Wranglestone by Darren Charlton

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It is unlikely that I would have read a novel about Zombies if there hadn’t been a “gay” interest, and I am probably pleased that this one wasn’t really about “Zombies”.

There might be a feel spoilers coming so if that worries you – look away now.

You have this small, isolated, community in which Peter is in many ways probably stereotypically “gay” and Cooper is archetypal “All American” boy – but they find both love and lust for each other, and their community seems not only accepting but actively supportive of their same-sex relationship.

But then you throw in the “Restless” - their term for the undead / zombies – and here there is prejudice, a crude “othering” that has reduced all the “Restless” to the same category of monsters – yet the discover Peter and Cooper make is that not all the “Restless” are the same – some retain their humanity – and so they have to confront their community’s prejudice.

It is a not easy to challenge prejudice – and the fall out in this case will have left deep scars in the community – but the pain of honesty is better than the suffering of deceit.

I was completely gripped by this story – a great début work – lets hope there will be more to follow...

Walking the Way of the Cross Reflections by Stephen Cottrell, Paula Gooder, Philip North, Images by Nicholas Markell

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I find new versions of the Stations of the Cross are always interesting, how artist respond in fresh ways to a traditional subject, and to the challenge of creating a set of c.14 images which stand on their own yet are also part of a larger whole. Markell’s images have a simplicity that enhances their power – I brought them as a set of posters and seeing them at a larger scale than the low quality reproductions in the book itself is clearly beneficial – they mostly use silhouettes and have a strong graphic quality.

As well as a simple liturgy the book also has a three reflections for each station, one for each from Cottrell, Gooder, and North. It is interesting to see the personal takes on the stations – they find different themes and different tones in their responses and this is enriching.

It is a resource I would highly recommend.

Stations, Places for Pilgrims to Pray – by Simon Bailey.

This current crisis may feel strange and challenging for most of us, but we should remember that there are many people for whom being house-bound has always been a part of there everyday reality – and hopefully this time will be a lesson in how to include those who can’t be physically present with us more effectively within our Churches and our wider community life.

While Christians believe that God can been encountered anywhere, it is clear that there is a power to certain places, that the act of going to Church can be an important part of preparing yourself to be ready for that encounter – and without that we might be finding it harder to tune in to the Divine presence.

Therefore I hope that these Stations, written by Simon Bailey, might be helpful – as he says in his introduction, below, your home might not have the exact spaces so you might want to translate them to the layout of the place where you live, and as you pray them I am sure you will add the particular concerns of the current situation – for those that are especially vulnerable, for the health workers treating the sick, for all those involved in keeping the nation fed, those struggling as work has come to an end.

Simon also wrote Stations in a town or village, and Stations around the body, as well as one for the spaces within a church or chapel so you might like to buy a copy of the complete set to explore once we are able to get out and about again - https://canterburypress.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781870652124/stations 

Gwilym 

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Seven Stations in your home

You probably pray at home

as much as you do at church -

or more.

These stations are chosen to help you

watch and pray over your day to day life.

Every home is unique:

you may not have all these separate places,

but adjust the stations for yourself.

Choose a time when the house is empty.

Or use these prayers as part of your routine,

as you happen to be in each place.

The words to thinks about are the eight verses

of an ancient Celtic prayer-poem about the home.

It is a prayer for protection

and may be used as a ‘Caim’:

As you say the words you raise your arm,

and, pointing, you draw a circle sun-wise

around yourself in the name of God to protect you.

The circle goies with you as you go.

Begin the Caim:

“O God, bless the place where I live;

give blessing to all that it holds.”

Be slow and quiet and take time to pray.

A Caim

O God bless the place where I live;

give blessing to all that it holds.

O God bless the journeys I make;

give blessing to travel and rest.

O God bless the words that I speak;

giving blessing to silence and talk.

O God shield my heart from guilt;

fill our bodies and spirits with joy.

O God bless the folk I live with;

give blessing to your livelihood.

O God let my spirit rise up;

let the darknesses in us go down.

O God shield my heart from distress;

give protection from evil and wrong.

And O God bless my body

To be close to my soul,

So I enter whole into life

With the dear Child of Mary.

1. The Door

Going through the door -

Leave it open,

and think about the threshold,

the edge between the world outside and home,

your place of security and belonging.

There may be tensions here,

but inside the door you belong.

Say:

Living God

living and strong,

loving and gentle,

pour mercy upon us.

Think about these words:

“O God Bless the journeys I make;

give blessing to travel and rest.”

Pray for

each one who comes and goes through your door;

those who sleep in doorways, shut out from a home.

2. The Living Room

Go into the main living area, the living room -

Sit down.

