Friday 11 May 2018

Books

Work trips, with a fair amount of time spent on planes (or waiting for them) can be a good time to catch up with some reading, and I loaded up the iPad with a selection before heading off a few weeks ago.

Highlights included 'A Possible Life' by Sebastian Faulks. I hadn't realised before starting it that it was actually five separate stories (with occasional links by place or object), each of them remarkable in their own right. I haven't read a book of his that I didn't thoroughly enjoy.

I also read a couple of books inspired by my parents' reading habits. The first was 'Surprised by Joy' by C.S.Lewis, and I have to be honest and say that I found it pretty hard going, which was disappointing. Perhaps I need to get on with The Screwtape Letters soon and hope for better luck there (or maybe just get stuck into Narnia). The second was 'Saint Peter's Fair', the 4th Cadfael book. As with the earlier ones, what's not to love about Brother Cadfael. Perhaps what I was failing to find in Lewis, I found in Cadfael's words, talking about death to his young apprentice.

If I may selectively quote:

"Child, it is with us always. Never let it shake your faith that there is a balance hereafter. What you see is only a broken piece from a perfect whole. It is our duty to preserve what we may, and fit together such fragments as we find, and take the rest on trust."