God in Creation

This book is the second (after this one) in Jürgen Moltmann's systematic theology series; as you can tell from the title, this one deals with creation doctrines. Though Moltmann approaches the topic quite innovatively from an ecological perspective - placing God and creation in relation to each other within their own spiritual and natural ecologies. This book took me a long time to read - if I must admit, I started reading it way back in late 2017 when I was still working at Church Army, but found it too difficult; but since getting nudged back onto Moltmann in more recent years, and having found his first book of systematic theology relatively manageable, I decided to embark upon the rest of his series, and found it somewhat workable, though it was a real mental test compared to most of the other Christian literature I read.* In any case, I have now finished it, and found it profoundly enlightening on a number of half-baked questions I've always had about creation but had never articulated, as well as a number more of things I'd never even wondered but now having been made to think about them am astounded that most Christians seem to be able to slide along without deep doubts in their cognizance about such things. Moltmann is that kind of theologian; he thinks into the weird corners and flushes them out with ecumenical sources, biblical wisdom, and fat old logic.

   It would be completely disingenuous of me to say I can summarise what Moltmann says in this book. I hope the introductory paragraph is enough to entice you as to the aim and style of his book in his overall systematic theology project, and following from here I will give a very brief list of the chapter subjects covered in this volume.

1. The idea of God being in creation as an introductory chapter
2. Specific considerations of the significance of this in the ecological crisis**
3. How God, and we, know creation
4. God as the creator
5. How time relates to the act of God's creation
6. How space relates to the act of God's creation
7. The duality/unity of heaven and earth
8. Evolution in creation
9. Human beings as God's image
10. Embodiment and the soul as the end of created works
11. The Sabbath as the feast of creation
12. An appendix comprising various symbols of creation

   Many of these might seem quite dry, or even irrelevant, to what you might consider core themes or issues in creation doctrine; but trust me, once Moltmann gets his teeth into one of these things, it becomes interesting as anything. And illuminating in ways you had probably never imagined. But anyway. So that's it for Moltmann on creation - merely volume two in his systematic theology series. Since finishing this one, I have acquired volumes three, four and five - Christology, pneumatology, and eschatology respectively - so I suppose I'll see you again soon for breakdowns of those.

* Maybe that says more about most Christian literature than it does me or Moltmann... you make your mind up.

** I have to say, it is fucking affirming to have such an adept theologian tackling creation issues through the lens of the "ecological crisis" way back in the 1980's, when that kind of language has only just barely entered the mainstream consciousness now in the 2020's.

The Conquest of Bread

This book by Peter Kropotkin is one of the seminal founding texts in our modern understanding of anarcho-socialism. I had previously read it as an impressionable sixteen-year-old - but now with a much deeper education of politics, economics, and philosophy - I genuinely hold to the ideas herein far stronger than I had then.

   This book is a masterfully mathematically inarguable treatise on how anarcho-socialism can be the most efficient and humane means of organising a political economy along egalitarian lines. I  realise that given the age of the book the numbers comprising its core arguments are in sheer need of an update for the 21st-century, which given how much things are changing these days may again need another update every two or three years to come - but the underlying principles remain solid. Kropotkin's assessment of industrial here is timeless; the ideas about social organisation, to the workers as to their capabilities and to the citizens as to their needs is a core tenet of "small c" communism; this is a model of how a political-economic body could function sustainably for the best of its members with no impingement on those around it can flourish.

   This book was a key text in my rational radicalisation as a teenager - and having re-read it so many years later it seems it still makes a great deal of sense. Capitalism is worse than a virus; it is simply unnecessary. Once the means of production are consolidated, for the workers not to be in democratic control of them implies an undue influence that is not in the best interests of the surrounding society. We, the proletariat, must demand control in such manner - or industrialised societies will never get over their "hill" of liberalism and embrace the truth of political and economic equality.

   There are many more ruminations on this great book that I could lay forth but I think the key points have been made. Revolution, whether democratic or sectarian-violent - are inevitable - but they best way to guard against that is to issue such structures to the workers in the first place. In 2023 it seems like a silly argument to make, when "artificial intelligence" is already starting to cannibalize the jobs of artists, writers, translators, coders, and so many more - but does not that simply drive home the urgency of such a revolution?

Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race

This book by Reni Eddo-Lodge does what it says on the tin; a staunch and well-argued case for how race has been historically argued and understood so poorly by white people that people of colour may as well give up their hopes. Though that is not what Reni's argument concludes on, nor her career as a speaker on racial issues; it is clear throughout how white fragility conspires to minimize if not ignore the contributions on these topics made by the people affected by them. I won't summarize her points here - only say that if you are a white person, especially if you are a white person who doesn't "feel the benefit" of being so, you need to read this book.

A Wilderness of Mirrors

This book by Mark Meynell is, as its subtitle puts it, a Christian apologetic via an exploration into "trusting again in a cynical world". And boy, is it timely. In fact maybe too timely - but we'll come back to that point later. First let's get a grip on what it actually talks about.

   The first part of the book looks into the legacy of fracturing trust in the modern age. In three heavily-endnoted chapters, Meynell talks about the failures on this front of our ruling authorities (although largely here drawing on historical examples, which is all very well, but I would have liked a bit more of a juicy socio-political analysis), our mediating authorities (informers and the like), and our personal authorities (or caregivers - though the chapter swiftly brushes aside both the medical and teaching professions within a single page and then is mainly charged with the failures of the church*).

   The second part is a short, theoretical pair of reflections on the loneliness-inducing alienation, lostness and paranoia that we can all-too-easily succumb to in such a climate. These chapters are fine enough I guess, but Meynell doesn't really say anything that hasn't already been said in far more insightful ways by both academics and meme-smiths, so I won't toot the horn for this middle section too much. I also think he entirely fails to address a few key factors that are driving our sense of alienation, betrayedness and paranoia - the rampantly shifting techno-social landscape, the death throes of late capitalism, the ecological crises, to name just three. You can probably think of more. A bit of legwork in talking about the sociology or political-economic theory of trust would also have been appreciated.

   But it is in part three that we get to the meat of the book - the Christian apologetic section. Firstly he deals with the biblical conception of original sin as both the starting-point and to-some-degree justification of such a culture of mistrust: this was an interesting chapter and made a lot of connections I hadn't seen before. The next three chapters are far more simply predictable: Jesus is the one we can trust; the Church is the society in which we can start to break away from patterns of cynicism; the gospel is the message and narrative we need to begin building a more trustful future. Nothing bad, but nothing original: especially in the final chapter, a few more pragmatic pointers about how to break through psychologically or socially into the cynical miasma of the postmodern world wouldn't have gone amiss.

   As I hinted in my opening paragraph, the real problem with this book is that it came out too soon. It was published in 2015, and while "post truth" was already a thing in certain academic circles at that time, it wasn't yet the predominant socio-political normativity - had this book been put together even three years later, let alone six and he'd have had all the Covid madness to break down to boot, it could have had a lot more to draw on and impactfully say. But that's a pretty cynical two cents to dig into a book which is a perfectly respectable Christian apologetic speaking into a vital issue in most of the contemporary western world. It's not great reading, but it's perfectly readable, if that makes sense. I'd probably only recommend this to you if you're already a Christian and you're specifically looking for a resource on how to engage the cynicism of our times; as exhortational as the final sections were for me as a believing reader, I really doubt they'd convince anyone who wasn't already convinced of the Truth beyond truth in a world where truth barely even exists anymore.

* Something I am all too familiar with, as the elder of my old church The Crowded House, one Steve Timmis (who, interestingly enough, wrote one of the blurb reviews on this very book - he describes it as "well researched, well written, and well worth reading" - I tentatively agree), was pushed to resign as CEO of global church-planting network Acts 29 and as leader of the church for persistent allegations of bullying behaviour and fostering a culture of spiritual abuse under his leadership. I have talked about my personal journey in all this in other posts which I'm not going to bother to link here, but if you're really interested feel free to search through my blog's (not inconsiderable, I know lols) history until you find the particularly long, whingy posts.

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

This book, a collection of medical-theological reflections by eminent surgeon Dr Paul Brand edited together and fleshed out a bit by Philip Yancey, is an actually miraculous read. It will both make you appreciate the complex marvel that is the human body in ways you probably never knew if you're not in the medical profession, and further to this, its interwoven reflections (which I will talk about in a moment) really drive home the New Testament metaphor of the Church being the Body of Christ in fresh, compelling ways, that make this a powerful apologetic for the Church as the vehicle of witness in faith. It is also quite beautifully written, often dealing with intricate biological subjects but never getting bogged down in jargon; and when making its wider points it does so with a deftness and clarity that makes the book extremely easy reading. I finished it in two [not-even-that]-long sittings.

