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Review: C.S. Lewis – Mere Christianity
Like I said in my last post, I didn’t really know what to expect with this book, but I was pleasantly surprised. I’d only ever heard of the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis, so I didn’t know he’d written anything more ‘serious’, but this was definitely a lot different to Narnia.Lewis was asked by the BBC during World War Two to give a series of lectures about Christianity and this book is a collection of the lectures. There is a foreword by Lewis where he lets us know that he has re-worded the lectures to make them easier to read (instead of easy to listen to), changing a few words here and there.
The book in the first part spends a lot of time arguing the case for Christianity and why there must be a God. If you had any doubts before reading it, he does a very good job of persuading you. I think this book is based a lot on his conversion to Christianity after spending much of his life as an atheist, so it has a lot of personal feeling in it, but still very carefully structured and well thought out.
He then goes on to talk about Christian virtues and behaviours. First of all the four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. After talking about these, he then moves onto the three theological virtues: hope, faith, and charity.
One of the most memorable parts of the book for me was this one:
“That is why the Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or – if they think there is not – at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.”
Apart from the fact that this verse really got stuck in my head, I love the way that Lewis used the metaphor of the greenhouse to sum up exactly what he meant. He does this a lot throughout the book to make his points clearer or easier to understand, which I can imagine was helpful when listening to the BBC broadcasts. It’s similar to what Jesus did when he told his parables, to make sure that everyone can understand what is being said.
I’m extremely glad that I picked up this book after reading so many recommendations about it, and I would highly recommend it to everyone. It definitely makes you think a lot about your actions and the things you have been doing in your life. If you’re one of the blogs that recommended the book – thank you!
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Scarborough and Whitby – Typical English Weather!!
When I realised that the Jubilee would give us two bank holidays in a row I decided to take the rest of the week off work. Cameron finished his final exams at uni a couple of weeks ago, so I booked us a little holiday as a celebration.
We stayed at the Premier Inn in the centre of Scarborough, and the room was much much better than the hotel I stayed at in London. Air conditioned room, big modern bathroom and a really comfy bed. A lot of people on Trip Advisor had complained about the noise in the hotel, and although our room was right on the roundabout, it wasn’t really much of an issue. The fact that the hotel was so central was good for walking into Scarborough, but did mean that the hotel didn’t have its own car park and we had to pay to park in the council car park across the road.
When we got there on Thursday we went for a walk into Scarborough, along the front and to the end of the pier, and then back along to the other end of the front and up the South Cliff Lift, which is apparently the first funicular railway in the UK. We managed to avoid the rain on Thursday, getting back to our hotel and down to the restaurant before the heavens opened. Unfortunately, it didn’t really stop raining for long after that.
We went to Whitby on Friday and got completely drenched. Although I’ll blame that on Cameron for leaving his brolly in the hotel room. Sharing an umbrella with someone who is about a foot taller than you guarantees that you are going to get soaked. When we got back to the car, I took my shoes off and tipped a puddle of water out of them. I’m glad that we bought the first series of Game of Thrones at Morrisons on the way so we had something to do in the rain.
But even though we had a lot of rain, it was a fantastic holiday. It was awesome to get away from work and family for a few days and just chill out, and to spend a few days with Cameron after living in different cities for so long! I just hope that next time we get some better weather…
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Now Reading: C.S. Lewis – Mere Christianity
Until recently, I wasn’t aware that C.S. Lewis had written anything but children’s books, having only ever read the Chronicles of Narnia books when I was younger. But while I’ve been browsing blogs on WordPress I’ve seen this book mentioned quite a lot, so I decided to buy it while I was a Waterstones with Vicky today, along with Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom and Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho.The book is a series of lectures that Lewis was asked to give by the BBC during the second world war. The lectures apparently ‘brought comfort to millions in times of war and uncertainty’ and ‘remind us of the truly important things in life’.
I’m not sure yet what to expect, but I’m looking forward to seeing Lewis as more than just the creator of a magical world like Narnia.
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Review: S.J. Watson – Before I Go To Sleep
Well this book was described as ‘The best debut thriller for years’ and it totally lived up to that description, building up and up until a gripping finale that had me completely oblivious to everything happening around me.In the first chapter, you wake up with Christine in an unfamiliar house, and are taken through her whole range of emotions as her husband Ben explains to her who she is and what has happened to cause her to lose all her memories. After he has gone to work, she receives a phone call from a doctor who claims to have been working with her without Ben’s knowledge. She doesn’t believe him at first, but she looks in her diary and can see their appointments. He then tells her about a journal she has been writing to remind herself of her life and the things she has been remembering, she’s kept it hidden in a shoebox in her wardrobe so Ben can’t see it. She opens up the diary and on the front page in capital letters are three words:
“DON’T TRUST BEN”
She sits down to read her journal and we are then reading it along with her. We are taken through every discovery she makes about her life, every memory that comes back to her, and the confusion that she has every time she wakes up. But she is making progress and starting to recall things from her past, flashbacks and little snippets of conversations. The story keeps you gripped as you wonder who to trust, just the same as Christine is trying to make the same decision. My mind was flickering back and forth and back and forth between Ben and Dr Nash, and as we got further through the journal every revelation changed my mind again.
That is until the end of the book when we switch back to the present day. Christine has read to the end of her diary, but notices that there is a week missing where she has no idea what has happened. This all leads to a fast paced and nail biting finale with the guy that she has realised she can’t trust. As I mentioned before, I couldn’t put the book down for the last 60 pages, and I was so involved in the story that I became completely unaware of everything around me. The way that the book is written means you feel like you are Christine, you’ve discovered every other part of herself at the same time as she has, so you feel just as terrified as she does.
I don’t want to spoil the ending for you, but it was just as thrilling as the reviews led me to believe. I would highly recommend this book if you’re a fan of suspense, but don’t try and guess what will happen because it won’t be what you expected…
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Now Reading: S.J. Watson – Before I Go To Sleep
This book seems quite intriguing – I was stood in front of my bookshelf pulling random books off the shelf to decide which one to read next and this one jumped right out at me. From the back of the book:Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep?
Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love – all forgotten overnight.
Sounds fairly average so far right? Then the last two sentences:
And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story.
Welcome to Christine’s life.
Sounds thrilling – I can’t wait!
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Review: Jane Green – The Beach House
Not my favourite Jane Green book, but enjoyable all the same. The book (like a lot of Green’s books) has multiple main characters which means it is hard to keep up with in the beginning. It actually takes until about 200 pages into the book before you have been introduced to all the characters and their background stories and the main plot actually gets underway. I don’t like books that take so long to set the scene, it makes it hard to get involved and you definitely have to persevere to keep up with it until you find out if you’ll actually like the story or not.Of all the characters, the only one I actually liked was Nan. She raised her son Michael on her own after her husband committed suicide when Michael was 6. She’s having money troubles after her investments went sour and now she is renting out rooms in her house in Nantucket to try and raise some extra cash and avoid selling the house she loves so much. She’s a people person and a bit of a match maker and loves having a full house again.
Her son Michael was having an affair with his boss’ wife Jordana and having broken it off, she won’t leave him alone so he returns to Nantucket to get away. She turns up in Nantucket with the bombshell that she’s pregnant, turning his world upside down as he has now fallen for Daff – a woman staying in Nan’s house.
Daff is there because her husband cheated on her and her daughter Jess has gone to live with him so she’s on her own and wants to get away. Jess is causing major problems trying to get attention from her Dad now that he has a new girlfriend, and soon starts shoplifting to make herself feel better. When her Dad finds out, she is sent back to her mum in Nantucket. It turns out that all she needs is the new place and the new people and she’s a little angel again.
