Here are 100 books that The Bell in the Lake fans have personally recommended if you like
The Bell in the Lake.
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If you spend as long looking at medieval churches as I do, you also end up collecting a lot of books on the subject. Any church archaeologist cannot help also becoming something of a librarian. A passion for churches - and books. There are hundreds of church guidebooks out there, all of which have their own merits, but these are a small selection of books that look at different aspects of church history. They look at these amazing buildings through a different lens. These aren't a definitive guide - just books that I find myself returning to time and time again - for both information and pleasure.
I love this book, and not just because it is one of the few church archaeology books to mention graffiti. This book takes a very different approach to churches than most volumes you will have come across, as it quite literally strips them back to their bare bones. This is the deep history of the parish church, laid bare in the stones. Rodwell is a recognised expert in his field, and understands churches in ways that few others do - and after reading this you will never look at a medieval church in quite the same way again.
Churches are Britain's most completely surviving class of historic monument. They are also usually the oldest buildings within their settlements. As such, these structures, from parish church to cathedral, from medieval to Georgian, are a huge architectural and archaeological resource.
The last couple of decades have witnessed an unprecedented upsurge of public interest in the historic environment, and the growth of the tourism and 'heritage' industries has focused new attention on churches. While some visitors to churches, cathedrals and monastic ruins seem content to wander around with little or no understanding of what they are looking at, many have an…
Prague has fascinated me my whole life. I first explored the city while an English teacher in the Czech Republic in 1993, shortly after the end of Communist rule there. I’ve been wandering Prague’s streets ever since, always seeing something new and intriguing, always stumbling upon stories about the city and its people. Below are some of my favorite books about a city that continues to surprise me. The author or co-editor of four books, I teach European history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
For years, I used to walk past the statues of St. Wenceslaus, František Palacký, and other Czech national heroes without giving them much thought. After reading this book, I came to appreciate how much Prague’s monuments can tell us about the city’s history. Their creators offered a variety of interpretations over the meaning of “Czechness”, and these monuments have inspired passionate debates about nationhood and religion ever since. The book also made me think about ways that monuments can exclude others and inspire hatred, and not just in Prague. Consider, for example, statues celebrating the Confederacy erected by white supremacists decades after the end of the Civil War. Many still dot my part of the country.
Prague Panoramas examines the creation of Czech nationalism through monuments, buildings, festivals, and protests in the public spaces of the city during the twentieth century. These \u201csites of memory\u201d were attempts by civic, religious, cultural, and political forces to create a cohesive sense of self for a country and a people torn by war, foreign occupation, and internal strife.
The Czechs struggled to define their national identity throughout the modern era. Prague, the capital of a diverse area comprising Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Poles, Ruthenians, and Romany as well as various religious groups including Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, became central to…
If you spend as long looking at medieval churches as I do, you also end up collecting a lot of books on the subject. Any church archaeologist cannot help also becoming something of a librarian. A passion for churches - and books. There are hundreds of church guidebooks out there, all of which have their own merits, but these are a small selection of books that look at different aspects of church history. They look at these amazing buildings through a different lens. These aren't a definitive guide - just books that I find myself returning to time and time again - for both information and pleasure.
Definitely not as grim as the title might suggest. All churches are crammed full of memorials to the dead, and many dozens of books have been written that focus upon the people who lie in these tombs, or beneath the elegant grave slabs. However, sometimes little attention has been given to these memorials themselves, and the craftspeople who made them. This book is the culmination of a lifetime's research and will fascinate anyone who has an interest in church decoration - or dead people.
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
If you spend as long looking at medieval churches as I do, you also end up collecting a lot of books on the subject. Any church archaeologist cannot help also becoming something of a librarian. A passion for churches - and books. There are hundreds of church guidebooks out there, all of which have their own merits, but these are a small selection of books that look at different aspects of church history. They look at these amazing buildings through a different lens. These aren't a definitive guide - just books that I find myself returning to time and time again - for both information and pleasure.
Today surviving medieval church wall paintings are a bit of a rarity in England, but during the Middle Ages every church, almost without exception, would have been an absolute riot of colour, with saints, angels, and demons battling their way across the walls. What Rosewell's book does is allow you to understand not just what you are seeing, but how and why they were made in the first place. It explains the way in which the pigments were made, who painted them, and even who paid for them. It also contains an absolutely fantastic selection of images, that bring to life just how vibrant the walls of our churches once were. A gem.
Highly Commended in the Best Archaeological Book category of the 2008 British Archaeological Awards.
