Diarmaid Mac Culloch acknowledged master of the big picture in Christian history unravels a polyphony of silences from the history of Christianity & beyond. He considers the surprisingly mixed attitudes of Judaism to silence Jewish & Christian borrowings from Greek explorations of the divine & the silences which were a feature of Jesus's brief ministry & witness. Besides prayer & mystical contemplation there are shame & evasion; careless & purposeful forgetting. Many deliberate silences are revealed: the forgetting of histories which were not useful to later Church authorities (such as the leadership roles of women among the first Christians) or the constant problems which Christianity has faced in dealing honestly with sexuality. Behind all this is the silence of God; & in a deeply personal final chapter Mac Culloch brings a message of optimism for those who still seek God beyond the clamorous noise of over-confident certainties. ...

This is the powerful beautiful & chilling sequel to the bestselling Straw Dogs John Gray draws on an extraordinary array of memoirs poems fiction & philosophy to make us re-imagine our place in the world. Writers as varied as Ballard Borges Freud & Conrad are mesmerised by forms of human extremity
- experiences on the outer edge of the possible or which tip into fantasy & myth. What happens to us when we starve when we fight when we are imprisoned? & how do our imaginations leap into worlds way beyond our real experience? The Silence of Animals is consistently fascinating filled with unforgettable images & a delight in the conundrum of our existence
- an existence which we decorate with countless myths & ideas where we twist & turn to avoid acknowledging that we too are animals separated from the others perhaps only by our self-conceit. In the Babel we have created for ourselves it is the silence of animals that both reproaches & bewitches us. Reviews: The Silence of Animals is a new kind of book from Gray a sort of poetic reverie on the human state on the state that is of the human animal... He blends lyricism with wisdom humour with admonition nay-saying with affirmation making in the process a marvellous statement of what it is to be both an animal & a human in the strange terrifying & exquisite world into which we straw dogs find ourselves thrown". (John Banville Guardian). " Interesting original & memorable... The Silence of Animals is a beautifully written book the product of a strongly questioning mind. It is effectively an anthology with detailed commentary setting out one rich & suggestive episode after another". (Philip Hensher Spectator). About the author: John Gray has been Professor of Politics at Oxford University Visiting Professor at Harvard & Yale & Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics. He now writes full time. His books include False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans & Other Animals & The Immortalization Commission: The Strange Quest to Cheat Death. His selected writings Gray's Anatomy was published in 2009."

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The problems responsibilities & ultimately the meaning of our lives have long been concerns of philosophers poets artists
- indeed
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Building work in an expanding Reykjavik uncovers a shallow grave. Years before this part of the city was all open hills & Erlendur & his team hope this is a typical Icelandic missing person scenario; perhaps someone once lost in the snow who has lain peacefully buried for decades. Things are never that simple. Whilst Erlendur struggles to hold together the crumbling fragments of his own family his case unearths many other tales of family pain. The hills have more than one tragic story to tell: tales of failed relationships & heartbreak; of anger domestic violence & fear; & of family loyalty & family shame. Few people are still alive who can tell the story but even secrets taken to the grave cannot remain hidden forever. ...

A powerful sequel to Love Without Conditions. John Bradshaw says: with deep insight & sparkling clarity this book demonstrates that the roots of all abuse are to be found in our own self-betrayal. Paul Ferrini leads us skilfully & courageously beyond shame blame & attachment to our wounds into the depths of self-forgiveness...a must read for all people who are ready to take responsibility for their own healing"." ...

Susans mother Lucy Fowler nee Smetana was a Viennese Jew who fled to Nottingham England in 1938 to escape Nazi persecution. She lost most of her immediate family but spoke little of her experiences for decades. In 1995 Susan learned for the first time of other members of the extended family who had survived & were now scattered around the world. Thus began an 18-year search for her mothers family & for the story of what had happened to them during that dreadful era. She also travelled back two hundred years into her familys past uncovering in the process an oral family history claiming descent from the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana. Just as she was completing her research Susan was the astonished recipient of some 3 000 pages of Nazi documents sent by the Austrian State Archives from which she learnt the fate of several family members. Still her search was not over. Days before publication & after attending a conference in Paris she finally learned the horrific details of the arrest of her grandmother & aunt in France & their deportation to Auschwitz. Richly illustrated with archive photographs & rare historical documents this biography & family history spanning eight generations is an extraordinary story of one familys struggle to deal with the impact & the legacy of the Holocaust. It is also a Holocaust memoir which offers a unique insight into the inner workings of the Nazi regime in Austria. ...

