Ursula K. Le Guin was a celebrated and prolific American author, spanning many literary genres for six decades, first winning acclaim in fantasy fiction, most notably her Earthsea ‘high fantasy’ series, and also in science fiction. Both had been a male enclave until her arrival, garnering much praise and many prizes. She was generous to […]
How Words Make Us Human Read More »
“The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction…” “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle/ Than nurse unacted desires…” What are we to make of the visionary artist William Blake (1757-1827) and his Marriage of Heaven and Hell? How we loved him in the 1960s and 70s, when he seemed to validate
Heaven and Hell of William Blake Read More »
Quaker Worship: Reflections and Explorations by James McCarthy This is a thoughtful consideration of Quaker meetings for worship. It’s a new addition to the Kindlers series of devotional booklets, aimed at the curious – regardless of how little or how much experience of such worship the reader might have. James McCarthy draws upon fifty years of
Why Sit in Silence at a Quaker Meeting? Read More »
Published in 1990, this book of psychiatry sold six million copies. Mine was bought this year for £1.50 from a second-hand store, and it has changed my understanding of life. For the better, I think! I was concerned with the question of where do we find love – for our friends and family and others
THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED by M Scott Peck Read More »
Magnificent account of the troubled Windsors. I read this feeling deeply antagonised by the wretched UK Press’s treatment of Megan, which was worse than one could have imagined. It took weeks to read this very long book, but the experience was to be totally absorbed by it, a complete page-turner. Absolutely brilliant, extremely well written,
SPARE by Prince Harry Read More »
Can we get our young men to kneel and look through the Smokehole? ‘We thought we had Pentecost but find ourselves in Babel.’ Dr. Martin Shaw ‘Smoke Hole: Looking to the Wild in the Time of the Spyglass’ by the mythologist and storyteller Dr, Martin Shaw covers some of the territory revealed in ‘Adolescence’ but
THE SMOKE HOLE by Martin Shaw Read More »
The book I would like to share is by the recently deceased philosopher Bruno Latour, titled “Down to Earth: Politics in the new climatic regime”, which he wrote, in French, in 2018. I particularly like how Latour unpacks two of the major discourses of our age, to paraphrase badly, one is ‘localism’ and the ‘globalism’.
DOWN TO EARTH by Bruno Latour Read More »
Given the quotations from Keats in “Lamia”, and the featuring of “Ode on a Grecian Urn” on this Just Beauty blog platform, it seems appropriate to re-recommend a rather old, book. This is Richard Dawkins’ response to the passage in “Lamia” where Keats accuses philosophy (aka the science of Newton’s time) of removing the awe from the rainbow. “….Do not
UNWEAVING THE RAINBOW – by Richard Dawkins Read More »
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