Wall paintings are a unique art form, complementing, and yet distinctly separate from, other religious imageryin churches. Unlike carvings, or stained glass windows, their support was the structure itself, with the artist's "canvas" the very stone and plaster of the church. They were also monumental, often larger than life-size images forpublic audiences. Notwithstanding their dissimilarity from other religious art, wall paintings were also an integral part of church interiors, enhancing devotional imagery and inspiring faith and commitment in their own right, and providing an artistic setting…
I had visited many Eastern Orthodox churches across Eastern Europe and the Middle East for a research project, and finally came to Ethiopia. Here I encountered a large and thriving Christian community which reached back to the earliest days of the church. Its location between the Middle East and East Asia and Africa as well as Europe has given it a distinctive way of living and worshipping which is unique in the Christian world – and overlooked by other churches. I’ve spent the last twenty years exploring this tradition which gives the rest of us a radically different understanding of faith.
David Phillipson is an archeologist who has excavated – and shown me round – sites at Axum and other places. Here he guides us through the early history of the church from the 4th to 15th centuries by showing the wonderful photos, descriptions, and plans of the main church sites, supplemented by historical and geographical essays. A tour of the buildings is a clear and perceptive introduction to this tradition – as well as being a breath-taking journey through some of the more important historic centres of this ancient civilisation.
The kings of Aksum formally became Christian during the second quarter of the 4th century, making Ethiopia the second country in the world (after Armenia) officially to adopt the new faith. This landmark book is the first to integrate historical, archaeological, and art-historical evidence to provide a comprehensive account of Ethiopian Christian civilization and its churches-both built and rock-hewn-from the Aksumite period to the 13th century.
David W. Phillipson, a foremost authority on Ethiopia's archaeology, situates these churches within the development of Ethiopian society, illuminating the exceptional continuity of the country's Christian civilization. He offers a fresh view of the…
I started reading detective stories in my teens, and I’ve never quit. They’ve become part of my professional identity. I’ve taught detective (and crime) fiction at various universities in the U.S. and the Middle East. I believe the genre is incredibly rich, allowing the writer to explore anything from contemporary social issues to historical events and from psychological phenomena to philosophical problems. Apart from my academic work, I also write and edit detective/crime stories, and I try to keep up with the stream of new works being published every year. The list here contains some of my all-time favorites, and I hope you will enjoy them as much as I have.
This was difficult to do well, but Ackroyd makes it work–and he makes it look easy: One half of the story is told in a very idiosyncratic version of early eighteenth-century English (the other half in contemporary English). The level of sheer craftsmanship is impressive.
The story gripped me: a serial killer mystery with touches of the occult and supernatural. London is a haunted place in this story, but not only the victims of the past but also the killers are still with us today. We come to understand that our entire world is built on the flawed achievements of the past.
'There is no Light without Darknesse and no Substance without Shaddowe'
So proclaims Nicholas Dyer, assistant to Sir Christopher Wren and the man with a commission to build seven London churches to stand as beacons of the enlightenment. But Dyer plans to conceal a dark secret at the heart of each church - to create a forbidding architecture that will survive for eternity. Two hundred and fifty years later, London detective Nicholas Hawksmoor is investigating a series of gruesome murders on the sites of certain eighteenth-century churches - crimes that make no sense to the modern mind . . .…
Dolça Llull Prat, a wealthy Barcelona woman, is only 15 when she falls in love with an impoverished poet-solder. Theirs is a forbidden relationship, one that overcomes many obstacles until the fledgling writer renders her as the lowly Dulcinea in his bestseller.
When I published Orphan, Agent, Prima, Pawn, in which Soviet-era psychological warfare plays a heavy role, I happily washed my hands of Russian intrigue and turned to more benign, pastoral inspirations – my life-long relationship with an idyllic cathedral town in Wiltshire, for example. Just days later, the world learned that a certain Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov shared my fondness for Salisbury’s “world-famous 123-metre spire,” the glories of which prompted their 72-hour visit from Moscow (and overlapped with the botched poisoning of a KGB defector living down the road). Since then, I find myself drawn to works that explore the interstices of morality, criminality, and great construction projects.
Like Golding, Garner is best known for his children’s books – tales that spring from the ancient mythology of his local Cheshire and wander into realms of high fantasy. But it is this slim novella, a collection of four stories binding as many generations of Garners (they have inhabited the region for centuries and they were, all of them - up until Alan, craftsmen, builders, laborers) that moves me to raptures. Beginning with a wide-eyed child’s discovery of cave drawings, the stories haul stone up above ground to lay out the longwalls of Garner’s mason progenitors and erect the spire of the local church, worn by Garner’s grandfather "like a dunce-cap.” The imagery and wordplay are stunning, binding dialect and landscape like a spell.