Fifteen years ago a teenage girl is assaulted & raped as she picks flowers for a Midsummers Eve ritual. Cut to the present & a man is killed in a hit & run. He has no identification on him he is not reported missing nor wanted by the police. At the same time a priest & his wife are found dead in an apparent suicide. Fredrika Bergman along with Alex Rechts federal investigation unit is assigned to the seemingly unconnected cases. The investigations lead to a clandestine people-smuggling network: a new player on the international human smuggling market operating out of Bangkok. As the police slowly uncover the shocking hypocrisy behind the network they begin to find a trail that runs all the way back to the 1980s to a crime that went unreported but whose consequences will reach further & deeper than anyone ever expected. ...

Professional cleaner Jonathan Quinn has a new client & a strange job: find & remove the remains of a body hidden twenty years ago inside the walls of a London building before the building is demolished. But Quinn & his team are being watched. Suddenly caught in the crossfire between two dangerous rivals Quinn must unravel the identity of the body & why it still poses so great a threat even in death. Because a plot stretching from the former Soviet Union to Hong Kong from Paris to London from Los Angeles to Maine is rapidly falling apart. & Quinn hasnt just been hired to tie up loose ends
- he is one.
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The fatwa against Salman Rushdie & the 2005 Danish cartoon fracas awakened many people to the potency of blasphemy accusations in the Muslim world. Accusations & charges such as blasphemy " "apostasy " "insulting Islam " or "hurting Muslims religious feelings" pose a far greater danger than censorship of irreverent caricatures of Mohammad: they are increasingly used as key tools by authoritarian governments & extremist forces in the Muslim world to acquire & consolidate power. These charges which draw on disputed interpretations of Islamic law & carry a traditional punishment of death have proved effective in crushing or intimidating not only converts & heterodox groups but also political & religious reformers. In fact one reason for the recent growth of more repressive forms of Islam is their use of accusations of blasphemy apostasy & related charges to intimidate & silence their religious opponents & make any criticism of their own actions & ideas religiously suspect. The effect of such laws thus goes far beyond what might narrowly be called religious matters. This volume provides the first world survey of the range & effects of apostasy & blasphemy accusations in the contemporary Muslim world in international organizations & in the West. The authors argue that we need to understand the context history impact & mechanics of the blasphemy phenomenon in modern Muslim societies & guidance on how to effectively respond. The book covers the persecution of Muslims who convert to another religion or decide that they have become agnostic or atheists as well as heretics: those who are accused of claiming a prophet after Mohammed such as Bahais & Ahmadis. It also documents the political effects in Muslim societies of blasphemy & apostasy laws as well as non-governmental fatwas & vigilante violence. It describes the cases of hundreds of victims including political dissidents religious reformers journalists writers artists movie makers & religious minorities throughout the Muslim world. Finally it addresses the legal evolution toward new blasphemy laws in the West; the increasing use of laws on "toleration" in the West which may become surrogate blasphemy laws; increasing pressure by Muslim governments to make Western countries & international organizations enforce laws to restrict speech; & the increasing use of violence to stifle expression in the West even in the absence of law. Its foreword is by Indonesias late President Abdurrahman Wahid." ...

Thomas Merton's life especially once he had become a writer was to a great extent one of dialogue with people who were distant both geographically & historically. In these probing & perceptive studies Rowan Williams looks closely at the key intellectual & spiritual relationships that emerge in Merton's writings exploring the impact on him of thinkers as diverse as Hannah Arendt Karl Barth William Blake Dietrich Bonhoeffer Olivier Clement Fyodor Dostoevsky Paul Evdokimov Gerard Manley Hopkins Vladimir Lossky John Henry Newman Boris Pasternak & St John of the Cross. ...