voice that is as fresh as grime yet resonates like myth. High among my favourite poetry books that I've read recently.

Five Escape Brexit Island

This book by Bruno Vincent is, weirdly enough, the only Famous Five book I've ever read, never having been much of a fan of Enid Blyton - in it, our plucky four whoevers and their dog are trapped in a mysterious detention facility off the coast of Dorset, from which they have to try to escape to get back to the mainland. I do appreciate the satirical point of all this but to be honest I just found it incredibly depressingly close to reality. Would perhaps recommend as a Christmas present for your gammoniest relatives.

Oi! Duck-billed Platypus!

This book, by Kes Gray, illustrated by Jim Field, is one I was prompted to read to the children of the family of whom my third-youngest brother is lodging with in London; it's a pretty serviceable kids' book with rather entertaining illustrations* but on the whole boils down to a series of interrogative puns about animals sitting on stuff which rhymes with their names. Cat on mat, dog on log, the platypus when it comes round has nowhere to sit... you get the gist.

* On that front alone it's probably worthwhile for a child who likes animals, especially weird ones.