Ekphrasis, Vision, and Persuasion in the Book of Revelation – Robyn J. Whitaker
Robyn J. Whitaker demonstrates how a rhetorical analysis of the visions of God in the Book of Revelation reveals the persuasive role of the visions of God and the Lamb in John’s argument against cultic images and worship.

If you haven’t guessed this is an academic title. I did my minor thesis on Revelation and I read parts of this when I was writing it, but I wanted to go back for fuller read. I’m not rating it because this is niche reading material.

Where the Axe is Buried – Ray Naylor

From Storygraph: In the authoritarian Federation, there is a plot to assassinate and replace the President, a man who has downloaded his mind to a succession of new bodies to maintain his grip on power. Meanwhile, on the fringes of a Western Europe that has renounced human governance in favor of ostensibly more efficient, objective, and peaceful AI Prime Ministers, an experimental artificial mind is malfunctioning, threatening to set off a chain of events that may spell the end of the Western world.

My Thoughts: I enjoyed this book and thought it was very original. It’s set in the near future and while it is dystopian it also has aspects of a spy thriller. Kept me interested until the end. 5-stars.

Yalukit Willam: The River People of Port Phillip – Meyer Eidelson

From Google books: Yalukit Willam – The River People of Port Phillip is published by the City of Port Phillip in consultation with the Boon Wurrung Foundation which describes the Aboriginal history of the City from settlement to today, including its significant Aboriginal cultural places. Before the arrival of Europeans in 1835, the City of Port Phillip area was occupied by the Yalukit Willam clan of the Boon Wurrung people or language group. Yalukit Willam means ‘river home’ or ‘people of the river’ The six clans of the Boon Wurrung people (sometimes called ‘the Coast’ or ‘Westernport’ tribe) were associated with Melbourne’s southern suburbs, Mornington Peninsula, Westernport and Wilsons Promontory. It was once a kind of ‘temperate Kakadu’ surrounded by sea, river, creeks, lakes and lagoons. Rising from the many former wetlands on the City were prominent points such as today’s Point Ormond Hill, The Esplanade bluff, the silurian ridge of St Kilda Hill, and the ancient volcanic core of Emerald Hill. These provided higher and drier locations for willam or camp places for ceremonies, tool manufacture, ochre collection and lookouts. The book describes these places and how the City of Port Phillip landscape has changed since European occupation. As well as traditional sites such as corroboree, camping, hunting, lookout, midden, and bushtucker sites, the book also describes contemporary places in the City as well as significant language, maps, contemporary and historical images, sources and further information.

My Thoughts: I read this as part of my 101 Things item to learn about our local First Nations peoples. It is a short, but interesting book, with excerpts from documents from the time of the early colonial settlement. I’m not going to rate it because once again this is niche reading.

The Push – Ashley Audrain

From Storygraph: What happens when your experience of motherhood is nothing at all what you hoped for, but everything you always feared? 

‘The women in this family, we’re different…’ 

 Blythe Connor doesn’t want history to repeat itself. Violet is her first child and she will give her daughter all the love she deserves. All the love that her own mother withheld. 

 But firstborns are never easy. And Violet is demanding and fretful. She never smiles. 

 Soon Blythe believes she can do no right – that something’s very wrong. Either with her daughter, or herself. 

 Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining it. But Violet’s different with him. And he can’t understand what Blythe suffered as a child. No one can. 

 Blythe wants to be a good mother. But what if that’s not enough for Violet? Or her marriage? What if she can’t see the darkness coming? Mother and daughter. Angel or monster? We don’t get to choose our inheritance – or who we are…

My Thoughts: This was a disturbing read. For most of the book, I was trying to work out whether the narrator was reliable or not. Pulled me in and didn’t let me go, I read it in two days. 4-stars.

Treading Lightly: The Hidden Wisdom of the World’s Oldest People – Karl Erik Sveiby, Tex Skuthorpe

From Storygraph: In this unique journey into traditional Aboriginal life and culture, a European business-management professor and an Aboriginal elder collaborate to create a powerful and original model that western societies can use to build environmentally sustainable organizations, communities, and ecologies based upon the same Aboriginal traditions that allowed the Aborigines to create sustainable societies in very fragile landscapes.”

