Moo or Peake?

This quite often happens to me: I buy a book that I have been craving for some time (in this instance Douglas Moo's NICNT commentary on Romans) and dang me if I find, completely serendipitously, another book on the very same day that I just have to buy (Peake' s Commentary on the Bible - £4.99 from Oxfam). Now I just can't decide which one merits first read: Moo or Peake? Each of the weighty volumes tick different boxes, the detailed or the broad, and I'm impressed by the scholarly names appended to the articles in the latter: Henry Chadwick, Charles Cranfield, Geoffrey Lampe, Bruce Metzger, Charles Moule, Nigel Turner and Allen Wikgren int al. A perfect snapshot of traditional biblical exegesis.

Of course it's not a bad dilemma to face: I'll just have to ramp up my reading hours by waking up an hour earlier than ususal, and going to bed an hour later at night.

Gender Analysis Part 3

Back to 60% certainty now......must've been the OMG that swung the percentages back up!

Gender Analysis Part 2

OMG! After writing the last post I re-fed the blog back into the gender analyzer...and guess what...it's now only 53% certain to have been written by a woman!

Gender Analysis

Over at http://genderanalyzer.com/ they're 56% percent certain that this blog is written by a woman. I wonder what clues they look for? I'm going to feed in some obviously girly/blokey websites and see just how high the testosterone/oestrogen percentage gets.
Actually, I'm quite proud of being somewhat ambiguous to a computer program!

The Book of Margery Kempe

Picked up for 59p at the Help the Aged charity shop.

It's an interesting little book, the autobiographical ramblings of a woman, born at the end of the 14th century, who may have been a true mystic, receiving many communications from Christ, or a raving psychotic, depending on your world-view. The non-chronological anecdotes were transcribed at her behest by two scribes who worked under her close scrutiny and are remarkable in the picture that they present of her life as a comfortably-off medieval gentlewoman, and of her frequent pilgrimages both throughout England and abroad. The writing is unaffected and direct and tells us much about both her everyday and interior life, and her frequent mystical experiences which left her weeping copiously, leading to much hostility from those around her.

I get the impression that she would not have been an easy person to live with - she was seized not only with floods of tears (c/w moaning and loud wailing) but sudden desires to forgo meat and wine, wear only white clothing, attend confession on a very regular basis, and to live in a 'chaste marriage' with her long-suffering husband, John. He, unsurprisingly, is less keen on all of her enthusiasms but- to give him his due, he seems to have loved her, stuck up for her against her detractors and reached a cordial accommodation with her whims. Actually, she seems to have brought her own money to the marriage, so perhaps he had little say in it all. I'm about halfway through the book at the moment. Being Lent, it is indeed appropriate spiritual reading. I find that I am warming to her, although she is almost piteous in her determination to be seen as misunderstood. I think that she almost certainly had severe post-natal depression, not to say psychosis after the birth of her first child and that it was this that pre-disposed her to her mystical 'attacks'. I can truly sympathise with her in this. Following the birth of my third child there were a number of occasions where I really felt that I was losing my grip on reality and was subject to a number of inner locutions that d.g. lead me back to sanity, rather than in the opposite direction. Maybe it is the thinning of the psyche that primes people for mystical experiences, and how it is viewed depends on the recipient's willing acceptance, or revulsion, of the supranormal.

Margery went on to have thirteen more children. I myself stopped at four.

Sweet Charity (Shops)

I seem to spend my life scuffling about in charity shops looking for books, don't I? Well, that's because they're so cheap there. But I have noticed a price heirarchy even amongst these. Here is my report on book prices in the charity shops of York, starting with the most expensive first.

1) Oxfam: it has two dedicated bookshops in York, plus one general clothes/brick-a-brack shop with a sizeable book section. Good range of books, shelved in categories, fiction subdivided as classics/popular/sci-fi/crime etc, then sorted alphabetically by author. Textbooks/non-fiction tends to be somewhat outdated. Small section first editions/collector's items. Good children's section. The price for a paperback is generally £2.99 -£3.49 depending on perceived poularity.

