That is a song title - I know. But put to practice quite nicely in Lamb. Recommended by a friend, I picked up the book. I don't often read comedy but admit that on each occasion I do, it's a good time. (For instance, when I first read Bridget Jones' Diary, tears rolled down my face and I had to lie down. My boyfriend at the time could not understand what I found so funny when I'd read a page or two aloud. Needless to, he is no longer my boyfriend. Humorless git.) To take it one step further, nor do I read books about religion. I had a feeling though that Biff's gospel wasn't going to get too preachy.

A point is made throughout the book: the bible mentions Jesus (referred to by his birth name Josh) when he is 30 years old and older. Never the Josh we must surely be curious about as a child. Biff clears that up. He is brought back from the nether-regions of wherever-friends-of-Jesus go when they die to add his own gospel. Inquiring minds want to know!

Biff starts where he should: at 6 years old, when he and Josh are best buds. There's a girl in town that Biff has a crush on - her name is Mary Magdalene. But wouldn't you know, she kinda likes Josh.

Josh knows he's the Messiah. That means, he also knows he can't give in to any sin. Biff takes on the burden of helping Josh understand sin without directly dabbling in the stuff himself.

And did you know Josh said that God really doesn't care if Jews eat bacon? Because... it's just bacon. (Hey! Look at Chris Moore, not the Crobinator).

To make this less a book report and more a review, I tell you my experience in the reading: smirking. I didn't think it was a comedy in the slap-your-knee, hardy-har-har sort of way. It had an undertone that required silent head-nods at parties. Those quips and wits and nods that say "You get that? I got that. That was good."

Personally, that's all I need to enjoy it.

(I'd try to end this with something sarcastic, because Biff is proud of his invention of sarcasm - and upset when Josh uses it incorrectly, but I can't think of anything. Plus I'm working. In a cubicle. Which are brain-disinfectants, leaving them completely free of thought).

I must admit to approaching the God Delusion with a little trepidation. Here was a book I'd wanted to read for a long time, now available in paperback, but I could almost hear the warnings from friends of mine when I picked it off the shelf. You know the kind of thing, Dawkins is a fundamentalist, why is it his business to discuss religion in the first place etc., how qualified is he to even speak about this? Some of these criticisms and more were put in Terry Eagleton's review of the orginal in the London Review of Books, "Lunging, flailing, mispunching" (19 October 2006) whose opening line compared Dawkins on theology to someone discussing biology only having read the British Book of Birds. If not going this far wouldn't some argue against the tone of language employed in the book as being counter-productive?

There is no escaping the fact that The God Delusion is a polemic, so why be surprised if Dawkins isn't presenting a balanced overview of all the arguments in favour or against (any) god's existence? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think I remember a section in the Communist Manifesto that argued that, actually you could see modern industrial capitalism as largely misunderstood and not all that bad after all. Maybe criticising Dawkins for having only a basic grasp of theology is unfair. He makes frequent references to it throughout the book even though it is apparent from early on precisely what he thinks of any theology (not much in case you're wondering).

Dawkins moves to counter some of the more obvious criticisms of the book in the introduction to the paperback edition, organised under separate headings. He certainly makes no apology for his perceived "shrill, strident, intemperate, intolerant, ranting language". Actually, I found the tone of the language varied throughout; sometimes shrill but often calmer. In chapters four and five Dawkins is on his home territory of evolutionary biology and it's sometimes possible to believe one is reading a different book, although the chapter titles might give it away (e.g. chapter four, "Why there is almost certainly no God").

If there's a criticism to be made of Dawkins' language I'd suggest it would lie in his enthusiasm for slang words and phrases. Is it really necessary for instance to use the words "gazillion", "faith-heads" or the phrase "what is all that about?" which don't seem to befit an Oxford professor, even one who is deliberately writing a populist work. Also, for a book illuminating the wonders and certainties of science, the word "probably" makes too common an appearance (probably).

