One of the delights of Aberdeen is a very fine second hand bookshop run by a friend who is discerning enough to make sure the shop is full of books that are interesting, tempting, unusual, reasonably priced and arranged more or less in subjects and most of them reachable without precarious acrobatic maneouvres on shoogly steps or over-laden shelves to inch towards that one and ease it out of that far away corner up there.
And I came away with loot. A near mint copy of Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling, by Ross King, an account of the years it took to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling, written with the flair of a novelist but in fact a detailed account of genius at work, overcoming tedium, illness, lack of materials, unrealistic demands, and triumphing with one of the greatest achievements of Renaissance art. A rare hardback copy of Thomas Merton's The Monastic Journey, with woodcuts and a number of chapters on such themes as "Solitary Life", "Monastic Peace" and "Contemplative Prayer". And a book for a friend, The English Mediaeval Parish Church, which could be described in a catlaogue as "generously illustrated, spine faded but the volume well bound, solid and unmarked, a good clean copy of a hard to find book". Quite. And my friend will like it muchly.
There were of course a number I left behind, those books that didn't make the final interview and had to be replaced on the shelf, reluctantly, on account of funds, or lack of same. A clean crisp copy of Simone Weil's Gravity and Grace; a double volume set on Van Gogh which I am tempted to phone my mortgage lender about;
oh, and is there anyone out there still reads Paul Tournier - even know who Paul Tournier was? Some of his books on Christianity and psychology, hugely popular in the 60's and 70's, published by SCM, but now no longer readable two generations on. But for a time this Swiss psychologist was a rare voice trying to build a bridge between Christian faith and therapeutic psychology. The photo belies the compassionate common-sense of this eminently caring man, whose books now read with a patronising tone, but only because we are now constituionally suspicious of all didactic voices. Tournier can sound like a genial grandfather calming over excited, or over-timid children. I still learned things from him that made me think differently about myself, other people, and the sheer complexity of trying to make relationships work in ways that minimise hurt and promote friendship. And yes, the photo does seem to depict a slightly tipsy member of a quiz panel on early TV, but that's Wikipedia for you :)
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