the writing on the wall

the writing on the wall by maggi dawn weaves its way through the big story of the bible. en route texts (cultural texts that is) are referenced and connections made. maggi says that students at the college where she is chaplain often knock on her door to ask about the connection between a piece of art and the bible and it's that which provided the spark to write the book. it's delightfully written, easy to read and yet laden with nuggets. shakespeare, monty python, handel's messiah, epstein's jacob wrestling with an angel - these are the sorts of texts. they are mainly classic but plenty of pop culture thrown in the mix. i hope it makes it to high street book shops as it struck me that it's written not just with a christian audience in mind. 

as well as being a good read it's a wonderful book to keep as a reference - i'll pull it off the shelf next time i'm asked to preach on a story from the bible to see what art maggi connects with it.

books are changing - ipad, kindle and whatever comes next will change the way we think what a book is. i wish that new approach was here for this book. i wanted this to be a hyperlinked book so i that as i read i could click on a piece of music to hear it, or watch the scene from shawshank redemption, or see the art in question!

Comments

[Bob Carling]

Fantastic idea Jonny. The interactive side of it can still be done. If Maggi were to get in touch with an e-pub packager, such as Andrews UK http://www.andrewsuk.com/audio/ (or get her publisher Hodder to contact them), they can then negotiate with Andrews UK to get the book out there as an e-pub thingy with all the links.
Bob Carling

[maggi]

thanks for a lovely review, jonny! really glad you liked it.

[Josh Frank]

Good review! I just shared this w/ a few friends on Facebook and bookmarked it in my own Delicious.