If you're a heathen like myself then there's a fair chance you'll recognise some of the arguments put forward in the God Delusion. Dawkins covers the logical arguments against religion and adds in his own from the stand point of being an evolutionary biologist. For instance, many a doubter would have questioned how you could have so many competing mutually incompatible faiths in the world all claiming to reveal the ultimate truth. An adherent of one belief system doesn't believe in the god of another's. The atheist takes this one step further and believes in "one less god". You may have also questioned why some parts of the Bible are "allowed" to be perceived as allegorical and some not. Either it's the word of God, or it's not surely? Dawkins is quite right to remind us how unpleasant many of the Bible stories actually are; naturally some of these are the ones most likely to be described as allegorical by the faithful.

Most of Dawkins' ire is naturally reserved for the new proponents of creationism, or "intelligent design" as it likes to brand itself these days. This is of course the theory that there must be a god (or "designer") as some things are just too complex to have come about by evolution. In other words, we don't understand it, so it must have been god who did it. This school of thinking seems so utterly ridiculous that you might consider it unnecessary to give it a second thought, although it has considerable support in the United States and creationism has even made its way into a government-subsidised school in the UK (Emmanuel College in Gateshead).

Dawkins seeks to find answers to the origins of religion and its continued survival in the modern world in terms of evolutionary theory and the theory of memetics; the meme as cultural analogue to the gene. I think this only goes part of the way. As a lapsed historian I would like to see more analysis of the historical context of religion and why some have been more successful than others, but maybe this is outside the scope of Dawkins' work; he is a biologist after all. This aside, Dawkins' arguments are sometimes compromised by a lack of understanding of historical and political factors. The "Troubles" in Northern Ireland cannot be explained away simply by reference to religion, and it's arguable Islamism is also a political phenomenon providing a binding ideology to disparate groups in the same way Marxism-Leninism did to nationalist movements in the Twentieth Century.

The book closes with discussion of some of the other large issues traditionally raised in defence of religion: it provides consolation and inspiration. Dawkins argues we can find consolation in reflection; we are not who we were when we were children and we can experience a series of "slow deaths" throughout our lives as we live through Shakespeare's seven ages of man. Maybe this isn't quite on a par with the promise of eternal life but I found it a strangely comforting way to look at this issue. Inspiration is maybe an easier topic to address. Douglas Adam's quoted words at beginning of the book put it most succintly, "isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

I can understand why it's easy to dislike Dawkins. Even if you agree with his views and don't question his language and tone too much you might find his effortless self-promotion makes you shift uncomfortably in your seat occasionally. Frequent references to his other books aside (that is forgiveable), I wasn't really convinced it was central to his argument to maybe mention his website (where you can buy his DVDs) quite as much. He is certainly not backwards in coming forwards -- he was even recently spotted giving a lecture on the God Delusion in Second Life.

Whatever you make of it I think this book makes for a welcome stimulator of debate. As we are reminded throughout the book, religion holds a privileged position in society and is often considered to be above criticism. The faithful (or certain sections of them) are often very quick to take offence (e.g. at dangerous things like plays, or cartoons) and make their protests known, and as a result of well-intentioned diversity policies (see the GLA website for a recent example), governments are sometimes too willing to listen to these complaints. So, maybe its publication is timely. Whether it will change any minds is however, doubtful despite Dawkins' high hopes. You'll love it or you'll hate it, a bit like marmite. And I love marmite.

This book hardly needs any introduction - if you have not heard of it you must have been cataloging the names of the minor characters in ¨War and Peace¨ over the last 10 months or so. Basically this book is written in Dawkins´ normal expansive and eloquent style which readers of his earlier books will have become accustomed to; even given the subject matter this book carries you along at a fair old pace - for a non-fiction book this is quite the page turner.

The subject matter is Dawkins´ pet subject, namely the irrationality of the belief in god or any other supreme, all knowing being. In this book he goes further arguing that this belief has, through the ages, significantly harmed the human race, society in general, science in particular and remains the primary cause of individual suffering today. The first half of the book is a devastating attack on the arguments offered by the proponents of religious thinking, Dawkins takes each argument for the existence of god in turn and leaves it battered and lifeless on the road to rational Nirvana (and he´d argue that this last phrase is a symptom of a language peppered with religious concepts - brainwashing us all!).