A classic work of rural magic realism from one of Britain's greatest children's novelists
Four interconnected fables of a way of living in rural England that is now disappeared.
Craftsmen pass on, or withhold, secrets of their relationship with the natural world, which gives them the material from which they create useful and beautiful things. Smiths and chandlers, steeplejacks and quarrymen, all live and work hand in hand with the seasons, the elements and the land. There is a mutual respect and a knowledge of the magical here that somehow, somewhere was lost to us. These fables beautifully recapture and…
I know it's kind of weird, but I have been fascinated by the world of direct-response marketing ever since I first saw the full-page ads in the "newspapers" my grandmother loved to read (The National Inquirer and the Weekly World News). Those ads fascinated me because, at first, I thought they were stories in the newspaper. That was my first exposure to the work of the brilliant Eugene Schwartz. I used to check our mail so I could grab all the "junk mail" that everyone else threw away because that's the only mail I wanted to read. That's why I became a direct-response copywriter.
This book is perhaps the greatest marketing book I have ever read (and I have read many). I came to it reluctantly because I was running a business and not building a church. But from the very first page, I knew this was something special.
Regardless of whether you're religious or not, Rick Warren's insight into what it takes to market a business (or even a church) is at the level of genius. Some will criticize the book for not being more "spiritual," but this makes it even easier to translate its principles to business and marketing.
Every church is driven by something. Tradition, finances, programs, personalities, events, seekers, and even buildings can each be the controlling force in a church. But Rick Warren believers that in order for a church to be healthy if must become a purpose driven church by Jesus. Now the founding pastor of Saddleback Church shares a proven five-part strategy that will enable your church to grow. . .- Warmer through fellowship - Deeper through discipleship - Stronger through worship - Broader through ministry - Larger through evangelism. Discover the same practical insights and principles for growing a healthy church that Rick…
If you spend as long looking at medieval churches as I do, you also end up collecting a lot of books on the subject. Any church archaeologist cannot help also becoming something of a librarian. A passion for churches - and books. There are hundreds of church guidebooks out there, all of which have their own merits, but these are a small selection of books that look at different aspects of church history. They look at these amazing buildings through a different lens. These aren't a definitive guide - just books that I find myself returning to time and time again - for both information and pleasure.
Surviving medieval painted rood screens are one of the wonders of England's churches. Each one artwork in its own right. In this magnificently illustrated work, the authors highlight twenty-four of the finest surviving examples, showing them in all their glorious detail. It may not be a groundbreaking work, but it is most certainly an inspiring one. If you ever thought the Middle Ages were drab and colourless, then this book will undoubtedly change your mind. A visual feast.
Who was the man who would become Caesar's lieutenant, Brutus' rival, Cleopatra's lover, and Octavian's enemy?
When his stepfather is executed for his involvement in the Catilinarian conspiracy, Mark Antony and his family are disgraced. His adolescence is marked by scandal and mischief, his love affairs are fleeting, and yet,…
During college, I attended an inner-city black church during the years of the civil rights movement—and it changed the course of my life. My husband and I have lived in diverse neighborhoods and attended multicultural churches for most of our 56 years of marriage, realizing we have much to learn from our brothers and sisters of color. But the biggest influence that caused me to write theYada Yada Prayer Group novels was/is the prayer group of sisters of color that I’ve been part of for over 25 years. As we spent time together every week for years (!), these sisters helped turn my life and my faith upside down—or maybe “right side up.”
My husband and I got to know Brenda Salter McNeil when we were members of the same multi-cultural church. Before she ever wrote this book, we knew her as a reconciler with a passion for racial justice—especially in the churches. In this book, she invites all of us—white, black, brown, yellow—to the table for honest and passionate conversations about the reconciling nature of the gospel. When things got tough and we struggled with some church issues, Brenda was more than encouraging and supportive—not with easy answers, but with the solid foundation of love between brothers and sisters of faith.
Racial and ethnic hostility is one of the most pervasive problems the church faces. It hinders our effectiveness as one body of believers. It damages our witness. Why won't this problem just go away?
Because it is a spiritual battle.
In response, we must employ spiritual weapons-prayer, repentance, forgiveness. In this book Brenda Salter McNeil and Rick Richardson provide a model of racial reconciliation, social justice, and spiritual healing that creates both individual and communal transformation. Read this book if you want to learn how to
use your faith as a force for change, not as a smoke screen for…