   The book is split into four sections, though there is initially quite a long preface by Philip Yancey which is excellent reading in itself, mainly reflecting on his friendship with Brand and how the older man was a source of much inspiration to his faith and also just a marvellous human all-round, doing much great research that revolutionized leprosy treatment in the 20th-century.

   The first of the four main parts is about cells. Their central metaphor here is drawing on the imagery the apostle Paul uses (see 1 Corinthians 12, the second half of the chapter) to talk about individual members within the Body that is the Church, and how each needs to perform its duty to the benefit of the whole; cells are the perfect metaphor to carry this forward. Seven bitesize chapters (all the chapters in this book are bitesize, part of what makes it so readable) deal with: the nature of this membership as individual entities; the specialization of those members; the innate diversity of the individuals all working together; the intrinsic worth of each individual member; the total unity of all members as one collective; the duty of service to the whole demanded by the whole of its members; and finally "mutiny" - which in cell terms means cancer (and this chapter uses this metaphorical understanding of the Body of Christ to talk about the hoarding of wealth/food/time in the global context of the Church in a world where there is so much need with such adroitness that it alone is worth reading the book for).

   The next, bones. Metaphorically here Brand and Yancey are talking about the doctrinal elements that support Christianity from its core - the Law, the character of God, and such. Its chapters deal with: the notion of having a frame from which everything else either hangs or is contained; the hardness necessary to deal with knocks and turns of life; the freedom enabled the human body by the marvel that is its skeleton (also this chapter contains a "positive re-spin" of the Ten Commandments that are just brilliant); the essential capacity for growth and healing; the adaptability to new contexts and activities; and finally we get a brilliantly insightful chapter that talks about the dangers of legalism by inversing the metaphor and considering creatures that have exoskeletons.

   The third, skin. In the Christian metaphor this is all about love, as you'll hopefully see is fairly obvious from the brief sketches of each chapter. They talk about skin as: something visible, by which the world recognises our outward form; perceptive and sensitive in relation to its environment and other things and people; compliant in its flexibility and durability; full of an immensity of inner interconnections that transmit information; essential to the physical and emotive experience of embodied love; and lastly capable of confronting threats and protecting innards.

   And finally, the body's capacity for motion. The metaphorical application is somewhat looser here, ranging from reliance on the Holy Spirit to keep us tapped into "the Head" of the Body (that is of course Christ) to the need for the Church to be on its toes in responding to things around it. Chapters: the concert of muscle activity that is movement; the balance between all facets of moving parts; why dysfunction occurs and how it can be remedied; the need for a stable, trusted hierarchy for effective function (this makes the shift from muscles to nerves); the guidance of the whole by the executive operation of the Head (or the brain, depending on what side of the metaphor you're looking through); and the capacity of the whole to be real, meaningful, as a human presence in another's life.

   I would heartily recommend this book to Christian readers as an illuminating work on what it can, or should, or does, look like to be part of the Body of Christ; moreover from that gospel angle it will bring you to an incredible perspective on the magical sack of electric meat that is you, your own actual body. Brand's memories of his medical exploits, in particular those from among the leper communities whom he served so diligently, selflessly and effectively, will leave you breathless. Similarly I would recommend it to non-Christian readers who all think this is a pretty weird metaphor, and Brand and Yancey's brilliant collaboration here will leave you scratching your head in wonderment but substantively better informed about why we use this phrase to talk about the Church - and what a perfect metaphor it actually is.

Sourcery

This book is, it should need no introduction - one of the inimitable Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. And in this one the incompetent wizard Rincewind finds himself caught in a baffling and threateningly-apocalyptic scenario, as a new Sourcerer has turned up at the Unseen University and had turned the whole culture of magic on its head and inside out. It is up to our plucky hero to muddle his way through this without being turned into a piece of bellybutton-fluff or something - which could very easily have happened, given everything else that seems to be going on. I've read a fair few Discworld novels but this is the maddest so far. And if you have half an idea what goes on in a normal one that should shock you. I'm not reading them in order, mind you. But I am trying to read all of them, given enough time, and luck in charity shops. That said, Rincewind is always a brilliantly entertaining protagonist for the comic fuel of Pratchett's imagination, and this instalment in the ongoing exploration of Discworld is no exception: hilarious, mind-boggling, slightly scary, thought-provoking, all at the same time. There are no other authors who can do what Pratchett does. I would say read this, but really just flop open a page of all the Discworld novels that exist and stick your finger down at random and start there, and then repeat until you've read them all. That's more or less what I'm doing, and it seems to be fun enough.

