Greg Sheridan, How Christians Can Succeed Today.

 

- This has to be the most theologically illiterate tome I’ve ever read. It fails on so many levels. 

- Sheridan has minimal understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition and its richness. His book is simplistic in its Christian beliefs about the resurrection of Jesus, his ascension to heaven, and other ‘facts’. He makes no attempt to engage with the gospels and their stories and parables and whether the facts as presented actually happened, rather than being a rich collection of fictional and mythological elements that constructed the Old and New Testaments over centuries. 

- His constant quoting of familiar conservative writers of the last century like G.K.Chesterton, C.S.Lewis, and Malcolm Muggeridge, add absolutely nothing to his treatise other than supporting his simplicity. 

- His fundamental proposition is ‘with God out of the picture, humanity is immensely reduced’. Sheridan hates our modern world of secularism and modernism, initiated by science. ‘…our civilisation faces a choice between a re-enchanted culture informed by Christianity, or a future of chaos and cruelty’. The smartphone and social media are satanic. Popular culture is always anti-Christian. 

- There’s no analysis of the Catholic and Protestant traditions. ‘Christianity’ seems all one and the same. It becomes clear as the book proceeds he favours a fundamentalist evangelical extremism as his expression of true Christianity. 

- All that said, there are some positive features to the book. His chapter on St Paul, while being disappointing theologically, is excellent biographically and sociologically. 

- There’s also an excellent chapter on early Corinth and its deplorable practices regarding marriage, infanticide, forced abortions, and forced prostitution, and Christianity’s condemnation of these behaviours which inspired a revolutionary change for women. Paul preached the centrality of love. As a result the majority of early Christians were women. Sheridan makes clear how revolutionary Christian belief was at the time. 

- ’Christians exploded the sexual hierarchy of the ancient world as well as the social hierarchy.’ He’s also good on slavery, money, children, and death. ’Christians hold the most elevated view of the human body that has ever been imagined in human history’. 

- His chapter on the early church fathers is informed and enlightening. Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp were all executed for their belief in Christ. Irenaeus was the first great theologian. Also influential were Gregory of Nyssa in Turkey, Tertullian of Carthage, Origen of Alexandria, and St Anthony the Great. The early centuries were prone to heresies from influential sources, which had to be met effectively.

- The most important figure was Augustine of Hippo in Algeria. His two important books were City of God and Confessions. 

- Part 2 of the book is biographical. Sheridan introduces us to ‘Contemporary Early Christians’, as he calls them. They’re presented as models of Christian behaviour for our time. Most of them are unknown. Some of them are celebrated for their conservative social and political positions - Jordan Peterson, Mike Pence, Niall Ferguson for example. He interviews them in a very journalistic, Sunday Magazine, style. He certainly doesn’t indulge in any critique of their views. 

- An exception would be Marilynne Robinson, a Christian novelist. She’s excellent on Genesis and other parts of the Old Testament. 

- It becomes quite clear at the end that Sheridan is positing a Christian rebellion against the modern world, a world of digital ‘gadgets’ like desktop computers, iPads, and mobile phones. These internet obsessions are destroying our society, making it ‘woke’ and meaningless, particularly for the young. He's a great fan of the recent 

movement in the US, and increasingly in Australia, called Classical Liberal Education. The curriculum of these private schools is centred around the great books of history, and ancient Greek civilisation. Many teach Latin as well. God is always central. 'In a distressed and bleeding culture, these classical schools are field hospitals; perhaps more than that  - base camps; perhaps more than that - signs of a new creation.' 

- Two stars out of five. Max. 

Sulari Gentill, Five Found Dead

 

- I hadn't read any of Sulari Gentill's previous novels, despite the fact she's a multi-award winning Australian author, well known internationally. But I absolutely loved Five Found Dead, her latest.

- Just a few pages in, I was hooked! We're on the famous train, the Orient Express, travelling from Paris to Venice. There are murders on board and the suspect unknown. Hints of Agatha Christie's famous novel. 

- Fortunately there are a few retired police detectives on the train who meet and take charge of the investigation. They are led by the delightful Bonaparte Duplantier, a charming Frenchman. Our narrator, Merdith Penvale, and her twin brother Joe are also invited to help, as Joe is a successful thriller writer. 

- Other odd-bods are on board, all with opinions of course. As the first murder is followed by others the drama intensifies. There is also a Covid outbreak in one of the carriages, so that has to be locked down. The passengers are not happy at all. 