This is the base of your life.

This is where you live out your human existence,

living and crying, listening and singing,

talking, thinking, arguing, planning …

Say:

Living God

living and strong,

loving and gentle,

pour mercy upon us.

Think about these words:

“O God bless the words that I speak;

give blessing to silence and talk.”

Pray for

those who share your life;

the lonely.

3. The Kitchen

Go into the place where you cook, the kitchen.

Stand by the cooker, the fridge,

or the washing machine.

Perhaps put the kettle on…

Life goes on here too,

but in a slightly different way -

preparation, cleaning up, work,

washing, ironing, storing,

and, again, talking, thinking, planning -

a busy place for many people,

an easy place to wait and pray,

while the hands are busy with other things.

Say:

Living God

living and strong,

loving and gentle,

pour mercy upon us.

Think about these words:

“O God shield my heart from guilt;

fill our bodies and spirits with joy.”

Pray for

all who work here and the care they take;

the arrogant and proud who never serve

and are afraid to care.

4. The Dining Room

Go into the place where you eat, the dinning room.

Sit down where you normally eat meals.

Meal are more than sustenance:

they are human celebration, feast and joy,

friendship and sharing,

welcome for strangers

and the bonding of friends.

Say:

Living God

living and strong,

loving and gentle,

pour mercy upon us.

Thinking about these words:

“O God bless the folk I live with;

give blessing to our livelihood.”

Pray for

the chance to share more;

the hungry and the poor.

5. The Stairs

Go through to the stairs

Sit at the top of the stair of in a passage.

Like the door this is another in-between place,

a place for movement and connection.

Why else do so many people like sitting on the stiars

to think and be quiet?

Stairs – going up – hint at hope,

reaching, effort, risk, aspiration.

Say:

Living God

living and strong,

loving and gentle,

pour mercy upon us.

Think about these words:

“O God let my spirit rise up:

let the darknesses in us go down.”

Pray for

all the hopes of your household;

time to watch and think and reach up;

the hopeless and defeated.

6. The Bathroom

Go into the place where you wash, the bathroom.

Fill the sink.

Splash the water on your face…

This is the place of refreshment and cleansing,

restoring freshness.

Like that first splash of cold water in the morning …

Bathing and washing are full of echoes

of inner cleansing and renewal.

Say:

Living God

living and strong,

loving and gentle,

pour mercy upon us.

Think about these words:

“O God shield my heart from distress:

give protection from evil and wrong.”

Pray for

a refreshed and renewed spirit

for all who use this room;

those who feel guilty and dirty,

stale and corrupt.

7. The Bedroom

Go into the place where you sleep, the bedroom.

Lit down on the bed …

This is the place for sleep and rest,

for the ending of the day.

For many it is a place of love too.

For some it is a place of sickness.

It is a very personal place,

a place of dreams,

of long thought into the early hours,

of tears and pain,

private possessions and treasures.

With the thought of sleep

there is always the near or distant echo

of death and final rest.

Say:

Living God

living and strong,

loving and gentle,

pour mercy upon us.

Think about these words:

“And O God bless my body

To be close to my soul,

So I enter whole into life

With the dear Child of Mary.”

Pray for

rest, a quiet mind, a good death;

the bed-ridden, the restless, the loveless.

Repeat the Caim

and this time pray for protection

for all those,

all over the world,

who have no home at all.

Pray

Father and Mother of us all,

you are live through and through,

and we bless You.

Let Your new world come,

let what You long for be always done,

in everyone, everywhere – and in us.

Be near enough to reach our need every day.

Be gentle enough to forgive us

the hurt we have done to You -

are we are gentle and forgive in our turn.

Never let us fall

but draw us away from evil and the dark.

For we know the world that is coming is Yours,

all Yours, in richness and beauty and splendour.

Amen.

acknowledgement: 'Stations in your home' from Stations: Places for Pilgrims to Pray by Simon Bailey is (c) Simon Bailey 1991. Published by Canterbury Press. Used by permission. rights@hymnsam.co.uk.

A Northern Line Minute by William Leith

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This is part of a Penguin set of books published alongside the 150 anniversary of the London Underground – slim volumes of around 100 pages.

A Northern Line Minute refers to the way that the information broads on the platforms will say your train will arrive in one minute, yet the reality of the period of time is elastic.

It is a study on anxiety, the narrator struggles to overcome fear of the Underground only to find themselves on a train with a brake fire.

I found the account of the tricks anxiety places on your brain vivid – it is well pitched – and I was drawn in to the point where I was sharing their discomfort in a physical way.