The Cloven

This book is the third and final instalment in Brian Catling's utterly phenomenal series of novels, preceded by The Vorrh and The Erstwhile; and oh man was this trilogy worth sticking with, no matter how bogged down and lost I felt at times wading through its depths.

   Characters collide. Plot threads intertwine. Answers are unwrapped and mysteries implode back into the dark heart of the forest from whence they came. Angels go mad and back again. Humans find themselves thrust up against their closest relatives and hate what they see. War begins to raise its ugly head, and colonialists and locals alike begin to panic, to plan, and in some cases to abandon ship altogether and leave chaos behind. Nothing will be the same again - except the Vorrh itself, though even that will take time to rest and recover. But you, dear reader? You certainly won't be the same again.

   Having finished the trilogy I am now probably about 60-70% certain that I could tell you maybe half of what definitely happened in these books. But I don't care. These are not novels you read for surety, for comfortable solidity or easy solutions to the riddles posed. This is a trilogy that makes you feel like you are wandering through the Vorrh, slowly losing your mind at exactly the same time that your instincts are sharpening and your ancestral memory deepening. To say that this is a well-written trio of magical novels would be like saying that The Godfather series is a well-directed trio of mobster films. I have never read anything like this and I doubt I will again. These books made me laugh maybe once or twice per instalment, brought me to the verge of tears two or three times per instalment, but kept me in a state of suspended anxious confusion and tension for at least three-quarters of the whole length of each. They just don't let up, but they never tread the same ground twice either. I honestly think these may be some of the best fiction I've ever had the privilege of reading for their sheer immersive quality. Read these if you want an itchy mind.

the Last Battle

This book is C. S. Lewis's final instalment in The Chronicles of Narnia - and oh boy, if you were to read back through this month's worth of posts you would see me saying some pretty ungenerous things about this saga. Not undeservedly, I will say. As much love as I have for Lewis as a Christian apologist in my experience so far his fiction is streets behind that of the man who turned him to Christ* in the first place.

    Plot-wise it's relatively simple - there's a sneaky ape called Shift who finds the skin of a dead lion and persuades his donkey friend called Puzzle to wear it and pretend to be Aslan so that he can take rulership of Narnia to his own benefit. King Tirian, a descendant of Caspian, tries to clear matters up but soon becomes embroiled in the larger schemes. Eventually Eustace and Jill (from prior books) are summoned and start making more headway in unravelling the conspiracy, eventually even summoning as a bonus Peter, Edmund and Lucy (Susan is not allowed as she apparently doesn't believe in Narnia anymore) to help thwart the plot. Which they do. The actual eponymous "last battle" is extremely short and small-scale, even if it's very important for the story itself - but what makes this book a worthy conclusion to a seven-novel saga is its final three or four chapters. Basically, having achieved everything that that world was meant to, Narnia just ends, under the controlling supervision of Jesus Aslan. As disparaging as I may at times have been of this series throughout these posts I genuinely do think their moral core is incredibly strong and edifying, especially for children readers or listeners, and this final segment is where in my opinion that shines through the strongest - this last bit of the saga where Narnia is being wrapped up back into the fabric of creation is not only the most powerful part of the series but some of the most beautiful allegorical fantasy I've read anywhere. Lewis is very clearly trying to communicate some of the boundless hope found in Christian concepts of the transition between the dying creation of post-Fall Earth and new-Built Heaven - and it shows, in glorious imagery and a resoundingly satisfying conclusion to the whole series of seven novels.

