And tango makes three by Justin Richardson, Peter Parnell, and Henry Cole

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According to "the internet" this is 2014's 3^rd most complained about book in US Libraries – which I naturally took as a higher recommendation that any amount of Booker Prizes etc...

It is a sweet little, true, story of two gay Penguins in a New York Zoo, who successfully hatch a spare egg they are given look after by the keepers.

Penguins are naturally cute and therefore I don't think the illustrator Henry Cole had to work too hard to provide an endearing set of images.

The story is told simply, I don't think it labours a “gay agenda”, but clearly sharing this story acts to normalise same-sex relationships – and if normalising such relationships makes you uncomfortable you are probably going to find yourself complaining to the library authorities.

Section 28 may feel like a distance memory, but I suspect many a school would still not stock this book, as dealing with complaints would not be “worth” the aggravation and risk of headlines in the local paper.

Goodbye Pink Room by Jane Grayshon

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The abuse of children is a raw wound in our society, and there is an increasing honesty about its true pervasiveness.

A few years ago attention was focused on the Catholic Church, and while it takes nothing from the Church's very real failings, we are now ever more aware that as an institution it was far from alone.

But nor was, or is, abuse confined to institutions – much, perhaps most, abuse takes place in the context of the family. And it is one such story that this book recounts.

The author's preface clearly wrestles with the issue of telling a “true story”. I have reflected a few times before about this of struggle or interplay around what we mean by “true”. But what is clear reading this story is its authenticity, and that power overrides any question about whether any particular detail is “factually accurate”.

You are taken on a journey with Rose, a dark and lonely journey, once I started to read I found it difficult to put the book down, it felt like an act of disrespect – knowing it is the turning away, the failing to see, that creates the space for abuse, so the book demands that you are attentive to it, to Rose's story.

It is a deeply painful read, in part because there is a cruel inevitability to the events, it is very hard to see a moment when an alternative action would have avoided the outcome.

I think we need to be honest about the limitations of many of our current strategies to counter potential abuse – that is not to say those strategies should be abandoned. We do however need to ensure that we continue to have honest, and uncomfortable, conversations, that we never tell ourselves “it can't happen here”, because such complacency is an open door.

Chris Gollon: Humanity in Art by Tamsin Pickeral

out of print but available via Amazon Market place

It was through his Stations of the Cross that I first encountered the art of Chris Gollon, powerfully accompanied with reflections by Sara Maitland – which I considered briefly earlier in this blog

And so it was fascinating to explore the wider context of Gollon's art, and gain an understanding of the ways in which the Stations express both continuity with, and, yet also, stand apart from, his other work.

Gollon, as a “contemporary” artist, is unusual in being a figurative painter – in many ways in the context of the contemporary art sense I think this is a subversive identity.

The power of his work comes often comes from the distortion of the human figure, and yet in the midst of the distortion humanity remains intensely visible. Many of the images are far from comfortable to view, and yet there is something about them that captivates, you often feel that your gaze if transgressive and yet you can not bring yourself to look away.

Pickeral's text provides just enough of a framework to help you see the evolution of Gollon's work, some hints about the context and content often allows you to enter more fully into the work, but to be honest for the most part the work speaks for itself well enough that these guiding words are inessential.

Zeppelin Nights: London in the First World War by Jerry White

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The centenary of the First World War is clearly prompting a flood of new books, each trying to find a fresh angle on those events, and I am sure the White would be unapologetic for joining that bandwagon.

The “Home Front” is well remembered in the Second World War, seen in particular through London's experience of the Blitz, indeed I would think for many the first images that would come to mind on mention of that War would be scenes of the Blitz. Events on the “Home Front” during the First World War are relatively speaking overlooked – in part due to being overshadowed by the similar but more intense events of the Second war, but also because for the First World War it is the “memory” of the trenches that is the defining one.

So what do we learn from White of the experiences of Londoners during the First World War?

