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Thursday 29 November 2012

The Rage Against God, Peter Hitchens

I am, as I keep insisting, very uninterested in theology.  My religion can easily be summed up, understood and either rejected or accepted, by anybody who listens to Handel’s ‘Messiah’, who reads the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and who has seen the great English cathedrals. 
So wrote Peter Hitchens recently on his Mail on Sunday blog.  It is as good a summary as any of his attitude towards religion, an attitude which is explored at greater length in this book.

Sunday 11 November 2012

Blogging the Odyssey - General Summary

My project of blogging the Odyssey has now finished, and it's time to draw the threads together.

The Odyssey may be the third oldest text of Western civilisation, after the Iliad and the works of Hesiod.  It grew out of a long tradition of bardic songs about the deeds of gods and heroes.  It may or may not have been put together by a single individual, and it may or may not have reached substantially final form in the seventh century BC (most scholars used to think the eighth century more likely - some would prefer a dating in the sixth).

Thursday 1 November 2012

The War We Never Fought, Peter Hitchens

I like Peter Hitchens' books and journalism.  His work is part good sense, part wrong-but-thought-provoking, and part cranky nonsense.  This book is his latest shot in his ongoing war against the modern world.