- There are so many characters, many forgettable, and the drama gets a bit congested towards the end. But that's a minor issue. As the story develops, and there are more murders, the resolution is surprising and very satisfying. 

- Gentill's prose is lively and highly readable. What a talent. 

William Boyd, Gabriel’s Moon

- This novel, first published in 2024, is the first in the Gabriel Dax trilogy. (I reviewed the second a few weeks ago). It's a little more complex than the second, but it's just as good. In fact both books are superb. 

- Gabriel Dax is a celebrated travel writer. In this novel he's in his early thirties and it's set in the early 1960's. This was a time when smoking indoors was common, and heavy drinking even more so. And there's also lots of sex. Gabriel is good-looking, fun to be around, and has a fair bit of money. What's not to like? His only problem is he can’t sleep well at all. His mother died in a fire in his home when he was a child, and he suffers from nightmares about it. He believes he caused the fire. 

- We first meet Gabriel in the newly independent republic of the Congo. He's landed an interview with the Prime Minister which he records on tape. A few weeks later the PM is ousted in a coup and killed by firing squad.  

- The other principal character is Faith Green. She's a senior agent in the British MI6. She approaches Gabriel and offers him small jobs involving spying. 'Do us a small service, a small favour'. He's sent to various countries for a few days each, and never disappoints. 

- He feels he’s always being followed however. He's in possession of information that he doesn't realise is critically important, secret and dangerous. We're in the early 1960's after all. The Cold War was feverish and nuclear war deemed highly possible at any time. The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 magnified the fear. 

- The novel is loaded with intrigue, and many minor characters and subplots that enrich it on many levels. And its ending is very satisfactory. 

- I particularly relished the details Boyd includes, on everything about villages, towns, cities, public transport, restaurants, food, drinks, clothes, shoes, cars, bikes - you name it. They enliven and add so much colour to the story. Boyd is a writer of exceptionable talent. His novels are a joy to read. 

Ilan Pappe, Israel On The Brink

 

- This book is so damn good. As in his previous book, A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, Ilan Pappe whacks us with the undeniable truths about Israel’s history and its current genocidal operations in Gaza. (He is an Israeli Professor of History at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter).  

- In this just published short book he utterly demolishes the idea of a two-state solution. ‘In real terms, the two-state solution is a stinking corpse’. He focuses on the very likely future of Israel, and predicts how things will inevitably work out over the next thirty or so years. There will be a State of Palestine, a democratic, multiracial, multi-religious state living in peace with its Arab neighbours. The Jews and Palestinians will have achieved a national harmony as did the South Africans after the end of apartheid. He diligently examines all the complexities of how this will be brought about despite the support for Zionism across the Western world, particularly the United States.    

- The state of Israel has fatal cracks: 1. In 2025, there are two Jewish peoples living in Israel, with practically nothing in common: the ultra-Orthodox, theocratic Jews and the secular Israeli Jews. Both are, however, united by the constant threat of an external enemy.  2. The Subjugation of Israel. Many countries are now boycotting Israel goods. 3. Jews across the world do not universally identify with Zionism, particularly younger people. 4. The Inevitable Economic Slump. Israel is one of the most unequal nations in the world, with 20% living in poverty. 5. Is the Israeli army invincible? No, it’s more like a police force. 6. The State Is Not Working. It is utterly unprepared for the logistical challenges of wars. 7. A New Palestinian Liberation Movement is emerging. Young people are dominant. ‘Instead of pursuing a two-state solution, as the Palestinian Authority has done fruitlessly for several decades, they are seeking a genuine one-state solution…I believe in a future in which everyone is able to live freely, where Israeli Jews and Palestinians work alongside each other for a better future in a decolonized and free Palestine, and obtain it. It won’t be easy but it is possible.’ 

- This new Palestinian national movement must unite Hamas, the old Palestinian Authority, and the new youth guerrilla groups.The old and tired PLA must fundamentally change. It’s now corrupt and often pro-Israel. The Palestinian Youth Movement wants to move beyond the old ideological and political stasis of the PLO. The internet and smartphones are central. Palestinians are now the largest group of users of the internet in the Arab world. The vision is one democratic secular state in Palestine from the river to the sea. Islam is welcome, but it will not be a theocratic state. 

- Many countries across the world in the two decades will move beyond the tepid two-state solution and introduce severe, if not total, sanctions on Israel. Including the USA. All military aid to Israel will be suspended, and the 'new PLO's proposal to conduct, under international supervision, elections for a democratic state over all of historical Palestine' will be fully supported. 

- Pappe digs deep into the likely future of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. In the one state of Palestine there will be the possibility of peace and social harmony, although the process will be difficult given that so many Palestinians were violently ousted from their homes, farms and workplaces.  

- In the final section of the book, a little fanciful perhaps, but very enjoyable, Pappe travels into the future as an old man and looks back at the journey he's witnessed as the state of Israel transformed into the state of Palestine. 'I managed to scribble something on 31 December 2049; this was a small card I wrote to friends and family:

MAY THE NEXT YEAR BE THE FIRST BORING YEAR IN THE HISTORY OF PALESTINE. 

(I loved this para:

In addition to that, the continued change in the American policy was enhanced by the reformist winds blowing from Tehran. The country was still an Islamic republic, but eased its pressure on the public sphere and, in particular, reformed the policies towards women's dress code in public. So it seems that without American sanctions and military adventurism, a more reformist version of theocratic rule developed, mainly because educated young women were needed to push forward the crippled economy, and because, like everywhere else in the world, a younger generation navigated the tensions between sacred principles and the realities of life more successfully than the previous one.)

Ian McEwan, What We Can Know

 

- I've read and hugely enjoyed most of Ian McEwan's novels over the last few decades. This new one is absolutely one of his best by far. It's a detailed examination of personal relationships between close friends and partners. 

- There are two parts, one set in the future in 2119 (Part One), and the other in our current world, the early 2000's. It's an unashamedly literary work, obviously a total indulgence for McEwan and his loyal readers like me. Most of the characters are literature academics, and he obviously relishes their discussions and arguments. His prose is congested at times, but delicious. It has a biographical flavour to it as it digs deep into his main characters' predicaments, fascinations, passions, and multitudinous love affairs. It's very insightful, and dotted with comments on everyday human behaviour, (‘The mind was our most erotic feature').  

- Part One, in 2119, is rich and confronting as McEwan describes what's left of the world after the ravages of climate change and wars. The 21st century was a global heating catastrophe: the deadly and destructive ocean rises, the new inland seas, scores of vanished cities (Glasgow, New York, Lagos for example), the collapse of the global economy, the collapse of heavy industry and fossil fuel use, the population of earth having declined to below four billion (half what it was a century earlier), a shattered Germany incorporated into Great Russia, a totally isolated Scotland. The ‘Derangement’, the period was called, a 'Metaphysical Gloom', the fading of a belief in progress.

- As well there were nuclear wars costing more than 200 million lives: India and Pakistan - over a million killed; Israel and Iran; the US and China; a Russian nuclear bomb dropped into the Atlantic flooded cities, including London and Paris. Britain became an archipelago, its population halved.

- Thankfully post-nuclear global cooling was encouraging a new spirit of optimism. ‘When the rising curve of global temperatures met the descending curve of population numbers and industrial activity, nature seized the moment and pushed up through the ruins.’ Students in 2119 ‘cannot believe that pre-Inundation people…were at all like themselves. Those ancients were ignorant, squalid and destructive louts...social media was run for profit not as a public service...The stupidity and waste…the self-serving short-sightedness or plain folly or mendacity or viciousness of political leaders - take your pick - and the quiescence or craven idiocy or terror of their populations...the accumulated victims of global heating, nuclear battles, drowned cities, ruined economies, shattered ecologies, untamed viruses.’ 

- A century earlier, pre-Inundation, Vivien, our main character, is married to her second husband Francis Blundy, a celebrated poet and national icon, and climate change denier. They live on a rural estate. He composes a poem (a corona) on vellum, rolls it, secures it with a ribbon. At a party with their circle of friends, he reads it and they toasted it. It was a classic, they said, utterly brilliant, 'a glorious love poem, a hymn to Vivien'. As one guest reflects: ‘poetry, not the novel, was literature’s indispensable form…The novel was the froth of recent centuries….to meet the needs of intelligent, privileged women excluded from formal education and meaningful work…It took modernism to shake the novel up’. Vivian retained the only copy. But it disappeared and was never found again. And that mystery is at the heart of the novel. 

- A century later in 2119, Tom, our narrator, is a humanities researcher at Oxford University. He's a huge fan of Francis Blundy's poetry, and is determined to find the poem. He's convinced it must be hidden somewhere, most probably on their rural property, which is now old and abandoned. ‘Vivien’s love of poetry was too fierce to let her consign the poem to oblivion. It was somewhere and I would find it’. 

- Part Two is all about Vivien and her first marriage to Percy, who suffered early onset Alzheimer’s. It is hard for her to abandon her academic career and care for him. He had no interest in books or poetry, but he was an excellent musician and tradesman. 