    So, as I said in my post about the first of these, and as I do for all sequences of posts about series of books rather than singulars, I have been reserving my overall reflections until this last one.** Thankfully that doesn't mean I have to spew out an absurdly long thing here as my totality of thought looking back on the Chronicles of Narnia are pretty simple. I could even do it in a mere four point-paragraphs. Here goes:

1. Clive Staples Lewis is a far better non-fiction writer than he is fiction. I mean, I haven't read all his fiction, but I haven't read all his non-fiction either, but on balance I think this is a fair assessment of just how the communicative parts of his brain work best. Though that said, The Screwtape Letters is technically fiction and is my favourite thing of his that I've read to date... so... don't take me seriously.
2. All of these characters are pretty dull. Their flaws are obvious and superficial if they exist at all, their approach to problems is pragmatically plot-development-oriented, and they all have they same manner of dialogue. All except Jesus Aslan, of course, but he's a special case.
3. Speaking of Jesus Aslan, it bears to mention that fellow Inkling Tolkien was not a fan of the Narnia series because, among other given reasons, he thought its religious allegory was too on-the-nose. And he was right. But then the two authors had different purposes; J.R.R. was seeking to create an agelessly original yet academically-legitimate mythology for the English peoples, while C. S. just wanted to make children excited about discipleship in a new, engaging way. Different strokes, innit? (see image below)
4. Overall recommendation: I think I would have enjoyed this series far more if I'd been at all familiar with it as a child. Obviously I saw the movies as the were coming out in the early 2000's, but though my parents read the whole series to most of my siblings they never did with me - I was already in too deep with my own literary taste, I suppose. But that said I do think that Christian allegory or not this is a very rich and entertaining series of fantasy novels, that even despite its evangelical bent is by no means proselytizing literature and can be enjoyed on its own merits as fantastical story, with relatable (if arguably a bit predictable) protagonists and a lot of thematic & plot developments that can be on their own terms pretty thought-provoking to a young mind.

So yeh, overall, I don't think this seven-novel series quite deserves the hype it seems to have of being in the same ilk as Tolkien and Le Guin for the best fantasy series of the 20th century, but it has a lot going for it and I can easily imagine younger readers absolutely eating this up. Go for it.

* Well, one of them; though having learnt more since writing this post I have to give most of the credit to Owen Barfield.

** One additional thing I will say - the editions I were reading was a box-set of seven separate volumes as opposed to the single volume linked in these posts, but I couldn't find it in online booksellers. I don't know about the linked version but mine had copies of all the original black-and-white illustrations from the first-published novels - and while I appreciate their inclusion I can't say that they were of a notable quality and their addition didn't really do much for me.

the Silver Chair

This book is the penultimate instalment (in chronological reading order anyways) of C. S. Lewis's Narnia series, and is HANDS-DOWN the weirdest. Eustace, from the last book, along with his vaguely-apparently-friend-from-school Jill, gets sucked back into Narnia in what seems to me an obfuscatorishly strange train, but never mind; once back there Prince Caspian is now in old age, so Trumpkin the dwarf and Puddleglum the marsh-wiggle are the main guides around the magical world; there's the eponymous silver chair with an ancient curse on it, at one point they go way deep underground into the realm of 'earthmen', Jesus Aslan shows up eventually - everything you may expect by this point from a Narnia novel. I did enjoy reading this more than most of the rest of the series, but I think largely out of a sense of bewilderment than actually being impressed by the prose or the story being told.

the Voyage of the Dawn Treader

This book is the fifth instalment of C. S. Lewis's Narnia saga, and though it follows directly on from the worst (the last one) it is a breath of fresh air when it comes to narrative imagination. Lucy and Edmund (who you may know from prior instalments) along with their odious cousin Eustace are sucked once more into the magical realm, where they find themselves on a pretty questionable sea-voyage under the captainship of Caspian (from prior book) who is on a quest to re-discover the lost lords of Narnia. This book is pretty episodic, with chapters or chunks of chapters having very little bearing on each other but telling interesting little self-contained bits; that said it is an engrossing and entertaining part of the overall Chronicles, and without wanting to give too much of a spoiler - the voluntary, even excited, sacrifice made by Reepicheep toward the end was the most emotional I've gotten reading this whole series so far. So there's that, I suppose.

