Author
Very excited to be reading to Key Stage 1 children at Milecastle Primary School tomorrow for World Book Day. The head teacher saw the exhibition of Young David Book illustrations at the Holy Nativity Church in Chapel House, Newcastle, and asked me to come to the school. Looking forward to inspiring some young hearts and minds.
Has anyone missed me? Sorry I’ve been away for a while. Nothing personal, you understand, I’ve just been so busy. Busy finishing the first draft of the screenplay for a feature film called The Choice, finishing a spell of social media promotions for another publishing company, busy not finishing my historical novel The Judas Curse (but making good progress with it), busy editing and publishing a fabulous crime novel by Tony Glover called Cars Just Want to be Rust, busy teaching a new crop of students at Northumbria and Newcastle Universities, busy helping to lead an Alpha Course at Heaton Baptist Church, busy ferrying my daughter back and forth to her gymnastics lessons, busy vising my mum who hasn’t been too well, busy starting to sort out my study but not finishing it (and now I’m working surrounded by boxes), and, most excitingly, busy preparing for the launch of the Young David Books Art Exhibition this Friday! Oh, and by the way, you and your friends are cordially invited – if you live in (or are visiting) the North East of England.
The exhibition will be of Amy Barnes’ original watercolours for the three books in the Young David Picturebook series so far: David and the Hairy Beast, David and the Kingmaker and David and the Giant as well as the work in progress on our next book, David and the Lonely Prince. Amy and I will be there to sign copies and talk about the books and there will be free cheese ‘n wine. Yes that’s right – free!
So if you have plans, cancel them, or risk missing the art exhibition of the year! (Well if I’m not going to talk it up, who will?)
Where? The Holy Biscuit, Newcastle upon Tyne
When? Friday 9 November
Time? 7 – 8.30pm
Cost? FREE!!!!!!!!!!!
The exhibition will run 12 – 25 November, 11 – 4pm daily.
This is an eye-opening book. Like many people of my generation (born this side of 1970 – just!) I do my best to recycle, turn out lights, buy Fairtrade and take public transport (whenever I have the time to do so, or when it’s not too cold, or when I don’t have big shopping bags to carry …). I’m even planning on making sure the next house I move to has a south-facing roof so I can install solar panels. But my efforts have been ad hoc at best. Until I read No Oil in the Lamp I had no understanding of the complexities behind the energy crisis and how it will impact every facet of life in the near future. I’ve heard scientists and politicians arguing about it but have never felt informed enough to really grasp what they were talking about. Andy Mellen and Neil Hollow have changed that. They sketch out in simple, unpatronising terms, the various arguments for and against each energy source. The concept of the long-term sustainability of each commodity consumed or energy source generated in terms of the ratio between energy-in and energy-out gave me a completely new perspective on my consumption. Scrupulously sourced and with more follow-up references than tunnels in a rabbit warren, this book could keep you busy for a very long time. But when you’re finished, don’t forget to pass it on: it’s essential reading! Oh, and they have an excellent website too www.theoillamp.co.uk
I have also interviewed the editor of this book about the impact that the energy crisis and the decline of renewable energy sources might have on the publishing industry. You can read all about it over at The Crafty Writer.
Last week I posted a link to my film Enemy Lines (see below). I mentioned that the film was based on a short story I wrote. That story, also called Enemy Lines, features in my short story anthology Different Tracks. As a result of posting the film, there have been a flurry of people downloading the anthology. One of them has been kind enough to leave a 5-star review. Thank you.
If you would like to read the anthology for yourself, here’s a taster:
Sometimes it’s only when we change tracks that we see the route we should have taken. An anthology of three short stories.
The Yacht Trip
Can a ghostly meeting on a remote Northumberland coast prevent a tragedy?
Enemy Lines
A soldier and a war protester change sides. Will love conquer all?
Another Man’s Shoes
It is said we all have a doppelganger. But what happens if yours is already dead?
You can get your own copy of Different Tracks here.
You can view the film here.
By Chris Russell.
Published by Darton Longman Todd.
I picked up this book because of the similarity of its title to the Henri Nouwen book ‘Letters for Mark about Jesus’ – which had touched me deeply when I read it in my early 20s. Like Nouwen, the author has used a series of apparently personal letters to real-life people to address a wider audience about the nature of God, faith and the Christian life. I wondered: could this be a Letters for Mark for the 21st Century? One the cover, Pete Ward, a professor of theology at King’s College London is quoted as saying: ‘One of the most profound, practical and deeply theological books I have read.’ Was he right? I settled down over three evenings to find out.
Well yes and no. Some chapters touched and challenged me deeply – such as the chapter to ‘Eddie’ whose healing prayers for his dying father (‘in the name of Jesus’) had ‘failed’. And the chapter to his friend Marie who doesn’t believe she needs to be part of a church community to be a Christian. I must admit I couldn’t finish the letter to Tommy, his 12-month-old nephew who had died when he was struck by a falling lamppost in aLondonstreet. The questions Russell was asking about why God allows so much pain and suffering in the world; were just too close to the bone. I will go back and finish that letter – perhaps when I’m feeling less fragile.
However, there were other letters that didn’t touch me or challenge me in the same way. I came out of the letter to his worship-leader friend, Gemma, feeling that I had learnt nothing new; I felt the same way about sin in the letter to his atheist friend, Jonny. But that perhaps is because I am not an atheist and have what I might call a ‘healthy’ awareness of what sin is on a personal and corporate level. I have also spent many years thinking about and contemplating the nature of worship. So rather than a weakness of the book, I see this as inevitable in a work that is addressing so many different ‘types’ of people at different stages of their spiritual walk. Other readers may find these letters deeply challenging, and the ones that touched me, less so.
If you like books that don’t come from a ‘this is what the bible says so we can be in no doubt about it’ position, then you will not be disappointed. Russell, who is a vicar in the Church of England, could be described as a left-leaning evangelical. Some would say ‘Third Way’, but I think Russell himself would object to that label. However, if you do like books that come from a more fundamentalist tradition, then I would challenge you to read it too as it may just give you a framework to allow for the doubts we all have. I grew up in a (dare I say) right-leaning evangelical church. However, over the last 15 years I’ve felt the theological framework I had been given no longer fit the reality of my life or faith. Books like Russell’s (and Phillip Yancey’s and Eugene Petersen’s and Tom Wright’s and Henri Nouwen’s) have helped me stretch my boundaries and still allowed me to call myself a Christian. Let me know if it does the same for you.
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