-Her problem was that she ‘had a partner and a playmate, but I also wanted a thought-mate’. 

- She meets the famous poet Francis at a launch, and is immediately, and sexually, attracted to him. Percy, however, is still alive, although his mental faculties by now are virtually non-existent. He lingers...and lingers. 

- McEwan has written another brilliant novel. It is highly challenging, and thought provoking, and so very relevant to today's personal, social, and political realities. An absolute joy to read.   

William Boyd, The Predicament

- This new novel from celebrated English author William Boyd is the second in his three-part Gabriel Dax series. I hadn't read the first so wondered if I'd find the second frustrating. I certainly didn't. 

- The novel is so absorbing in every way. The central character, Gabriel, is a successful travel writer who also secretly works for the UK spy agency MI6, and occasionally the CIA. It's full of other charming characters, locations, and stories that make the novel come dramatically alive. It’s set in 1963. John F. Kennedy is the US President, and we all know what is about to happen in Dallas, Texas. 

- Gabriel is thirty-three, single, and has just bought a cottage in the small village of Claverleigh in Sussex. He travels to London frequently to meet his MI6 agent Faith Green, who also happens to be his previous, now just occasional, lover. Green visits him in Claverleigh. She requests he go to Guatemala, run by an unpopular autocratic military regime, to interview the possible future leader Santiago Angel Lopez, a popular ex-priest known as ‘Padre Tiago’. There will inevitably be a regime change and an election, and Tiago the likely new President. The CIA wants to know how the relationship with the USA would play out. But the CIA is not one united body. It's riven with power plays, some very ugly indeed. Gabriel has to be careful. 

- While in London he regularly meets his publisher, who's now told him he is being sued for plagiarism by an old famous author who wrote a book years ago on the 

Greek Islands. Gabriel's latest book is also about the Islands. He's enraged by the outrageous claim, and hires a lawyer. Then he decides to confront the author directly.  

- There are numerous subplots in the novel that delve deep into the political complexities of the time in an extremely satisfying and highly credible way. The resolutions are perfect. There are assassinations by lone gunmen as we know. That characterised 1960's America. 

- Kennedy was also assassinated at that time. By a 'lone gunman'.  

Karen Hao, Empire of AI

 

- If you’re looking for a clear, detailed and timely guide to how artificial intelligence is reshaping global power, this new book is an essential read. 

- Empire of AI examines how Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs have marshalled state resources, talent, data, and industry to become a major force in artificial intelligence. Karen Hao, an experienced AI journalist and former MIT Technology Review reporter, traces the history, institutions, and people behind the AI push. She explores the interplay between government strategy, private companies, academic labs, and everyday uses of AI like surveillance and social management. The book is part reportage, part policy analysis, and part ethical inquiry into what concentrated AI power means for democracy, security, and human rights. [This para was written by AI, which is why it's so flat and boring!]

- The book is a fascinating and very clearly written story about the beginnings of AI and its development over the last decade. Sam Altman is central to the drama. He is a brilliant entrepreneur with deep connections to billionaires like Bill Gates and Elon Musk. Over the last ten years he has assembled a small group of computer programming geniuses and other heavyweights in Silicon Valley. He founded OpenAI in 2015 to compete with Google Search, and was able to source huge funding from Microsoft particularly. 

- Altman's ambition from the start was to purchase a huge number of computer chips from Nvidia and build massive data mining operations. He viewed this data consumption as absolutely essential, not just to build a new business, but to position AI as a groundbreaking service to humanity. It was to be a check against purely market forces. That early and noble ambition of course turned out very quickly to be complete nonsense. Hao was given unparalleled access to the management and staff of OpenAI, and also its Board members. She discloses the truth and doesn't hold back. 

- The essence of this massively disruptive sector is that it requires an unprecedented amount of proprietary resources: the 'compute' power of scarce high-end chips, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans on the ground 'cleaning it up' for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the need for energy and water underlying everything. 

- Hao also explores very personal details about Altman and his family, and his peculiar management style. He was considered untrustworthy and deceptive by key staff and board members. 

- What I really enjoyed about the book was the intricate way Hao delves deep into how data is amassed on such a huge scale, of course without permission. Then tested and refined by heaps of poorly paid staff from third world countries, many of whom could barely speak English. 

- I learnt so much from this book. It's totally absorbing. And so well written and edited. There's not one editorial mistake in the whole 482 pages. Congratulations Penguin.