The World’s Religions by Ninian Smart

Religion is an extremely complex social and cultural phenomenon. No simple definition can capture its manifold nature. Rich, simple, consoling, disturbing, unifying, divisive, colourful, austere, prayerful, practical, doctrinal, mystical, peaceful, militaristic, solitary, communitarian, supernatural, worldly. It has all of these (often contradictory) aspects. The very briefest attempt to get a conceptual handle on the phenomenon can be found at this link http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-religion/. […]

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The Givenness of Things by Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson (born November 26, 1943, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/magazine/the-revelations-of-marilynne-robinson.html?_r=0 ) is an American novelist and essayist. She has received several awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005 and the 2012 National Humanities Medal. One high profile admirer is Barack Obama. If ever there was a time when we should heed the voices of wisdom and compassion

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The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

There was a day and age when a nine year old girl was not permanently fixated upon her smartphone. This was a time when you could be separated from the gizmo for more than five minutes without plunging into the severe anxiety which is now being reported (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/05/14/nomophobia-smartphone-separation-anxiety_n_7282008.html). Such an age was the Second World

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The Living Mountain

Nan (Anna) Shepherd (11 February 1893 – 23 February 1981, http://www.slainte.org.uk/CILIPS/publications/scotauth/shephdsw.htm) was a Scottish novelist and poet who was born and lived most of her life in the Aberdeenshire village of West Cults. She became an early Scottish Modernist writer, producing three stand alone novels set in small, fictional, communities in the north of Scotland. The Scottish

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The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende ( http://www.isabelallende.com/en/home/8 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabel_Allende) is arguably the world’s most widely read Spanish language author. She has had a long and fascinating life which reflects so much of the history of our times. This magical realist novel catapulted her to literary fame, and it was in virtue of this and her wider oeuvre that she

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