2) The Heart Foundation: Good selection of popular literature, sorted alphabetically by author; smaller selection of non-fiction, mostly outdated. Some 'collector's items. I bought a fairly tatty Penguin Classics edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls for £1.50 here. Most paperback fiction c. the same price as Oxfam.

3) Scope: I don't tend to go in here much, the books are very run of the mill stuff (Dan Brown, Aga-sagas) plus much outdated non-fiction. And they're always pestering you to buy raffle tickets.

4) Mind: A reasonable number of books at the back, subdivided into basic categories. Paperback fiction about £1.50-£2.99. Never seem to get much new stuff in. Small children's section.

5) Sue Ryder: started off with quite a lot of stock, both fiction and non-fiction, at reasonable prices -about the same as Mind, some of them obviously quite new.. Book shelves are getting smaller though. Pity.

6) The Autism Society: lots of pot-boilers, but redeemed themselves in my eyes by having a sale where all books were 50p. I bought Oliver Sack's 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat' and Peter Hoeg's 'Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow'. Still to be read.

6) PDSA: Books generally divided just into paperback or hardback. All books £1 at the moment, except for a few 'collector's items' which are £3. I bought Farrar's 'Life of Christ' here last week.

7) Save The Children: very small shop, but proportionally large book shelf. Good turnover. Prices fluctuate, but fairly decent paperback fiction is generally around the £1.50-£2.00 mark.

8) Age Concern: fusty little section at the back of the shop. Not much stock, but reasonable turnover. Top price seems to be £1.50 for a paperback. Bought an Oxford Classics text of Wilkie Collins 'The Woman in White' for 50p.

9) Help the Aged: seems to have stopped caring about its bookshelves. Lots of dross - romance and war, but the odd gem. Just bought Penguin Classics version of 'The Book of Margery Kempe' for 59 pence. More of this anon.

Also to be mentioned are the Red Cross Shop, The Cat's Protection League, the Woodlands shop and the St Leonard's Hospice shop: they tend to have a small and generally poor selection books. I almost never go in, and when I do there's seldom anything I want.

Biblio-stalking

Spooky really......As I wrote in my last post, I find myself gradually acquiring the works of the theological author Frederic William Farrar (left). Farrar was a child of the British Empire, born in Bombay in 1831, educated initially in the Isle of Wight, then at King's College London and Trinity College, Cambridge. Over the years he rose from a humble schoolmaster to become the Dean of Canterbury - he is often referred to simply as Dean Farrar. His theological writings were copious - he was a humane and catholic scholar who believed, along with the church father Origen that no-one could be disqualified from redemption. Well, having purchased his 'Early Days of Christianity' just the other day, imagine my surprise when in the PDSA charity shop, there on the shelves amid the knick-knacks and single sherry glasses lay.....Farrar's 'Life of Christ', illustrated with engravings by the pre-Raphaelite artist Holman Hunt (he who painted 'The Light of the World' that hangs in St Paul's cathedral in London). Marvelling at such spooky serendipity, I took it to the counter where, for £3, it became part of my burgeoning collection.

I'll admit that his writings will certainly not be to all tastes - he is typical of the Victorian writer who writes with a great deal of sentiment and feels quite free to interpret facts and assert psychological motive. Neither is he averse to purple prose. But I rather enjoy it - it is a refreshing change from academic prose which, in its struggle to be factual and fair, often ends up as flat, dull and dry as dust. Who could resist a writer who writes

'It was natural that there should be some stir in the little household at the coming of such a Guest, and Martha, the busy, eager-heartyed, affectionate hostess, "on hospitable thoughts intent", hurried to and fro, and was distracted with excited energy to prepare for His proper entertainment. Her sister Mary, too, was anxious to receive him fittingly, but her notions of the reverence due to Him were of a different kind. Knowing that her sister was only too happy to do all that could be done for His material comfort, she, in deep humility, sat at His feet and listened to His words.'?