First we learn of the intense divide within society, between the ruling elite and the working classes – and the essential fear the ruling class had of the masses – it is a Dickensian picture. Many less than helpful decisions can be “explained” by this dynamic which sought to control and pacify the supposedly brutish and uncivilised masses. The restrictions of the consumption of alcohol being just one example – how much of our continuing poor relationship with alcohol was born in these years, you had to drink fast because the pub was shutting soon?

The second, and perhaps closely linked to the first, is that the War forced a rapid increase in the involvement of “the Sate” in the organisation of society. It is now that the structures that would become the “Welfare State”, and allow the large scale nationalisation of industry, during and after the Second World War were born. But that birth was a painful and faltering one. The laissez faire approach that had dominated Victorian Britain is forced, often kicking and screaming, into retreat.

We also learn that despite some of the weaknesses in the measures adopted the War was actually, generally, a time of social improvement – mainly as a simple result of the reduced supply of labour, which acted to force the wages of the lowest rungs of society upwards, but also, and more significantly, gave these people greater consistency / security in employment. While these gains were not universally maintained in the post-war years, due to demobilisation and then the depression, there is a feeling that the very worst excesses of “Dickensian” poverty were permanently banished from London during the War.

While this is not a book of earth shattering revelations it is well written and insightful, and it tells a much bigger story about the evolution of British society than simply a tale of the war years.

The Introvert Charismatic, the gift of introversion in a noisy church by Mark Tanner

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This book was featured in the Sarum College Bookshop Facebook page – so such is the power of social media...

The C of E loves Myers-Briggs, and therefore here we are using “Introvert” in its technical Myers-Briggs definition. In these terms I am an Introvert and it was that hook in the title that drew me in.

The message of the book is that people are different, and that God given difference enriches the life of the Church.

This is a simple message, one you might perhaps assume was self-evident, one you would assume you didn't need to write books about.

Unfortunately I think books like this are needed.

That said Tanner not only makes his point, he does rather labour it... I think this could have been a Grove booklet rather than a 200 page book with no real lose of impact or even content, I did catch myself adopting the 1 in 4 approach to reading the book (1 in 4 pages, 1 in 4 words...).

I think I got the message even before I start to read, so maybe their will be others for whom the experience of reading the book will be a “journey” and therefore the long form approach to the message will give them the space to think and get “on board”.

Daniel's Beetles by Tony Bianchi

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This is a novel in two parts, the first successful, the second totally lost me...

Bianchi's writing gives a strong sense of person and of place – and I think that is maintained throughout the book. The problem is that I failed to follow the narrative in the second half.

The first half is typical small town, social realism, kitchen sink stuff – perhaps it is not pushing any literary envelopes but it is well written and engaging. I believed in Daniel, identified with him even.

The second half is … well the trouble is I am not really sure what it is.

There is a well worn literary trick to build an essentially ordinary character, which draws the reader in, and then throw them, the character, into some extra-ordinary situation, and so through the prior relationship of the reader to the character take the reader on that extra-ordinary journey too.

This is clearly what Bianchi attempts – but somewhere along the way I got lost and didn't get to the destination...

Stations of the Cross Words by Timothy Radcliffe Images by Martin Erspamer

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I find the Stations of the Cross a very powerful structure to reflect upon/within, and I think the different responses and different interpretations which you get often show the creative potential of the artist working within a set format.

As a set of reflections on the Stations Timothy Radcliffe's words are rich, there is a humanity, an earthiness, which might be unexpected from this learned monk (that is unless, of course, you happen to know Dominicans). There is a lightness of touch, in which the big ideas are shared in ways that are not scary.

But these reflections stand apart from the images. This means that you could use them, personally or as a group, as part of meditations on any set of Stations that you might have access to. This adds versatility to the collection, but it also leaves a gap, it would have been good for the reflections to response to the particular set of Stations that have been included in the book.

However perhaps the reason that Timothy Radcliffe has not drawn more closely on the images is that they are rather odd. For example in the Seventh Station it looks more like Jesus is doing a cartwheel than falling for the second time, in the Tenth Station, where Jesus is stripped, all that came to my mind was Mr Benn and the Shop Keeper. There is no pain or agony - the overall effect is rather comic.