The second half of the book labors the point and you feel a certain sense of frustration with the arguments presented - ¨OK - I get it - enough already!!¨ - check out the chapter ¨Childhood, abuse and the escape from religion¨ one feels that Mr. Dawkins would rather not have included the punctuation - nevertheless it is still well written and the intelligence of the man shines through every paragraph.

Time to come clean - I am an atheist (have been since I was 18) who was brought up in a ´traditional´ Roman Catholic household and I enjoyed this book - I will almost certainly re-read it. This however is the problem with ¨The God Delusion¨ - I doubt that a devote Hindu would read this book and think ¨Wow - I´ve been duped all my life and now Dawkins has opened my mind to the futility of religion, give me a bacon sandwich¨, the thrust of the book is powerfully but I believe it will mostly preach to the converted if I can be forgiven for using another religiously bias phrase.

I believe I read somewhere that Dawkins hopes that the book will lead to a reduction in the influence religion has on the governance of our societies - particularly in the United States and that this will be achieved through the increased use of rational thought unencumbered by religious bias - I think this is a tall order for this book, good as it is, and possibly the world post ¨The God Delusion" is more polarised on this subject than it was before.

I have mixed opinions about “A Secret of the Universe.” I found it very informative, but I did not agree with the author’s conclusion. The book basically is the story of two lifelong friends: Ian and Mac. Both are seeking the ultimate meaning of life, and both are traveling divergent paths. The author uses these two men to present his opinions about the Judeo-Christian view of life and about a non-Biblical scientific view of life.

The main characters are Ian Keppler and Bill Vanderveen. Both get married in the novel; both have children. There are many characters: in-laws, parents, friends, and a study-group of scientists trying to discern what is really true in human traditions. Gibson does a good job of characterization. He describes some surprising conduct on the part of some characters, but, in the concluding chapters, he lets that conduct amplify his thesis.

A harder task is to bring in the opposing world views for Bill and Ian to discuss. Gibson does a good job here. I was surprised at some of the world views described, but Gibson provides ample references to show that these views are indeed held by real people, experts in their fields. A difficulty with lengthy technical material is that many writers will simply narrate the views instead of expressing the different views through dialog between characters. Gibson’s dialog, when he uses it, is good, but there are long sections of the book that are narrated.

Gibson presents some surprising information in his book. In support of the presumption that Christianity is not true, he quotes an Episcopalian bishop (a real person) claiming that Jesus Christ is essentially a myth, and Gibson quotes Carl Sagan saying that if Jesus Christ ascended into heaven at the speed of light (the fastest speed known to science), he, today (two thousand years later), would not yet have risen above our galaxy. In support of the Judeo-Christian view, Gibson quotes C. S. Lewis explanation that Christian altruism (inspired by God) is what motivates people to help others, sometimes at the risk of their own lives and to rejoice and be touched when observing goodness in others.

The first half of the book is an even-handed discussion of the pros and cons of the Judeo-Christian view of life with many quotes from contemporary scholars. About halfway through the book, one of the characters opines that if someone could prove that there was no historical Jesus Christ, it would be like revealing a secret of the universe. It is here that I got a premonition of where this book is headed, and I began to wonder what the secret is.

Gibson has focused everything, even religion, on a scientific quest for truth using the scientific method. The scientific method is effective for physical objects that can be measured and experimented with, but it is not effective when dealing with spiritual objects, like God, that cannot be measured or experimented with, or even observed. Gibson focuses on the work that scriptural specialists have done in reconstructing ancient manuscripts, particularity Gnostic manuscripts. However, this is a study only of the manuscripts. The scientific method cannot measure beyond the manuscripts to determine the truth of the words in the manuscripts. In addition to lost Gnostic manuscripts, there is also an ongoing legacy of Christian writers whose manuscripts were not lost. To be fair to the Christian tradition, one would have to take into account both sources of information. The manuscripts that were lost and recently found might represent what earlier generations rejected. The traditions that were saved probably represent what previous generations thought was correct and worthy of preservation. Presuming that the lost manuscripts portrayed authentic Christianity and the information that was preserved portrayed a subverted Christianity goes well beyond science. Not taking this into account is a big flaw in Gibson’s arguments.

