Everyone should read this year’s Booker Prize winning by Paul Lynch. I also love Colum McCann and Claire Keegan..
. but my all time favourite is by Canadian Jenny D Williams, set in Uganda, where I read it on sabbatical in 2018. I felt that book and felt that it felt me.
It would have to be by Greg Boyle, the inspirational founder of Homeboys, the largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry programme in the world, though by local writer Sue Divin is in there too with being my favourite spiritual book, after the Bible of course. Too many but if push came to shove it has to be by Joni Mitchell (Canadian again!). An vulnerable love song with a wee spiritual verse thrown in.
I love by Rodney Crowell with the powerful lyrics including “It’s time to go inward, time to be still, If I don’t do it now I don’t believe I ever will.” is the serious one and the comedy. They are the two that I have used most for sermon illustrations.
: I suppose not just for this time of the year but for any time of the year, it has to be with lots of tissues beside me. Oh, I love Cape Town, Vancouver, Arua in Uganda, but we have been in love with Ballycastle for 28 years and go up there any time we can. I have a particular fondness for the Lake District having spent several holidays there; closer to home, McArt’s Fort on the Cavehill Hill on a good day looking over Belfast is really hard to beat.
I do love the seafood boxty in Holohan’s Pantry but if treating myself in a restaurant it woul.
