Category Archives: Uncategorized

An Easter Exercise for isolated thinkers during the Corona Virus from the book: John Dickson: If I Were God, I’d Make myself Clearer: Searching for Clarity in a World Full of Claims, p/b, Kingsford, Matthias Media, 2002 John Dickson is … Continue reading →

Ann Patchett: The Dutch House, p/b, London, Bloomsbury, 2019 American bookseller, journalist and influential author Ann Patchett’s eleventh novel has a House as its central character! The Dutch House is an ecclectic,  over-engineered and richly furnished mansion in a quiet … Continue reading →

Joy Cullen: The Reverend George Cox: ‘A Man of Many Parts’, p/b, Mornington & District Historical Society, 2019 Teacher and historian Joy Cullen has uncovered a remarkablestory with her investigation into the “Renaissance life” of  the Gippsland clergyman, fire-fighting, naturalist, … Continue reading →

Challenging ideas from Timothy Keller: The  Reason For God: Belief  in an Age of Scepticism, p/b, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 2009 p xvi f Both religious belief and scepticism are on the rise…surely that should lead to self-examination. The time … Continue reading →

Andreas Loewe and Katherine Firth; Journeying With Bonhoeffer: Six Steps on the Path of Discipleship,  p/b, 127 pages, Sydney, Morning Star Publishing, 2019 2020 is the 75th anniversary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s martyrdom in the Flossenbürg concentration camp in Bavaria just … Continue reading →

Thoughtful and challenging thoughts from Andreas Loewe and Katherine Firth: Journeying With Bonhoeffer: Six Steps on the Path of Discipleship, p/b, Sydney, Morning Star, 2001 This little book is packed with inspiration. Katherine Firth has written a new biography of … Continue reading →

William Styron: Sophie’s Choice, p/b, London, Vintage, 2000 (1979) This is an epic, perhaps overlong novel in many parts.  In the first instance it is a novel about the unsuccessful and almost humorous search to lose his virginity by a … Continue reading →

BOOKS READ NOVEMBER 2019 Amor Towles: Rules of Civility, London, Sceptre, 2012 (2011). Graduate in English from Yale and Stamford Amor Towles was born and bred in Manhattan and was an investment professional for twenty years before turning his hand … Continue reading →

Giorgio Bassani: The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, translated by Jamie McKendrick, introduction by Simon Mawer, Illustrated by Laura Carlin, London, The Folio Society, 2014 [In Italian, 1962; McKendrick translation, Penguin 2007] Italian Jewish  author and literary editor Giorgio Bassani won … Continue reading →

Allan Bullock (Editor): The Marshall Cavendish Learning System: History, London WI, Marshall Cavendish Books, 1969 This self-help learning system is astonishing for the vast amount of material put together with impressive academic credentials and accuracy but in a very readable … Continue reading →