Gibson goes so far as to propose that there is no evidence of God, no revelation, nothing more than what humans can imagine. Gibson has Mac, one of the proponents of atheism, state that, since the earliest days of tribal conflict, distinctions between people have most commonly existed based upon their various religions. I disagree here also. Tribal conflict does not have its roots in religious views. Television documentaries (Animal Kingdom) (Planet Earth) show that meerkats, chimpanzees, and packs of wolves also have tribal conflicts. It is, therefore, obvious that tribal warfare stems from our animal nature and is not something peculiar to our spiritual nature.

Gibson wonders: “how our minds, the cells in our head, could absorb and process such concepts as Einstein’s relativity.” Does Gibson think that humans are entirely physical, no spirit—no soul? One would presume so reading the book. The secret, when Gibson finally reveals it, is very elementary. The secret is love. Everyone would agree with the secret. However, Gibson misses the point that, perhaps, God is the source of love.

Gibson also argues against emotion-driven thinking, proposing that truth-driven thinking is preferred. He’s absolutely correct. In his book, however, when Bill Vanderveen suddenly discovers the secret of the universe, the discovery is realized during very emotional circumstances. When Ian affirms the secret to his sons, it is also done at a moment when emotions are high. I think this is another flaw in his book. The secret of the universe should have been discovered during a truth-driven exercise devoid of emotion and the other impediments to clear thinking that Gibson had pointed out in his book.

Gibson’s book is exciting and entertaining fiction. It contains a lot of surprising information, with references that show that many eminent people hold the positions he describes. Read it for information and entertainment. If you do not agree with Gibson's conclusions, you are not alone.

This is a review I wrote for the Carnegie Medal Award site. I believe the story is inspired by real events in Ireland in the 1980's. I will revise when I get a chance:

There is a very poetic and lilting feel to the writing in this beatifully written but very sad book. The setting is a small community in Ireland where everyone knows your business, has opinions on it, and although religion plays a strong part in the life of the town, a christian approach to helping each other is not always evident.

The focus is on a young teenage girl Shell, who certainly does not have her troubles to seek. Her mother is dead leaving her to cope with her younger brother and sister as well as a father who is certainly not playing his role of parent. She finds comfort in the arms of a teenage boy but the relationship leads to her being caught up in a horrible scandal.

There is a lot that is very sad about this book, but ultimately I thought that there was hope at the end, though maybe not what you could call a very happy ending.

Although a short novel at 396 pages, Anti-Christ: A Satirical End of Days manages to pack in religious, secular and celestial corruption, the story of a downtrodden everyman who somehow becomes entangled in it all, and an amusing look into the secret life of angels, binding it all together with keen intelligence and gritty prose.

The novel starts with the painful portrait of a loser.

And Matthew Ford, the protagonist, is not even a likeable loser.

He is the kind of person you immediately become frustrated with, and I found myself muttering remonstrances like: "Three hours of being stood up! That's two and a half hours too long! Don't be a victim!", "The dog peed on your leg and you haven't got time to use the bathroom? Don't you have a hose?", and "Matthew, why is your mother doing your laundry? Empower yourself, man, for goodness' sake!"

(Note that becoming cross with a character is not necessarily a bad thing. It shows you are accepting his reality, and even empathising with him, to an extent. And it is definitely an improvement on being bored and indifferent because you can't relate to a character at all *cough*Cecilia Dart-Thornton*cough*.)

As the story progresses, Ford starts to show promise. The former loser displays a gutsiness and integrity that becomes more and more impressive as he defies the corrupt Messiah, is tempted by Satan, and, finally, guided by Buddha, takes on Armageddon with an army of zombies. By the end of the book I almost liked the guy.