The other family is Bee and Daniel. They’ve just broken up after 6 years of marriage because Daniel has finally admitted that he’s gay. A little too late as they have 2 kids together. Things are (understandably) awkward between them until Bee’s dad is taken ill and the Daniel takes the kids in at Nan’s house to look after them. When Bee’s Dad is out of hospital, she brings him to Nantucket where we learn the biggest bombshell of them all. One that changes everything, first for the worst, then for the better.
I’ll not spoil the end of the book for you as it gets a bit juicy, but I did like the fact that we return to Nantucket a year later to wrap up the story, much better than leaving it hanging.
While I enjoyed the second half of the book, I didn’t like the fact that it took so long to set up all the background stories – perhaps it would have been better with fewer characters, but then there would have been less interweaving of all the stories, which is what I liked about the book. I also didn’t like the fact that most of the book revolved around affairs and marriages breaking up. Perhaps I’m an idealist or the maybe the book was aimed at women slightly older than me, but it wasn’t my favourite part of the storyline.
All in all, it was an enjoyable read, but for the reasons above, I’d only give it 3/5. Unusual for Jane Green as she’s one of my favourites.
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Now Reading: Jane Green – The Beach House
After spending over a week trying to read The Hobbit and finding it really hard to get involved in, I fancied a quicker, easier read. With the recent spell of hot weather (which is great if you’re not stuck in an office), I wanted something summery to read, and this Jane Green book jumped out at me.Jane Green is one of my favourite authors, and one that is really easy to find in the charity shops in Pudsey, hence why this one looks a bit battered and old. I quite like books like this though, books that you know have been read and loved by the people who have read them before. And when they only cost 25p, can you really complain? I think not…
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Review: J.R.R. Tolkien – The Hobbit
Do you ever have a book that you’re really enjoying, but also not enjoying at the same time? That’s kind of how I felt about this book. When I was reading it, I really loved it, but I felt no pull to the book to make me want to carry on reading or to pick up the book instead of watching tv.The part I enjoyed most about the book was that the descriptions were so detailed and immersed you completely in these mystical lands. You could almost believe you were in the forests or the mountains along with Bilbo and the dwarves. I would imagine that it made it easier for Peter Jackson to direct the film because you get such a good feeling about the place from Tolkien.
I don’t really know why I didn’t feel any kind of connection to the book. It might be because this is not my usual genre, or maybe because it was written in the 1930’s and the style of writing was not what I’m used to, but I was disappointed in myself for not enjoying it as much as I thought I would.
I do still want to read the Lord of the Rings books, but maybe not for now. It took me way too long to read this, so I hate to think how long it would take me to read the trilogy if I attempted it now.
I’m going to give this book 3 stars for now, but I think I’ll read it again in the future and hopefully I’ll get on with it better.
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Player love or Team Pride?
It’s been a while since I posted about baseball, so if you’ve started following my blog recently and are expecting back to back book reviews, I’m sorry! It’s not been the best season so far for the White Sox, but we’re slowly climbing our way back up the standings. There are a few bright sparks on our team, like the fact that Paul Konerko is leading the AL in batting average, and Chris Sale and Jake Peavy are both in the top 5 for ERA in the AL.
But back to the reason for my blog post, MLB Europe posed this question on Twitter earlier:
(If your favourite MLB team switched rosters with its biggest rival, which team would you root for? Player love or team pride?!)
It’s an interesting question because the players really make a team, so my first instinct was to say that I’d root for the players. But if you think about it more closely, the trade market in baseball is always so active that a team one year will almost certainly be different from the next, and two or three years down the line you might not even recognise it. It’s easy to get attached to the players on your team, but the chances are that unless you have a homegrown talent with a strong desire to play for the team, you’re going to lose him to a different team sooner or later.
There are players like Derek Jeter who are ‘franchise players’ and you know they’ll never leave, but most other players have a price – look at Prince Fielder, and more to the point, Albert Pujols. Both signed for new teams earlier this year and you wouldn’t have expected that to happen. So saying that you’d stick by your players is silly, because you’d eventually end up supporting every team in the league and it’d be a bit hard to keep up.