My Thoughts: This is an interesting look at Aboriginal life and culture, I learnt a lot. The authors also did a reasonably good job showing how some of the strengths of that culture could be adapted to reshape our culture in a more sustainable direction. I went into this thinking that it would be more to do with sustainable interaction with the environment which in some ways it was, but I think the more important insights were in the understanding of leadership and person-person interactions. 3.5 stars.

Deep Calls to Deep: Going Further in Prayer – David Foster

From Storygraph: The author explores various ways of praying and how these lead into a deeper, quieter form of prayer. At the outset some basic theoretical ideas about prayer are explored; how to understand petitionary prayer, unanswered prayer, the idea of God speaking to us in prayer, of making His will known to us. But what people really need these days is help to remain focused. It is always important to talk from as practical a basis as possible about the contemplative dimensions of prayer. Ordinary life needs a structure for that kind of silent ‘freewheeling’ prayer. In this context, David Foster re-examines traditional forms of prayer through meditation and also considers the bridgehead in prayer that is reached when this kind of meditation is impossible. This book is steeped in the Benedictine tradition in which the author received his formation.

My Thoughts: This is one of the better books I’ve read on prayer. It has a good mix of the theoretical and the practical. Giving guidance for our actions while stressing the work of God. A little example:

“It is the time we are ready to devote regularly to prayer each day, and the sacrifices we are ready to make for it, that prepare our heart to respond more easily in prayer to the initiatives God takes towards us in the rest of the day. It is easy to be too prescriptive here. But on the whole I think it is wiser to look for time for regular prayer in the morning than in the evening. That is when our minds and hearts are less cluttered and, even if we don’t really feel our best, it is easier to devote ourselves more completely to God. It does not need to be a long time, but a time we can be faithful to; something that can be a reference point for the rest of the day. It is not how we feel that matters, but what we want. The little sacrifices we make to find the space and the time will not pass unrewarded.” (Page 40)

5-stars

The Book of Azrael – Amber Nicole

From Storygraph: World Ender meets Ender of Worlds…
A thousand years ago, Dianna gave up her life in the deserts of Erioa to save her dying sister. She called upon anyone who would listen, not expecting a monster far worse than any nightmare to answer. Now she does what Kaden asks, even if that means securing an ancient relic from the very creatures that hunt her.

A King thought long dead and long forgotten.
In the old world his name was Samkiel. In the new world it is Liam, but one title remains true throughout time. He is the World Ender, a myth to his enemies, a savior and King to those loyal to him. After the Gods War, he locked himself away, hiding from the world. He denied his crown and responsibilities, leaving the very ones who needed him most to deal with the fallout of the death of their homeworld. Now an attack on those he holds dear sends him back to the one realm he never wished to visit again and into the sights of an enemy he thought imprisoned eons ago. 
Now enemies older than time must put aside their differences and work together in hopes of saving both their world and every realm in between.

My Thoughts: My daughter lent me this. It is another romantasy with all the usual tropes. The world building is interesting and the characters drew you in. I marked it down because this is a long book, with very small print and it probably didn’t need to be as long as it was. Some tightening up of the writing would have made this much better. That being said, I have picked up the next book and am enjoying the story. 3.5 stars.

Underland: A Deep Time Journey – Robert MacFarlane

From Storygraph: In this highly anticipated sequel to his international bestseller The Old Ways, Macfarlane takes us on an extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind. Traveling through “deep time”–the dizzying expanses of geologic time that stretch away from the present–he moves from the birth of the universe to a post-human future, from the prehistoric art of Norwegian sea caves to the blue depths of the Greenland ice cap, from Bronze Age funeral chambers to the catacomb labyrinth below Paris, and from the underground fungal networks through which trees communicate to a deep-sunk “hiding place” where nuclear waste will be stored for 100,000 years to come.

My Thoughts: I loved this! The passion and curiosity of the author shines through as he imparts fascinating information embedded in a narrative of discovery. I not only learnt some fascinating scientific facts, I also “experienced” the danger of underground exploration (something I will not ever be doing myself) and “met” some amazingly quirky people. 5-star read.