I admit that I found Anti-Christ: A Satirical End of Days easy going. I like Moses's writing style.

Nevertheless, weighty narrative aside, the novel is founded on an unusual and clever premise that will hook you in and keep you wondering where and how the madness will end.

Anti-Christ: A Satirical End of Days is not so much anti-Christian as it is anti-establishment. It seems to say, Please, have a closer look. Don't just accept what you're told. If the government is really doing God's work on Earth, then God help us all.

I recently read the above novel written by Matthew Moses. It was a great read filled with a brand of humor that audiences will either love or hate depending on the tolerant nature of their religious beliefs. I’ll do my best to give an overview of the story, the controversial aspects of it which may offend certain people, as well as the symoblism used throughout this work.

Story

The story revolves around Matthew Ford, a failed philosophy student who begins a feud with Jesus which escalates into the Apocalypse.

Matthew Ford feels cut off from the society around him. He stares at people from afar. He walks through a crowd rather than with them. People speak of him rather than to him. He is alone, bitter, yet unable to do anything to guide his own destiny and bring himself happiness. One night he is embarrassed by a failed internet date and returns home, one sad night in a series of many.

Once home, Matthew finds himself kept awake by a bothersome ghost intent on attracting his attention despite the fact that the big final is tomorrow. In an act of displaced rage, Matthew heaves the ghost out of the house evicting it from its place of eternal residence.

The following day, after a horrible morning and a near car wreck, Matthew takes his final and proceeds to the parking lot to return home when he is accosted by two Cherubim, Mel and Ezekiel, the eternal innocents of the Christ. They tell him of an important meeting he has with their boss. Unnerved by the pair, Matthew finds himself kidnapped when he attempts to get away and spirited into the atmosphere, through space, and into a black hole on his way to Heaven.

What Matthew finds in Heaven is far from golden fields and Eden. It is a grim, Orwellian world where all are bored, watching Prime Time television for their sole glimmer of entertainment, Jesus is a neo-con fascist dictator, and the angels are a fringe element of brutal thugs constantly dreaming of undermining Jesus' regime.

Once at the spire, the heart of Heaven, Matthew is ushered into the presence of the Almighty where he is made part of a photo-op for the struggling Messiah. With the current problems of the Church and in Jesus' faltering authority, it has been decided to make an example of Matthew for the whole of Existence. In evicting the ghost, Matthew has broken one of Creation's laws. Only an agent of the Church may evict, i.e. exorcise, any known entity from a property. Because Matthew is not an agent of the Almighty, he is told that his eviction of the prior night is non-binding and he must accept the ghost back. Stubborn, not simply because he has finally had enough of being pushed around, but also because he sees this as one more burden added to an already crushing life, Matthew refuses the order and even demands to speak with God. To his surprise, Matthew discovers the once great Creator is now a vegetable in a wheelchair.

In an act of disdain and the beginning of his maturation, Matthew tells Jesus no shaming “The Christ” in front of the whole of Heaven. Matthew is cautioned there will be repercussions but fails to heed the warning. Upon his return to Earth, Matthew discovers that Jesus' threat is not an idle one. It begins with a poor case of acne. Then Matthew's professor is given a vision to fail his student. In a fit of rage, Matthew strikes back against Jesus in the only way he can: he desecrates a nativity scene. The feud between the two escalates until Matthew frames a priest for a string of robberies only to reveal a deep criminal streak in the Church and threaten its earthly foundations.

It is into these uncertain times that Satan appears to offer Matthew the opportunity to truly hit Jesus while he is down. Fearing what the Messiah will do in response to his latest act, Matthew finds himself seduced into aiding the Devil and becomes a new age pop guru that guides the world away from religion to a new philosophy. An important piece of his new agenda is the obese who Matthew encourages to accept the ultimate diet: fasting. In so doing he creates not only a deep undermining separation between the fat and thin, but also stokes a growing, underlying rage through the stress of withdrawal.