Another thing that would influence my decision is the fact that our biggest rival is the Detroit Tigers, and there are a lot of players on their team that I wouldn’t mind joining the White Sox; Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder to name a few. And who wouldn’t?! Of course, I’d rather have these three alongside my favourites like Konerko, Pierzynski, Floyd and Sale, but we all know that’s probably not going to happen!
So for me, it’s definitely Team Pride all the way. Players are a big part of a team, but there are many other factors too. I love the team, the coaches, the ballpark, the city and the history. It would be hard to give all that up and switch to the team you’ve been programmed to hate.
So I’ll ask you the same question (if you’ve actually managed to read this far). Player love, or team pride? Leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts.
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Ron Pope and Zach Berkman at Union Chapel
This weekend was my trip to London with Frank to see Ron Pope and Zach Berkman at Union Chapel. We stayed at the same hotel as last time, which was probably a mistake. Booking a hotel 2 tube stops from Wembley on the day that Blackpool are playing West Ham in what I assume was a big match was a bad idea, our hotel was full of noisy football fans. We also found out what a ‘non-premier’ room was like. Last time we wondered what made the room premier, but this time we didn’t get an upgrade and it was pretty obvious. The room was about half the size and the bathroom was rubbish! But it was only for one night, and the gig more than made up for it.
The gig was in a beautiful church in Islington called Union Chapel. It’s a proper working church during the day, and during the night it is used for gigs and shows. The stained glass with the setting sun was simply amazing. And being a church the acoustics were amazing.
I had seen tweets to say that Caggie Dunlop was going to be there, but she didn’t turn up. But that meant more Zach and Ron so I’m not going to complain. Zach kicked off the gig with his guitar, then played a few songs on the piano too. I love his albums, but he was wayyyy better live. I always love to feel the emotion in a song, and when Zach explained that he wrote Celia after seeing his Grandma hold her first Great Grandaughter just before she passed away made me listen a lot more closely to the words of the song. Amazing. He played a few songs I’d not heard of, and when I tweeted him after the show he told me about an old album that I’d not heard of, so that’s now playing on my iPod.
After Zach finished his set, it was over to Ron. I saw him a couple of times earlier this year when he played acoustic shows, but this time he was playing with a whole band. It was brilliant, especially when you consider that the band was put together by Ron’s tour manager and they’d never all played together until the day of the gig. When Ron was playing guitar, Zach played piano for him, and vice versa. Paul Hammer of the District also joined them for the show, which was pretty cool, especially when they all sung Somewhere in the Darkness as I wasn’t expecting any District songs.
The only bad part for me was that although we were in such a beautiful venue, other people clearly didn’t place quite as much importance on the fact that we were in a church. I know I’m not into fashion, but I really don’t want to see 15 year old girls wearing shorts so short that their butt is showing out the bottom. And definitely not when I’m sat in the pews of a church!
But by far the best part of the night was when Ron was about to play a song and said ‘hold on, I’ve got an idea’. He picked his phone up and started to call someone, which had us all a bit confused. It went to voicemail (typical!), and he left a message which said ‘Grandma, we’re about to play your song’. He held up the phone for everyone to say hi, then said ‘I love you‘ and hung up. He played Shoot out the Lights, then explained that he wrote the song when his Grandma had cancer and she asked him to write her a song. Luckily (and in Ron’s words), she ‘kicked cancer’s behind’. The phone call was really sweet, and you could tell that the song was quite hard for him to sing. The words of the song are so poignant now that I know why he wrote them:
We’ve been watching for a miracle
We’re praying for a sign
When the cure is made of poison then it’s hard to rest your eyesIf it’s time, Oh Lord
Shoot out the lights
Shoot out the lightsBy far the best gig I’ve been to yet, even though it was a long weekend with a lot of driving – totally worth it!
https://twitter.com/#!/RonPopeMusic/status/204009479103184897
Louise Douglas
(I've got no) Shelf Control…
Louise Douglas 