This is the first of this eccentric series and a strong start – I hope the others I have now ordered life up to it…

The Duty to Stand Aside by Eric Laursen

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Laursen explores the relationship between George Orwell, famed for 1984, and Alex Comfort, famed for the Joy of Sex – an odd couple at first sight.

Yet before the Joy of Sex Comfort was a politic writer, and during the Second World War him and Orwell found themselves on opposite sides of an argument.

Given his experiences during the Spanish Civil War and his post-war writing, in particular 1984 it is easy to forget that during much of the Second World War Orwell worked for the BBC in a role that was essentially a propagandist for the British State.

Meanwhile Comfort held the view that there was a “Duty to Stand Aside” - coming from the anarcho-pacifist position one could not collaborate with a State one believed needed fundamental transformation – even in the face of the evil that was the Nazi regime. For Comfort the ends could not justify the means, two wrongs would not make a right. This was particular true for him as many of the action of the British State during the war moved towards authoritarian responses.

This conflict between Orwell and Comfort is used to explore how complex Orwell is – it is very hard to pin down his beliefs, in part because they evolved over times by twists and turns. Most will know Orwell only for 1984, or perhaps also Animal Farm, but taking his total body of work there are few writers who reveal the development of their thought in the way Orwell does.

Some read 1984 as a critique of the Soviet and other obviously totalitarian regimes – but Laursen suggests it is a critique much closer to home – it is the subtle control of so-called “liberal democracies” that we probably need to watch most closely.

Laursen also links the dilemma that Orwell and Comfort wrestled with to the contemporary – point to the challenge that some of the action taken under the banner of “war on terror” to defend our freedoms simultaneously stripped us of those freedoms.

While not all the point convinced me, Laursen was a fruitful dialogue partner, when I was unconvinced he challenge me to unpack why exactly that was the case, to think more deeply.

Nothing Ever Happens Here by Sarah Hagger-Holt

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I guess I should begin by saying I have know Sarah for best part of 20 years – so I would probably say nice things about her book whatever I actually thought! But I think I can honestly say I would have enjoyed it even if I didn’t know her!

The story begins by placing you in an ordinary small town teenage life – being a teenage is a complicated business at the best of times – and one story is the liberation that socially awkward Izzy finds on stage in the school production.

The other stream within the story is Izzy’s dad coming out as Danielle, coming out as trans. The reactions of the other family members are authentic, the fact that there is a range of responses validate the fact that processing this new information is not always something people can do in an instance – surprise, shock even, are not unreasonable reactions – but the question is whether people stay in that initial place or move forward to accept and embrace the reality of the person they love.

The writing is pitched to be accessible to early teenagers, like the main character Izzy, which make this a good “resource” - but it not simply a “resource” it is a really good read, and interesting story told well.

The Hornby Book of Trains, The First One Hundred Years by Pat Hammond

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This is a year by year account of Hornby, providing not only a history of model railways but also of British corporate developments.

The evolution of Hornby it one of a long term the shift from making children’s toys to high spec models for adult enthusiasts – what is fascinating is the way that the brand “Hornby” has proved so flexible – in particular that the mid-Sixties merger of Hornby and Tri-ang essentially involved the discontinuing of the Hornby products and yet in time it was the name Hornby and not Tri-ang that endured.

The shift of production to China – which allowed the quality and detailing of the models to increase – is another feature of the story that is not really about the trains – Hornby, a “British” brand mainly selling nostalgia for the golden age of British Steam hasn’t actually manufactured anything in the UK for two decades – but that clearly does not worry their customers.

It is a dangerous book to read, as the temptation to follow up by buying models from a popular online auction site is very great!

Athelstan by Tom Holland

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This is the first of the Penguin Monarchs because although Athelstan was not the first person to rule all of what is now England since his rule England has not been divided (you might cite the Civil War, but that was a contest about who should rule England, but that England should be exist as a unit of government).

Yet of the names in the list of Penguin Monarchs his is the only one I was not familiar with, some of his predecessors are better known. How have the English misplaced their origin as a nation?

Looking back over a thousand years so much is strange, and yet the power-play and the politics are not really so far removed for our own age.

These slim volumes are educational and accessible.

Ness by Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood

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The site at Orford Ness, in particular the pagodas, is other worldly and Robert and Stanley respond well to its power.

Robert Macfarlane’s words have a mystical power – the dialogue has the rhythm of liturgy and it all speaks of the power of place.

Stanley Donwood’s images at in two sets, views of different locations at Orford Ness and pebbles with holes. In both cases they are made up of cross hatching which has a great texture to it. It is the images of the pebbles, I say pebbles but there is no scale they could be boulders, were somehow the most powerful.

This is a gem of a book – I think you need a copy!