Ian Major answers 13 questions in a Booker's Dozen.

TPQ: What are you currently reading? 

IM:  Usually several on the go at once. 1. For the Love of God by D. A. Carson. A two volume daily devotional and exposition of four different books of the Bible.
2. Patterns in History - A Christian Perspective on Historical Thought by David Bebbington. It examines beliefs about the meaning of the course of history.
3. Thoughts on Religious Experience by Archibald Alexander. He was known as 'the Shakespeare of the heart'. He wrote it after 20 years as a pastor and preacher, and a further 40 years (beginning in 1812) as a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary.

TPQ: Best and worst books you have ever read?

IM: Best book of course is the Bible, composed of 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 in the New. But if we speak of merely human contributions, then I need to think of the one that I return to yearly for the pleasure of of its erudition - Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution. Worst: The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. Meaningless teenage angst.

TPQ: Book most cherished as a child?

IM: I don't recall ever reading a book until I was 11 or 12. My first books were Sci-fi, many good reads including the Foundation series by Asimov, and the Dune series by Frank Herbert. But the first cherished books would be Edgar Wallace's Sanders of the River series. I still value them for the insights on human nature shared by Blacks and Whites.

TPQ: Favourite Childhood author?

IM: Again, no childhood authors. Adolescent/teenage it was Edgar Wallace.

TPQ: First book to really own you?

IM: Probably ''Sanders'.

TPQ: Favourite male and female author?

IM: Fiction: Alexander McCall Smith, for all his African and British novels. Lucy Maud Montgomery, for all her Anne of Green Gables novels. Fact: D. A. Carson, for his theological works. Joni Eareckson Tada, for her spiritual works and biography.

A Berlin Book Tower in memory of the Nazi book burning.

TPQ: A preference for fact or fiction?

IM: Fact - more direct knowledge. But fiction has its place in conveying human thinking and emotions.

TPQ: Biography, autobiography or memoir that most impressed you?

IM:  Victor Klemperer's dairies trio that begins with I Will Bear Witness 1933-41 - A Diary of the Nazi Years. Impressed and saddened.

TPQ: Any author or book you point blank refuse to read?

IM: Most sports and celebrity bios. 

TPQ: A book to share with somebody so that they would more fully understand you?

IM: John's Gospel. 

TPQ: Last book you gave as a present?

IM: Harriett Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. No wonder Lincoln reckoned it a major cause of the American Civil War! Not at all like the children's story I imagined it to be.

TPQ: Book you would most like to see turned into a movie?

IM: Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman.

TPQ: A "must read" you intend getting to before you die?

IM: I've done the first biggy in my life, War and Peace (and thoroughly enjoyed it!), so perhaps The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Ian Major grew up a heathen Protestant, was converted at 17, and lives out his Evangelical faith as a Baptist. He was a pastor to prisoners from 1980, full-time from 1991 till 1998 when most of his flock were released by the Belfast Agreement. He is now 70 and glad of the free time to read and interact with many on social media.

Booker's Dozen @ Ian Major

Ian Major answers 13 questions in a Booker's Dozen.

TPQ: What are you currently reading? 

IM:  Usually several on the go at once. 1. For the Love of God by D. A. Carson. A two volume daily devotional and exposition of four different books of the Bible.
2. Patterns in History - A Christian Perspective on Historical Thought by David Bebbington. It examines beliefs about the meaning of the course of history.
3. Thoughts on Religious Experience by Archibald Alexander. He was known as 'the Shakespeare of the heart'. He wrote it after 20 years as a pastor and preacher, and a further 40 years (beginning in 1812) as a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary.

TPQ: Best and worst books you have ever read?

IM: Best book of course is the Bible, composed of 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 in the New. But if we speak of merely human contributions, then I need to think of the one that I return to yearly for the pleasure of of its erudition - Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution. Worst: The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. Meaningless teenage angst.

TPQ: Book most cherished as a child?

IM: I don't recall ever reading a book until I was 11 or 12. My first books were Sci-fi, many good reads including the Foundation series by Asimov, and the Dune series by Frank Herbert. But the first cherished books would be Edgar Wallace's Sanders of the River series. I still value them for the insights on human nature shared by Blacks and Whites.

