Golden Hill by Francis Spufford

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The setting of this tale is fascinating, we think we know New York, but going back this far in the city's history is rare. For most the colonial history of what became the USA is overlooked – history began again with the War of Independence, yet here we have stepped back beyond that dividing line. It is a city (or rarely a town) that celebrates the King's Birthday and Bonfire Night – a little bit of England beyond the sea.

And into this carefully crafted setting Spufford provides a rich and well balanced cast of characters. As part of the twists of the plot we do not get to know the central character Smith completely, and perhaps because of this Spufford avoids becoming drawn exclusively to Smith and gives the other characters real weight as well.

The story is full of incident, a certain about of it humorous bordering on farce and yet somehow never ridiculous – you brought into it all. This allowed Spufford to side step the trap that many historical novels fall into, becoming so wrapped up in historical details that they become a lecture rather than a novel.

Running through the novel is the question “who is Smith?” - a question he asks himself as often as those around him. I will not reveal the answer, but I think the answer when you get to it still feels partial or provisional – what happens next after the narrative's end probably will be the true test of Smith – and we are left to wonder, left to weave, that answer for ourselves.

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

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McEwan powerfully captures the sense of a world that is about to change but hasn't yet. Even in 1962 these young newly weds are effectively living in the 1940s. The teenager is yet to be invented, the summer of love not even on the horizon.

This is an exploration of possibilities that can not be realised, social norms weigh heavily on Florence and Edward. How hard it is to share you true thoughts and desires, even with those you are closest too.

McEwan probably doesn't need additional praise from me...

Physical Evidence for Ritual Acts, Sorcery and Witchcraft in Christian Britain Ed. Ronald Hutton

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This is a fascinating collection in a number of ways.

Firstly, particularly in the essays by Champion and by Easton, looking at ritual markings made in Churches and in domestic and other settings is the way that you see what you are looking for. Most people have avoided giving “meaning” to graffiti within Churches as it did not fit with their narrative of Christian belief, but look again with a different lens and there is so much meaning being inscribed on the walls (even if the exact meaning is not available to us).

The second point would be the continuity that a lot of the evidence points to, there are region variations and there are evolutions through time, but the picture is generally one characterised more by continuity than diversity. One of the questions this prompts is what caused these practices to endure – and a key part of the answer must be that at some level the practices “worked”. There must have been enough cases where people saw the desired outcome followed the action (even if scientists would point to coincidence rather than causation) to keep the practice alive. Also, as those of us who pray would be able to share, even in the absence of the desired outcome the fact that you have done something, be that making a charm or saying a prayer etc., brings a comfort.

Moving on from this, there is a wider point that there is a whole range of ritual and belief that is generally dismissed as “folk religion” which we should be much more attentive to. One of my questions would be the way these studies, despite seeing long histories in the practices described, set themselves as “historical” studies. There seems to be few connections made to contemporary practice. That the search “charms” returns over 2 million results in ebay would suggest there is a living tradition out there. The way that so many people engage with the act of lighting a candle in a church or cathedral quite separate from any structure of Christian belief that “the Church” would recognise is another token of this. It seems quiet clear to me that the beliefs of ordinary people are no more shaped by the “secular” orthodoxies of the likes of Dawkins and co than they were by Medieval priests and prelates.

Bishops by Michael Keilemans

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This book is made up of a number of distinct parts, and it is unfortunate that the last part is the weakest as that tends to mean that the impression you take away and remember is that weakness.

Chapters 1 to 5 give an historical overview, of Bishops in the early church and then, from Christianity arrival in Britain, with a focus on their development with in the UK.

Chapter 6 looks at the socio-economic make up of English Bishops between 1905 and 2005, and points to the fact that although there have been some shifting trends in levels of public school education and choice of University in reality the background of the bench of Bishops remains firmly establishment – and the elite end of the establishment at that.

Chapter 7 takes the same socio-economic look at Welsh Bishops, and the most interesting thing is probably that the disestablishment of the Church in Wales in 1920 has not fundamentally changed the leadership of the Church.

Chapter 8 looks as Scotland, and here there is a real contrast – while Anglicans in England and Wales are the Church of the establishment, even after “disestablishment” in Wales, fellow Episcopalians in Scotland are a minority and marginal Church, and so their Bishops are rather different characters.

Chapter 9 gives some supplemental remarks on contemporary thinking on the episcoal role.

Chapters 10 and 11 provide the results of questionnaire survey that Keulemans undertook of recently retired Bishops. Within this that Bishops rated “problematic clergy” as their biggest frustration and “pastoral care of clergy” as their biggest satisfaction is interesting, especially when coupled with a majority of Clergy saying they would turn to Bishop for help but only a minority being able to say they felt they had actually been helped by Bishop. This points to the dysfunctional relationships within the structures of the Church.

And finally Chapter 12 entitled “Where do we go from here?” which lacked any meaningful grounding in the preceding evidence base presented and unfortunately is little more than an opinionated rant.