Author: James Woodward

I have had a busy week at Sarum College catching up with students, moderating assignments, a meeting of my body of Trustees as well as the usual range of unpredictable listening, mediating and resolving. Not all questions or difficulties move too quickly into the resolving zone ! I read for a small part of the […]

by Brent Peery, London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2021, 121 pp., £18.99 (PBK), ISBN 9781785926822 This is a well-researched, grounded, and passionate text that makes a persuasive case for Outcome Oriented Chaplaincy (OOC). This process embraces a methodology of care that articulates the difference that a chaplain can make to patients, their families and the health […]

Bird by Bird : Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott Google informs me that around 4,500 books are published each day across the world. This is daunting, by any account, for both reader and writer! How do we make what we write count, be read and make any kind of difference? For those […]

Honest Sadness Lament in a Pandemic Age John Holdsworth Sacristy Press 2021 Many of my friends have commented on their weariness with these weeks of lockdown. Government heralds progress with statistics about vaccinations delivered and the reducing infection numbers – and all that is all good – but these months have taken their toll. Uncertainty, […]

What Does Jeremy Think? Jeremy Heywood and the Making of Modern Britain, by Suzanne Heywood (Collins 2021) In these days of zoom TV interviews it is not unusual to see the learned and powerful sitting in front of (usually) tidy rows of books. It is impossible to not to notice what these shelves hold and […]

The Power of Ritual : Turning Everyday Activities Into Soulful Practices Casper Ter Kuile William Collins 2020 I am indebted to my friend Jane Shaw for pointing me in the direction of this rather stimulating and wonderful book. It came out of a conversation about what learning might look ( and feel ) like at […]

Finishing Well – A God’s Eye view of Ageing by Ian Knox ( SPCK 2020) Ian Knox is an experienced, wise, creative priest and evangelist. His love of people, of life, of Scripture and learning are all present in the fourteen chapters of this book. His scope of reading and listening to a range of […]

More than 80 years ago, in Greece, 60 thousand Jews lived peacefully in Thessaloniki. It was a vibrant and valuable community, with most of these Jews working in the port. So much so that the port of Thessaloniki was even closed on Saturday, Shabbat. There also lived and studied great rabbis emeritus. Everyone hung out […]

 Sacristy Press 2020 (207 pages) 978-1-78959-142-2 £14.99 Sacristy Press has established itself as an innovative publishing house with a diverse, engaging and ground breaking list. Natalie Watson, Richard Hilton, Eric Sharman and Thomas Ball are a strong team. This book is an example of the good judgement and outward facing learning ecology of its the […]

This is a book that has taken a long time in the reading. Why? It is so rich, so searching, so challenging that I had to keep putting it down to ingest the questions, stories and wisdom that is captured so simply in these eight chapters. A phrase here, a question there, an idea or […]

Nothing much stands still these days except perhaps weekends in Lockdown. I have been to Church (online of course) and my usual catch up with friends or trip out of Salisbury have been properly curtailed. The opportunity to catch up on some reading before my mandatory exercise. Walking requires some decisions. Where am I now […]

At Sarum College a significant part of our work is in the formation of women and men for lay and ordained ministry ( see a little of our work here https://www.sarum.ac.uk/ministry-training). I enjoyed Matts last book (Becoming Reverend) which charts his progress, survival and flourishing amidst the ups and downs of theological College in Durham. […]

Lessons from the 44th President of the United States of America I have spent far too much time with my head buried in the pages of political memoir for good and less good reasons! As a genre they are complex, contradictory and (on the whole ) much given to short term judgments that seek to […]

An observant friend taking note of the small pile of ‘books being read or (being attempted) to be read’ saw a copy of Jan Morris’ earlier volume In My Minds Eye A Thought Dairy on my table and thoughtfully produced this book for a Christmas present. So those days between Christmas and New Year were […]

As adventures in reading go this wonderful volume is a sheer delight. Skilfully researched and lucidly written the author inhabits the space with creative care. The passion and love of the subject matter shine through the text as each chapter inhabits history, place, art and writers across the centuries. These past months have imposed upon […]