Books Breakthroughs

AIDAN OF LINDISFARNE:IRISH FLAME WARMS A NEW WORLD: 'I am really enjoying "Aidan." A lovely piece of historical fiction' Paul John Martin USA ... 'I am loving your book on Aidan, it is so rich with narrative truth it is feeding my spirit. Thank you so much for writing this way, it's a great story mixed with the principles of living well in Jesus...' Scott Brennan 'How beautiful! ... many congratulations on creating this treasure for humanity'. Bernadette Farrell

THE COWSHED REVOLUTION: Ross Douthat, the youngest op-ed columnist in the history of the New York Times writes: 'Five years ago, our civilization experienced a massive economic crisis, but our current political, intellectual, and social climate has changed much less than one might expect.“This is not the stability of a flourishing, resilient society. It’s the peace of a decadent one.” Join him at the 2014 Laing Lectures to learn what decadence means, why it’s so dangerous, and how we might escape it... What would enable us to transcend and escape our current situation? Several possibilities will be considered: technological breakthroughs, religious revolution, and space travel...'

BEFORE WE SAY GOODBYE:PREPARING FOR A GOOD DEATH - Rachel Giles wrote an article about Death Cafes. 'We were at a Death Café at the Greenbelt Festival, run by the Moot Community. At a Death Café you get to talk death. With tea. And cake. The noise of animated conversations, and the amount of laughter, was surprising. It was something of a miracle. British people – talking about death!

Death Cafés are a growing phenomenon. As I write, 1,077 Death Cafés have been held around the world, from London to Tokyo. A Death Café can be run in a real café, or in a temporary venue, like a festival or a church hall. Anyone can set one up; there are guidelines available to follow. A Death Café isn’t a counselling or a grief support session, nor is it for profit. It has no agenda but giving people the chance to talk about death. Only one in 10 people in the UK have talked about their own death with someone else, according to the campaigning organisation Dying Matters. Death has been medicalised in our society, which has relieved much suffering. But around 60% of people in the UK die in hospital: death has been largely removed from our homes and communities. A hundred years ago, this wasn’t the case, and death was seen as much more a part of life...'

There is a fourth book that is making waves. It's all about Hilda. Wait for next week - from Whitby!