Culture

Penguin RRP $ http://breath.timwinton.com.au/ I first read Shallows, Tim Winton’s second novel (which won the Miles Franklin Award), in 1984 when I was 21 and Tim was 24. So reading Breath, his ninth novel, 24 years later was something of a shared reminiscence. It is about adolescence, the ocean, surfing and feeling disconnected from peers, the community and the opposite ...

Church Publishing Inc. $24.95 When I saw “The Hip Hop Prayer Book” was up for review I jumped at the chance to take a look at this resource. Having grown up rap dancing through school discos, and listening to rappers I thought this would be up my alley. I have to confess I have previously preached a sermon as a ...

Polebridge Press RRP $28.95 What was the relationship of Jesus to John the Baptist? Was John a saint? Or even a Christian? These and many other questions are examined in this report by the Jesus Seminar (a group of about 200 biblical scholars based in California and bent particularly on the quest for the historical Jesus). In this volume they ...

Church Publishing, New York RRP $39.95 Bill Gordh, an accomplished story teller, educator and musician has a wealth of ideas and techniques to share with parents and those who work with children in schools and churches. As Gordh teaches, he entertains and allows children to be who they are before God. He shows his readers how to use their own ...

Canterbury Press, Norwich , in association with Cairns Publications RRP: $34.95 This is one of those types of books that you cannot read all at once or even over a number of days – unless you are thinking of 365 days! For this is an anthology with a quotation for every day of the year. The selected quotes come from ...

Lion Hudson 2007 RRP: $23.95 In this clear and concise book, John Lennox seeks to put to rest what is often an unchallenged assumption in our secular age: that atheism is the only intellectually viable option in the light of the success of modern science. He argues, instead, that rather than burying God, science bears witness to the universe as ...

Elk & Ice Books (Noosaville) 2006 RRP: $29.95 Most of us take for granted health services that are readily available. But back in the 1940s there were still immense areas of this continent had no ready access to basic health or medical services. The Flying Doctor Service was still in its infancy, and bush nurses and hospitals were few and ...

Scribe 2007 RRP $22.00 In the pantheon of anti-religious deities, Tamas Pataki is small fry. His contribution to the cause does, however, significantly augment the writings of the big four – Dawkins, Harris, Hitchins and Dennett. Pataki is Honorary Senior Fellow and sometime philosophy lecturer at Melbourne University. In his small book Against Religion (128 pages), he goes a step ...

Monarch Books (Oxford) 2007 RRP $16.95 The continent of Africa has for decades been in the news due to stories of war and conflict and the resulting humanitarian crises. Ed Walker has been in the thick of some of the worst areas – and has witnessed the depths and heights of human interaction. Ed Walker has worked as part of ...

Hodder & Stoughton RRP $29.95 ‘The Jesus Way’ is an extended meditation on what Jesus meant when he said: “I am the way…” (John 14:6). Peterson is concerned that the Christian church has lost sight of the distinctive ‘ways and means’ involved in following Jesus. He has written this book to encourage contemporary followers of Jesus to re-evaluate their lives ...