Matthew's philosophy proves disruptive to America. The fat are fomenting food riots across the country and his speeches are increasingly calling for not merely a change of government but its outright overthrow. Beginning to feel doubts about what he is doing, Matthew hesitates in continuing on with the plan between him and Satan. It is then that Matthew finds himself the subject of an assassination attempt by the Vatican in order to stop the rise of the Antichrist. In a harrowing escape attempt, Matthew is murdered. Only then is it revealed that Satan was behind the murder plot before the Devil casts Matthew into Purgatory and seizes Matthew’s body for his own.

As Matthew tries to find a way out of Purgatory, Satan brings to fruition a rebellion that topples the American government and pushes the world closer and closer to World War III. The Vatican is invaded via the Patriot Act while Pakistan and India destroy one another in a nuclear war and China goes to war with Taiwan.

Through the help of two coyotes, men that smuggle Mexicans into Heaven, Matthew finds his way back to Paradise narrowly escaping an angelic border patrol that drives the group into the lands of Buddha. It is there that Matthew learns of the truth behind the two thousand year cease fire between Heaven and Hell. Heaven is collapsing, that collapse what effectively we call the expanding universe. In an effort to stop the collapse, Satan created universal law in order to bind the chaos for the eventual rebuilding of Heaven. Instead, Life appeared and God refused to allow their death for such an endeavor. Increasingly bitter and upset at God's refusal to allow him to save Existence and finish his work, Satan is cast out of Heaven along with Jesus, one of his followers. In order to regain favor with God, Jesus attempts to enlighten man making good on his probation. To the shock of all, Jesus is crucified leading to God having a stroke. With the Creator incapacitated, Jesus hurries back to Heaven and enacts a coup stealing the authority of Existence. With his power base still wobbly, Satan offers a truce between Heaven and Hell that has held for twin millennia. It is only now, with the threat to all of Existence, that Satan's deeper motives have become clear.

Events find themselves driven towards that final battle at Mount Megiddo between man, the undead, angels, and demons for the fate of all Existence.

Controversy

The controversy surrounding the novel comes from the humorous take on Christianity. Jesus is perceived as a megalomaniacal, totalitarian leader who has usurped power in Heaven and is brainwashing humanity to serve as his pawns against the angelic opposition, those who believe God should be restored to power. One joke has Islam being created by Gabriel, one of the angelic faction leaders, in order to wipe out Christianity and discredit Jesus in order to bring about a successful coup in Heaven.

Christianity is revealed to be this large corporate entity run from the Spire, the central point of Heaven. There, in the boardroom, Jesus, his apostles, and the Pope via teleconference develop new policies in order to drive up membership and challenge their competitors in the religious markets including Islam, Buddhism, and the Christian franchises (protestants/cults).

Paradise is a drab, banal, Orwellian world of steel and glass where everyone lounges around constantly being subconsciously indoctrinated. With nothing to do, the majority of Heaven has become addicted to Prime Time television for their regular fix of “life”.

God is a vegetable in a wheelchair. Paralyzed and left mute by a stroke after seeing Jesus’ crucifixion, the Almighty can only communicate via an electronic device similar to Stephen Hawking’s.

Other topics covered by the book are corruption in politics, the parasitic self-help movement, the rise of Russia, and Church abuses. The latter has proven inflammatory with the novel revealing that the Catholic Church runs a pornographic website as well as deals in organized crime

Symbolism

The story itself is very symbolic in points dealing with religion.

Christianity is criticized for being a cult of personality around Jesus, its very precepts being similar to those of authoritarian figures such as Hitler, Stalin, and others. It focuses on an all powerful, unquestionable, god-like figure who rules over all.

Likewise, the very tenets of Christianity call for no thought, only faith. Give, invest yourself totally. Forget your individual will. Become a part of the mass. Forget personality, originality, uniqueness. Be silent and let Jesus speak for you. Become part of the herd, the flock, and be led by your shepherd.

