25% off Borders (UK)

Borders are giving a 25% discount between 30th November and 3rd December with THIS VOUCHER.  Just print it off and take it with you!

Holidays

I’m on holiday for a week so not blogging much, just in case you are missing my ramblings.  I did finish Harry Potter today.  I liked it lots!!!

Harry Potter - the ending!

Midnight sees the release of the final Harry Potter book, ‘The Deathly Hallows’.  I’ve read all of the books and enjoyed most of them although I though a couple were a bit long and acted as filler to pad out the story to make it 7 books.  That said, I’m looking forward to the postman delivering my copy of the new book tomorrow morning!  I wonder if Harry will survive?

Tagged

I’ve been tagged by Thomas (he’s just getting his revenge for the book tag last month!)

Here’s the rules: Grab the book closest to you. Turn to page 161. Print the 5th complete sentence on your blog. Tag 5 others.

The book closest to my desk (none on it today) was ‘The Daily Study Bible - The Gospel of Luke’ by William Barclay.

Page 161, 5th complete sentence:

To God we are never lost in the crowd.

Oddly, I quoted this section of Barclay’s book in a sermon not that long ago!!!

I tag Avril, David, Pauline, Bryan (he’ll never do it) and Russell

Book Tagging

I just got tagged by Matt…

How many books do you own?: somewhere around 300… half of them are in boxes!

Last book I read: Angels & Demons by Dan Brown - I’ve had this for ages and had never quite got round to reading it.  I have had a few train journeys recently so I picked it up and actually quite liked it.  I’m sure it will make a decent movie.

(Reading How To Be Good by Nick Hornby now)

Five Books That Mean a Lot to Me: (In no particular order):

Dangerous Wonder by Michael Yaconelli
This is a short book about the ‘adventure of a childlike faith’. Mike Yaconelli is one of the most inspiring people I have ever met. I first heard him speak at Greenbelt years ago and his enthusiasm for living out a curious and mischievous faith captured my imagination. The book is full of stories that are a bit ‘chicken soup’ but also inspiring and challenging.

The Lord Of The Rings by JRR Tolkein
It took me ages to get around to reading these. I tried to read The Hobbit four or five times when I was a kid but could never get into it. The LOTR movies kick started my reading. I saw the first one and was hooked. I could also better imagine Middle Earth. The books are magnificent. So rich in detail and depth of character. Well worth reading, even if just to see where the books and the movies diverge.

My Father Was A Hero by Cole Moreton
Another Greenbelt discovery. Cole Moreton gave a presentation on his journey of discovery to find out what his family secret was. I’ve blogged about the book before here. I read this book at a very difficult time in my life and it resonated deeply with me. Families are funny things. There are so many things we don’t know about those we love the most. This book captures some of that mystery and a young man’s journey of discovery.

Mental Fight by Ben Okri
Mental Fight is a poem. It is beautiful and challenging and inspiring. Read it.

The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
My mother read the Narnia books to us when we were children, mostly in a caravan near Oban on the west coast of Scotland. I have very strong memories of imagining Narnia was the western Highlands! I was given the set as a birthday present a few years ago and re-read the stories of Narnia and found I enjoyed them just as much as an adult. I began to read them to my kids but they are quite difficult to read aloud!!!

And now to tag five people: Avril, David, Pauline, Thomas & Chris

the boy in the striped pyjamas

 

I’ve just read ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ by John Boyne, highly recommended by my wife .  It is the story of Bruno, a 9 year old German boy, whose father is sent from Berlin by a small man with a small mustache called ‘The Fury’ to be commandant of a place Bruno thinks is called Out-With.  Bruno makes friends with a boy who wears striped pyjamas and who lives on the other side of the fence with the other boys and men (there are no women on that side of the fence).

It is a beautiful and tragic story of the Holocaust, made even more poignant because it is told through the innocent eyes of a boy who does not know or understand the horrors of the place he now lives.

The book ends with the words

‘And that’s the end of the story about Bruno and his family.  Of course all this happened a long time ago and nothing like that could ever happen again.  Not in this day and age.’

I get the feeling that it could and is.  Millions of people die in Africa and the world stands by.  People are imprisoned without trial by America and the world stands by.  Just a few years ago genocides occurred in Rwanda and in the former Yugoslavia.

If only we all viewed the world in the way that Bruno did.

the out of bounds church?

I bought the Out Of Bounds Church? today.  I’m liking it lots!  A great mix of emergent church thought and insight with commentary and pointers to music, film, books and websites as you go along.  I’ll post more thoughts when I’ve read and digested more.  Steve blogs as e-mergent kiwi.  Go read his thoughts and his tale of an encounter with a sheep…

My Father Was A Hero

My Father Was  A Hero 

 by Cole Moreton is a moving account of the relationship between a Moreton and his father and grandfather.  His grandfather would never discuss the war and his father would say nothing of his childhood beyond ark hints.  So what had happened that still hurt after so long?  And why would nobody talk about it?

War reaches far beyond the time and place of the conflict.  Moreton explores his own family’s secrets to discovered the devastation the war caused in his grandfather’s life and how that rippled through the generations.  A superb book.