Enjoying...

I'm enjoying discovering a new writer. He's C J Sansom, author of three crime novels set in the reign of Henry VIII and featuring a lawyer/sleuth called Matthew Shardlake. I've finished Dissolution and am half way through Dark Fire. I can't wait for sovereign to come out in paperback.

These are terrific books. Sansom captures the sense of time and place wonderfully and weaves entirely believable and gripping thriller plots around real events. At £7 a pop, they're a good stocking filler.

I'm also enjoying the new Iona album - usual blend of celtic folk and prog rock with mesmerising vocals from Joanne Hogg. There's a particularly good track - factory of magnificient souls - with lyrics by the peerless Steve Stockman. His words and Dave Bainbridge's guitar were born for each other

And I've been enjoying Chocolat - as we're doing an advent evening service on it - and the Straight Story (which I wish I was doing an advent evening service on!). The latter is a David Lynch film about septuagenarian who crosses Iowa on a lawnmower to be reconciled with his brother who's had a stroke. Seriously, it's a blinder. One of the loveliest, funniest, quirkyist and most satisfying films I've seen, full of insights into what it means to be human and part of a family.

I'm enjoying thinking about membership and what it means to belong. Perhaps we should all watch the Straight story and ponder that says about community and the nature of the church. It would be unusual to view David Lynch as a theologian!