Thus the boring lifestyle of those that reside in Heaven. They can do nothing, are not allowed to live. All man’s needs are met, no reason for complaint allowed. It is a blissful retirement for those that furthered the Church in its work and growth on Earth. Yet these “retirees’” lives are bland perfection. Without needs or challenges the mortal is lost on the immortal plain. Their yearning for their former flawed lives is shown in their fascination with Prime Time television. It shows the counterproductive lifestyle of Heaven, how man is greatest in his attempt at perfection but is lost when he attains it. In becoming an ideal he loses what he is.

God himself is written as this helpless, mute figure at the whim of Existence. He serves as the perfect symbol of religion, a mystery that everyone projects their own views on to explain the unknowable. He is also shown to be quite human having created the Universe by accident.

The fall of Heaven into Existence is another symbolic facet of the novel. God, giving in to rage, loses control of his reason and shatters a part of Paradise. From that broken, flawed part of Paradise the Universe comes to be. It is the beginning of mortality over immortality.

Finally there is Satan, a figure that dares to challenge absolute evil. His intentions are not to destroy Existence but to save Paradise. He sees the threat of mortality to immortality and only assumes the mantle of destroyer in order to become a sort of savior. He is the ideal of corruption, that the ends may distort the means. In truth, Satan is a mockery of the Jesus character: he fell in order that Creation may continue.

Final Opinion

This was a fun novel. It went places I didn’t think anyone had the courage to. If one is able to read this book with the mindset that it is merely a fun diversion rather than a biblical tome then it is a great piece of entertainment. Don’t take it seriously. Have fun with it and its alterations on long established principles such as religion, God, Jesus, and Creation. The book isn’t bashing. It’s trying to tell a story.

This book is not meant to be a literary triumph. Far from. There may be some deep message buried in there but above all it is meant to make you laugh with its wild ride. This novel is a hilarious distraction from the very real and dangerous world we find ourselves in. You can’t help but to smile and chuckle as you read it. With the way things are today, who could ask for anything more?

David Anderton is a connoisseur of fine food, wine and classical music. He attended Ampleforth public school, studied at Oxford University, and lived in Rome. His father died when he was younger, and his mother is a Morningside lady (a well-to-do area in Edinburgh) who writes novels. He is erudite, thoughtful and intelligent. David Anderton is a Catholic priest.

Father David is working in Dalgarnock, a fictitious town in Ayrshire, Scotland. Many of the parishioners are unemployed, having lost their manufacturing jobs as the local factories closed down. He has a comfortable rectory at St John Ogilvie, and is assisted by his housekeeper, Mrs Poole. Part of his role involves working with pupils at the local secondary school, St Andrew's, and it is here that he meets Mark and Lisa, who take an interest in Father David. A strange friendship grows between the three, as they exchange text messages, and start wandering at night, exploring the industrial estates and wastegrounds of Dalgarnock, where there is little for teenagers to do except numb the boredom with whatever mischief and substances they can find. I was never sufficiently persuaded just why he - a 56 year old man - participated in the friendship without realising that it was inappropriate however.

It has been claimed that the author has based his Dalgarnock on the real town of Girvan in Ayrshire, (see Sunday Herald article), but my sister and I disagree. We attended St Andrew's Academy (Saltcoats), where you can see the island of Ailsa Craig from the classrooms, we lived in Kilwinning (home of the Mother Lodge of the Orange Order, and an abbey) and in Stevenston (home of the Ardeer club, ICI factory, and the Blue Star garage, which is a name known to locals but not the one on the sign outside). The author has an authentic insider's knowledge of the Three Towns area, and describes it in detail. As teenagers in Stevenston, my sister and I had friends much like Mark and Lisa, and the author's portrayal of these aimless teenagers and the ways they pass their time definitely ring true.

Back to the plot though. It soon becomes apparent that Father David's friendship with Mark and Lisa is ill-advised, though he has been too naive to see this. Having spent a life distracted by art and wine and intellectualism (and a little religion), he is not equipped to recognise manipulation, or to consider how others perceive him and his actions.