Prince Caspian

This book is the fourth chronological instalment of C. S. Lewis's Narnia saga, and in my opinion by far the simplest to summarise. Basically the same four kids from book two (see earlier this month in the blog) get whisked back to Narnia, where it turns out that despite having been a very short time for them in England, 1300 years have passed there, and the realm is now in crisis as the usurper Miraz has displaced the true heir to the throne, the eponymous. You know. So obviously Peter and Susan and Edmund and Lucy have to track him down and help him battle to reclaim rule over Narnia and they do, without much by way of real narrative struggle. I mean, there are obstacles, but written in such a way that even a six-year-old having this read to them could see no real reason to worry as the plot armour of Good Prevailing is so thick. The worst of the series so far.

the Horse and His Boy

This book is the third of C. S. Lewis's Narnia saga, and arguably the weirdest. Though that is very arguable indeed, as all of them are arguably pretty weird. What's weird about this one though is that is has almost zero bearing on the characters or plot of the other six novels in this saga. It follows Shashta, a poor boy from Calormen, who escapes slavery with a talking horse called Bree, eventually meeting up with a girl called Aravis (who also has a talking horse) with whom he tries to escape to Narnia in the far north but along the way they get into all kinds of political scrapes and intrigue. Oh, and Jesus Aslan shows up briefly of course. I really don't know exactly what Lewis was trying to say with this book. It adds virtually nothing to the larger saga, even thematically, as everything that is communicated through subtext is replicated better in other places across this series of seven shortish novels. This one does have a handful of good moments though. Don't take my perplexity at its existence as an excuse to skip it if you're actually reading through the Narnia saga.

the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

This book by C. S. Lewis is the second (by chronological reading order) book in the Chronicles of Narnia series, and easily the most famous from that world. To the point that even in a mere plot-summary post I don't see the point in writing all that much as surely anyone literary enough to be reading a blog about books will be at least tangentially familiar with the plot of what is, arguably, the most famous children's fantasy novel of the 20th century perhaps after The Hobbit, so yes, this will be a short one.

    Siblings evacuated from London during the blitz, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy wind up staying with an eccentric elderly relative. During a game of hide-and-seek one of them (in case you're lucky enough to be unfamiliar I won't say which) discovers a whole other magical world hidden in the back of a wardrobe, but the other siblings don't believe this. Until they all get there, then they do. But there's an evil witch who wants to kill Jesus Aslan. So the children have to make so very mature decisions and lead a war against evil in the realm of Narnia - which, shock and horror, they win, so they get to become monarchs despite only having been in the place for like a few days. I don't know. Don't even get me started on the literary-political implications of the way C. S. Lewis treats monarchy in this series of novels. Anyway, NEXT

the Magician's Nephew

This book is the first novel (not in writing order but in reading order which is the order I read them in and thus am blogging them in) in C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia series. As I tend to do with all series of books, I will reserve my overall reflections and recommendations until the last post in the series, and here simply resign myself to a spoiler-free-as-can-be plot summary.

    Digory and Polly, two childhood friends, are playing in a garden when uncle Andrew invites them into his attic and tricks them into touching magic rings that transport them into another world. The exact otherness of these worlds are not really specified by the narrative, but they go through several different dimensions of place until they run into a scary lady called Jadis, who then tags along with them, back to England which she tries to take over, until they end up in a new place - Narnia, in the process of its being created ex nihilo by Aslan the Jesus-lion. Jadis has a hissy fit and throws away the lamp-post she'd been using as a weapon; it grows into a whole new lamp-post - then Aslan says hello to Digory and Polly, and uncle Andrew and the cab-driver who for some reason has come with them, Aslan summons the cab-driver's wife from England and makes her and him the new King and Queen of Narnia, and Digory and Polly go back to normal reality with uncle Andrew. It's a weird story, I know. I've left out a few details but nothing that really has any bearing on the rest of the books in the series other than that you should know that Jadis is still annoyed and knocking about Narnia somewhere, and Andrew stole a magical apple that he planted into his garden that might someday grow into a tree large enough that you could, if you wanted, make a wardrobe out of its wood... and one has to wonder whether said wardrobe would maintain some kind of magical linkage to the realm of its origin?

2022 catch-up

So, this past year I read forty-six books, which is far from my best, but better than last year. I'm still not managing to read as many books by women, people of colour or LGBT+ people as I'd like - I'm scuppered by already having bookshelves too full before I can conscionably buy more, even as much as I'd like to in order to offset my own reading biases. In any case, let's get down to an overview of some of what I read in the past year...

• Literally all of Dan Abnett's Inquisitor novels that exist so far - see Eisenhorn 1/2/3/4, Ravenor 1/2/3 and Bequin 1/2
• Dan Abnett's original sci-fi war story - Embedded
• Dan Abnett's original fantasy thriller - Triumff
• Dan Abnett's [un]original dinosaur drama - Extinction Event
• Yeh I've been re-reading a lot of Dan Abnett this year, get over it
• Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series - where I got up to book five and then my heart said "nope" and I put it on hold for the foreseeable future
• Don't worry that's it for Dan Abnett in this year's list
• The first two instalments of the maddest best fantasy trilogy I've ever read - Brian Catling's The Vorrh and The Erstwhile
• An underwhelming biography of the most important man ever to live
• Some reasonably interesting insights into Daniel the prophet's relevance to modernity
• Corrie ten Boom's absolutely bonkers prayer journey
• Four galleries worth of The Far Side, alongside its prehistory
• Che Guevara's manual on Guerrilla Warfare
• A grotesquely bad culture-war-christian manifesto - ech
• George Orwell's positively-intentioned but thoroughly out-of-date guide on spotting political fakespeak
• Sarah Bessey's incredibly edifying Jesus Feminist
• Richard Rohr's magnificent guide on how to join The Divine Dance
• And then Jürgen Moltmann's far more intellectual dive into the Trinity
• A fun graphic way of interpreting biblical data - see here
• Richard Keyes's ruminations on what church should be: Chameleon or Tribe?
• Pope Francis telling Catholics to get their environmental shit together
• Three of Plato's most significant historic texts ever - probably
• That great moment where Ludwig Wittgenstein "solved philosophy" but nobody understood him so every other philosopher had to keep going anyway
• Sheffield's absolute boss-man ex-mayor Magid Magid on The Art of Disruption
• My favourite of the three Roald Dahl novellas I read over Christmas - Matilda

So - that's it from me for this past year, and I'll be sure to keep reading random stuff and updating this blog as often as I can be arsed so there's some record of all the random stuff I'm reading... that's why I'm doing this, right?

Peace & love

Isaac Stovell

Defence of Socrates, Euthyphro & Crito

This collection of texts attributed to Plato are perhaps some of the most significant blobs of words in the history of western philosophy. Honestly - having never actually read anything by Plato before, when working my way through these (which only actually took a couple of days as I found them so gripping) I was seized with a sense of spiritual reverence that I have never felt in reading anything but holy texts. There is a specialness in these ancient dialogues.

   In reverse order then:

• Crito: this is a dialogue with Socrates, having been condemned and now languishing in prison, debating with someone attempting to release him what exactly is the proper relationship between an individual and the state in the moral order.
• Euthyphro: this is a dialogue between Socrates and a young aristocrat about what is the proper obligation of a human being to the gods; where morality comes from, whether we could ever owe it to the gods to do something evil, or if they would be gods were they to demand such a thing.
• Defence of Socrates: in here Socrates, accused of atheism and corrupting the youth of Athens, stands trial amongst his peers, and has to offer a coherent rational defence of his thinking, behaviours, ideas and their impacts on wider society - he knows he will be put to death should this trial not go his way, but he is not concerned with self-defence so much as he is with pursuit of absolute truth.

   I know these summaries are barely scratching the surface. If the Socrates that Plato sketches in these texts is half as wise as the real man they were based on then I must agree he was probably the wisest man in history. Anyway. So that's the book. Exactly who determined that these three should be collated together I do not know - certainly not Socrates, and probably not Plato, but it cannot be denied there is a pure and sheer brilliance of deep overlap between the ideas herein. If you like philosophy and you've not read these, you must. If you don't like philosophy but you wonder why philosophers think you should - you should read these.

Politically Correct Bedtime Stories

This book by James Finn Garner is as you would expect off the tin - cleverly rewritten classic fairy tales to skewer the "political correctness" prevalent at time of publication (in this editions, the mid 1990's, which is fun, isn't it? I was a toddler then, so I was obviously well plugged in to such cultural sensitivities.)

   No, I jest - I got this book in my Christmas stocking from Ma & Pa, so I was obliged to read it - and it was actually pretty funny. Cinderella, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel - and more; there's a bunch of classic fairy tales who get redrawn in "politically-correct" fashion. It is vaguely amusing, but I'm still not entirely sure why my parents thought I would be that keen about this notion. Isn't the whole point of older stories that they are less "woke"? That's how one observes cultural evolution over literary time, isn't it?

   I don't even know if or what I'm joking about any more.