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Gathered here are thoughts on literature, technology, education, religion, culture and anything else that interests me. I hope you enjoy your stay.

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All In The Mind? Thoughts on Identity and Neuroscience

Tweeted about this piece earlier today, but wanted to flag up and reflect further on Henry Marsh’s piece in Granta, detailing his neurosurgical work operating on a tumour in a pineal gland. The pineal gland is buried deep within the brain, and is thus only reached after a perilous journey through the physical matter that [...]

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Thoughts on e-books… Removing text from common sight.

Ode to a bookshelf… See now the empty bookshelf that stands still with a thousand volumes now unseen, the bookends racheted so tightly, the pages compressed so absolutely into the digital thinness of silicon. The words remain, though they are now in bits, and can be read, just as they once were… yet not stumbled [...]

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Also Available…

As Mutiny! gets pushed around, thought it might be worth flagging up the two other books I’ve written. They represent a fairly significant journey that I’ve been on, gradually emerging from more orthodox ideas about faith and faith-practice, to…well, something beyond that. Still, I’m proud of each book as it stands, and some great people [...]

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Catching Up…

Been quiet here… which is probably a function of being very un-quiet elsewhere. So thought I’d mention a few of the things I’ve been doing / working on… Firstly, I have to mention The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach. It’s a big, wonderful novel which basically ate most of my time in the past [...]

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‘Other’ now available in the US/UK as eBook | US Print Edition Coming Soon

Really pleased to announce that the UK edition of ‘Other‘ is available in the US and Canada as an eBook via Amazon (as it is in the UK too.) As I’m sure you know, you don’t need an actual Kindle to read Kindle downloads – you can get the software for free on your Mac [...]

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Movements or Institutions? | A New Kind of Christianity

Been really enjoying Brian McLaren’s new book A New Kind of Christianity. In the concluding chapter he outlines what this new sort of Christianity might look like, and in one section suggests at a denominational level that churches ‘develop a theology of institutions.’ What he says is interesting in the light of the short series [...]

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Book Release – 2 Days to go! | ‘Startling, heart-warming and thought-provoking’

Just back from a great week on Iona, and very much looking forward to ‘Other‘ being released on Monday. Get your local bookseller to order it and support them if you can. Amazon have already dispatched any pre-ordered copies, and it’d be great if people could make some noise and get the word out there if [...]

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Once Books are Gone What Will Our Vanity Object Be?

One interesting repercussion of the advent of the e-reader may well be the disappearance of the bookshelf. Before you scoff and say never just remember how resistant I/we were to putting our CDs and vinyl away. But away they have been put, and the solitary ipod is now the norm. So if e-readers become more [...]

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New Book Unveiled : ‘Other: Loving Self, God and Neighbour in a World of Fractures’

It’s pretty much a year to the day since I began writing my new book, and I now that the contracts are all exchanged I thought it was time to pop the lid off and start getting the word out there. Don’t go rushing to Amazon just yet – it’ll be on shelves in July [...]

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Inherent Vice: New Pynchon Novel

Just back from holiday, and just hear that Thomas Pynchon has a new book out. For any fans of this most difficult, funny, bawdy and darkly brilliant writers these are nervous times: will we understand a word of it, let alone the many hundred-thousands of words that some of his books can run to. The [...]

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