Much is made in the book about the differences between Father David's life and the lives of his parishioners. The author writes in great detail about the family lives of Mrs Poole, and Mark, as though he has known people like these. I have known people like these. It is not that the author is simply using the other characters as a contrast to Father David. While social class could be argued as a factor in the way that the book's events are played out, I didn't believe that this was a book about class. For me, this is a heartbreaking and wonderful book about loss, regret and mourning of the path not taken.

Father David is written as a sympathetic character - naive, but essentially well-meaning. We learn about his student days at Oxford at the height of political activism in the 1960s, his friendship with the 'Marcellists', a group of Proust followers, and about the tragic events which lead him to decide to join the priesthood. The priest chooses faith in God as a safety net against the pain and loss of loving, and it is his gradual realisation of this I think, that makes the book so tragic. His relative lack of experience in close relationships leaves him vulnerable. This is a warm, thoughtful and true to life story, and would have received 5 stars if I hadn't been so upset at the end.

My partner says that in Britain it is easier to come out as gay than as a Catholic. If the first is likely to spark some curiosity, the second sounds dull. The publication reviewed here is exactly about being gay and … well, if not always Catholic, then at least having a taste of religion.

Disclosures: Conversations Gay and Spiritual by Michael Ford is a very simple read. It is a collection of interviews with gayand lesbian people, mostly Christians from Britain and USA and few from other places in the world. A lot of these peoplewere or are engaged in different ministries in their faith communities. An Anglican priest who left his Church after a [straight]bishop made clear that no personal talents he had could overweight his homosexuality. Two mothers, Catholic women, withchildren in their teens fell in love with each other. A boy, whose family belonged to a fundamentalist Christian community, at thefirst opportunity went to look for Christians who would not be disgusted with him for being gay. Among the twenty five stories there is one of a person with whom many of us in Quest came across – James Alison, a theologian from London. The last chapter is a particularly touching interview with Sister Eva, a Catholic nun who for some ten years worked for the Terrence Higgins Trust,  the first HIV agency in Britain.

This book is not about prayer or transcendental experiences of two dozen gays and lesbians. “Spiritual” in its title refers to broadly understood fundamental questions, like: Who am I? Why does it happen to me? What should I be like?

A lot of the stories Michael Ford has collected are dramatic. They touch major struggles and decisions: coming out to one’s parents, or wife, or bishop; leaving the seminary or priesthood, separating from a spouse or accepting that one’s relationship would never be accepted, celebrated and supported by the Christian community, etc. Some of those to whom the author spoke, were still struggling to come to terms with who they are. Others spoke about being at peace with what they had discovered about themselves. All these interviews explored, in one way or another, stories of being a gay person in the context of faith, in a  community of believers or of leaving such a community. This book gives a voice to those whom many of our brothers and sisters in the Church would prefer not to hear at all. Especially, because it is not a discussion, or a series of arguments, but a sincere witness to the joyful and sad experiences of these men and women.

Escape tells one woman's story of fleeing a fundamentalist religion and getting her eight children out in the process. Jessop details several instances of abuse that occurred during her time involved in the Colorado City, AZ community, and many of these were difficult for me to read. Her husband's other wives shunned her and abused her (and their own) children by beating them, verbally attacking them, or depriving them of food. Her husband was not involved with the children, but the threat of losing them to the outside world was very real to him, and her fight for custody became dangerous.

Throughout the book, I admired Jessop's courage and determination. I can hardly imagine how difficult it would have been to fight for my freedom and that of my children, while I was constantly being told that my attempts wouldn't work and my children had been turned against me. In reading this, I realized how little I knew about these extremist groups that have popped up across the nation, and I have learned that they are more dangerous than I ever thought.

The writing itself is sometimes choppy and elementary, but Jessop tells her story with passion and genuineness. There was a sense of immediacy and urgency in her writing, something I believe that she felt while experiencing nearly unbelievable abuses and human rights violations. I enjoyed the book, even though at times I had to put it down and shake my head, wondering if I would have been as strong as Jessop in her situation.