TPQ: Favourite Childhood author?

IM: Again, no childhood authors. Adolescent/teenage it was Edgar Wallace.

TPQ: First book to really own you?

IM: Probably ''Sanders'.

TPQ: Favourite male and female author?

IM: Fiction: Alexander McCall Smith, for all his African and British novels. Lucy Maud Montgomery, for all her Anne of Green Gables novels. Fact: D. A. Carson, for his theological works. Joni Eareckson Tada, for her spiritual works and biography.

A Berlin Book Tower in memory of the Nazi book burning.

TPQ: A preference for fact or fiction?

IM: Fact - more direct knowledge. But fiction has its place in conveying human thinking and emotions.

TPQ: Biography, autobiography or memoir that most impressed you?

IM:  Victor Klemperer's dairies trio that begins with I Will Bear Witness 1933-41 - A Diary of the Nazi Years. Impressed and saddened.

TPQ: Any author or book you point blank refuse to read?

IM: Most sports and celebrity bios. 

TPQ: A book to share with somebody so that they would more fully understand you?

IM: John's Gospel. 

TPQ: Last book you gave as a present?

IM: Harriett Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. No wonder Lincoln reckoned it a major cause of the American Civil War! Not at all like the children's story I imagined it to be.

TPQ: Book you would most like to see turned into a movie?

IM: Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman.

TPQ: A "must read" you intend getting to before you die?

IM: I've done the first biggy in my life, War and Peace (and thoroughly enjoyed it!), so perhaps The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Ian Major grew up a heathen Protestant, was converted at 17, and lives out his Evangelical faith as a Baptist. He was a pastor to prisoners from 1980, full-time from 1991 till 1998 when most of his flock were released by the Belfast Agreement. He is now 70 and glad of the free time to read and interact with many on social media.

9 comments:

  1. Nice to see Dune getting mentions, such a great book to escape in.

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  2. Interesting guy Anthony, did you come across him when you were in jail and if so how did republicans view him as I doubt there were many Baptists amongst them.

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    1. Rage - he is interesting and clever and always worth an exchange of ideas. I didn't meet him in jail. He came to TPQ with comments a lot of years ago, wrote for us once, argued with us hundreds of time, but always amiably.

      As you say there were not too many republican Baptists - maybe a few of them led secrets lives. Many of them did: they passed themselves as revolutionaries but the peace process found them out!! So who knows!!!

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  3. Ian - thanks for this. I agree with you about Catcher In The Rye. I remember being given it to read in 1985 by a friend who swore by it and thought to myself, what's this all about? Got nothing from it. I have all three volumes of Klemperer here plus his nook on the use of language. I was about to board a plane one morning from Liverpool to Belfast and had Volume 1 in my hand as I tried to do a self check in or something, set id=t down and within seconds it had gone. Not sure if it was one of the cleaners. But I was onto the last chapter and had marked it for notes throughout. Was furious to lose it. Rushed into the shop and bought John Dickie's Cosa Nostra just to read on the plane. It turned out a great book. I reordered The Klemperer one as soon as I returned. Do read The Brothers Karamazov. My mother sent the two volumes into me in 1982. Brilliant reading.

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  4. Thanks, Anthony, that settles it then - The Brothers Karamazov will be my next read.

    Very frustrating to lose your notes! But who knows what new inspiration will hit you as you go over it again!

    And good to know I'm not so weird in my view of Catcher. ��

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    1. I will be interested in your take on The Brothers Karamazov. It is the best Russian literature I have read. I didn't enjoy Crime And Punishment anywhere near as much. Dostoyevsky was a very interesting character. Spent a lot of time in jail.

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  5. Which translation did you have of the Brothers?

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  6. I thought crime and punishment was brilliant. Hard to get into, granted. The dialogue between Raskolnikov and Petrovich when discussing a paper the former wrote on the restrictions of supposed brilliant men and the wider moral ramifications was the most thought provoking passage I've ever read.
    I've never read the Brothers Karamazov.

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