Speaking Christian

Title: Speaking Christian
Author: Marcus J. Borg
Publisher: SPCK Publishing
ISBN: 9780281065080

From the publisher: As with French, German or Spanish, learning the basic vocabulary of Christianity is a vital first step in understanding what it means and how it works. We think of words like ‘faith’, ‘forgiveness’, ‘salvation’, ‘sin’ and ‘heaven’. But how can we be sure that we understand them correctly? Over the centuries all sorts of different meanings have grown up around these words, and sometimes those meanings can obscure or distort the way the words were originally used in the Bible.

In Speaking Christian, Marcus Borg takes some of the key words in the Christian dictionary and exposes the negative and unhelpful connotations they still carry today. At the same time, he goes back to the Bible and unpacks their meaning in a way that is both more faithful to the teaching of Jesus and more relevant to his followers today.

The Moral Imagination

Title: The Moral Imagination
Author: John Paul Lederach
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 978-0-19-517454-0

From the publisher: John Paul Lederach's work in the field of conciliation and mediation is internationally recognized. As founding Director of the Conflict Transformation Program and Institute of Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University, he has provided consultation and direct mediation in a range of situations from the Miskito/Sandinista conflict in Nicaragua to Somalia, Northern Ireland, the Basque Country, and the Philippines. His influential 1997 book Building Peace has become a classic in the discipline. This new book represents his thinking and learning over the past several years. He explores the evolution of his understanding of peacebuilding by reflecting on his own experiences in the field. Peacebuilding, in his view, is both a learned skill and an art. Finding this art, he says, requires a worldview shift. Conflict professionals must envision their work as a creative act - an exercise of what Lederach terms the 'moral imagination'.

A Century of Wisdom

Title: A Century of Wisdom
Author: Alice Herz-Sommer
Publisher: Two Roads Books
ISBN: 9781444737608

From the publisher: At 108 years old, Alice Herz-Sommer is the world’s oldest living Holocaust survivor. She is also the world’s oldest concert pianist.

Born in 1903 Prague to a family of Jewish intellectuals and musicians, Alice Herz-Sommer socialised with the likes of Kafka and Brod.

But in 1943, Alice, a prominent concert pianist, her husband and young son, were deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp.

Alice’s mother and husband perished, but Alice and her young son survived. Alice played more than 100 concerts for her fellow prisoners in the camp, giving them and herself comfort and hope. Her son was one of only 93 children (out of 15,000) to survive that camp.

A Century of Wisdom is a collection of Alice Herz-Sommer’s life stories and the lessons she has taken from them. Despite living through terrible experiences, her outlook is one of understanding, optimism and joy.

Despite all she has suffered and witnessed, Alice Herz-Sommer harbours no bitterness, which she believes only eats away at the hater.

Alice says, ‘only when we are old, do we realise the beauty of life – life is a present’.

How The World Works

Title: How The World Works
Author: Noam Chomsky
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780241145388

From the publisher: With exceptional clarity and power of argument, Noam Chomsky lays bare as no one else can the realities of contemporary geopolitics. Divided into four sections and originally published in the US as individual short books which have collectively sold over half a million copies, How the World Works is a collection of speeches and interviews with Chomsky by David Barsamian, edited by Arthur Naiman. It includes What Uncle Sam Really Wants, about US foreign policy; The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many, about the new global economy, food, Third World 'economic miracles' and the roots of racism; Secrets, Lies and Democracy, about the US, the CIA, religious fundamentalism, global inequality and the coming eco-catastrophe; and The Common Good, about equality, freedom, the media, the myth of Third World debt and manufacturing dissent.