Wildlife Sounds of Britain and Ireland Geoff Sample
Collins, 2006 £14.99 • ISBN 0-00-720906-1
For those of us who live in the country an overnight dusting of snow makes for an interesting morning. You get up early and see who has been visiting during the night. Often badger tracks, pheasant footprints and coot marks show that they and a host of others have been busy. In these warmer times we can no longer rely on snowfall to check on our visitors so it is timely that Geoff Sample has published this new book. It also includes an audio CD and is the first guide to allow you to identify most of the wildlife sounds you hear in Britain. The book covers fifty species and the text provides details on the time of year and place that you are likely to hear the sound. The audio CD contains 70 minutes of actual sound, plus voice notes to help you with your identification.
The book has also assisted this writer in identifying a strange nocturnal noise. Was it a fox or an owl or a badger? No, it was neither as the book and CD clearly demonstrated that it was a muntjac deer!
David Long
In Every Corner Sing: the diary of a country vicar Timothy Biles Canterbury Press, 2006 – 2nd Edition £9.99 • ISBN 1-8531-1689-0
There are books that, when you sit to read them, grip you so much that you cannot get up until they are finished. This is one such book, and it is unsurprising that the front cover declares how well it is selling. The publishers also mention it is ‘already a set text on ministerial training courses’ – though without indicating if this for training in rural ministry.
The diary narrative is captivating, carrying the reader through seven months in the life and ministry of the author, including Christmas and ending at Easter, in an Anglican team ministry in rural Dorset. The account is very forthright – excessively so in parts – which is one reason why it is so engrossing! The author clearly illustrates rural Anglican ministry on the cusp of real change, yet throughout he forcefully stamps his own personality on the events he records; to the extent, sometimes, that one questions whose choices and desires are being reflected in the lives of the churches and communities he describes.
It is fair to say that this is an intensely personal story, told with passion and engagement. But it is not a representative story. Other accounts of rural ministry, both published and private, reflect very different approaches and aspirations – especially in the balance of old and new for multi-parish ministry in rural contexts.
Buy it, read it, but do not accept it as the only measure of rural ministry.
Not Sunday Not School. Through-the-year children’s programmes for small churches Eleanor Zuercher
Barnabas (BRF), 2006 £ 9.99 • ISBN 1 84101 490 7
A handful of 3 – 11 year olds? Stuck for ideas? Then this could be for you. The thematic programmes contain suggestions for basing a children’s session around a Bible story by using craft, games and perhaps displays along with suggestions for prayer and worship. The range of ideas is wide, the appeal obvious. This book has been written from the perspective of someone living in a village and working in a rural multi-parish benefice and many of the sessions and activities relate directly to the church and agricultural year. The ideas and activities will enliven a good many meetings. The book can, but does not have to, be used with a website. There is a valuable introduction suggesting that children’s activities do not have to be held on a Sunday along with sensible ideas and principles around working with children. The success of the enterprise that this book represents is based on monthly children’s work held on a Saturday afternoon. New groups of people and families have been drawn into church activities as a result.
Some may find the suggestions too rigid. That is to mis-use this book. It is a quarry with many original ideas and things to set you off on your own inspirations. This book is a very good investment for those with the task of enthusing children with the wonder of God’s love and salvation.
Peter Lawrence
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www.arthurrankcentre.org.uk Simon Martin
book reviews
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