British Political leaders have revealed their Summer Reading (see the list in comments below) – We believe the church people we’ve asked have come up with a greater variety! Here are our church people’s answers… What will you be reading?
Trish writes: I’m off on a Craft Retreat this summer and I’m taking TS Eliot’s “Four Quartets” – one of those books I’ve been meaning to read for years… for relaxation when I’m not knitting, making lace or quilting!
Sandra is reading a novel: “I am looking forward to reading Mr Weston’s Good Wine, a 1923 novel by T. F. Powys which came with my father’s high recommendation and astonishment that I call myself an Anglican and yet hadn’t read it. It is a Christian allegory set in a Dorset Village.”
The parish assistants are being quite ‘religious’ in their summer choices!
Rosie: I’ve just started The Inclusive God by Steven Shakespeare and Hugh Rayment-Pickard. This takes a fresh look at how the Scriptures and the Church are (or at least, should be) deeply rooted in welcoming one and all: that God isn’t just for ‘a chosen few’. Thought-provoking but easy to read, and fairly short.
John: I’m reading Cranky, Beautiful Faith by Nadia Bolz-Weber – a “tragicomic spiritual memoir” by pastor (and former stand-up comic) in Denver, Colarado. She’s very focused on the church reaching out to marginalised people.
And what about the clergy?
Fr John: For summer holiday reading: Marian Keys novel The brightest star in the sky. she is Irish and a great observer of life. they are all big books but page-turners and she mixes humour in with the serious.
Fr Ian: In my sabbatical period for relaxation I’ve been reading detective stories from the ‘Golden Age of Crime Writing’ the 1930s and 40s… In the summer I will be reading some of Margery Allingham’s Mr Campion series.
PS An earlier blog on the same subject makes interesting reading too: Click here
St Chrysostom's Church News and Views 
Sandra: my boss at London South Bank, adored Mr Weston’s Good Wine and raved about it to me once, and gave me a copy which I have never got around to reading but still have somewhere. As you might know already, TF Powys is the brother of the more famous John Cowper Powys, whose work I love.
The Sunday Times asked Political leader’s what their choice for Summer Reading is this year:
David Cameron:
A Spy among Friends by Ben Macintyre
Coming up Trumps; A memoir by Baroness Trumpington
The Trigger by Tim Butcher
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
and he is taking ‘Each Peach, Pear Plum’ on holiday to read with his daughter
Nick Clegg
An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris
Pravda by Edward Docx
Ghostwritten by Isabel Wolff
Life on Air by David Attenborough
Ed Miliband
The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (pseudonym of J K Rowling)
Ten Cities that nade the Empire by Tristram Hunt
Lidnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt