40 Bicycles

My blogging output this summer has been simply appalling. Sorry about that folks. Over the last couple of weeks I have had a number of things on in my free time, most notably 24 season 4, participation in discussion fora, a bad case of the flu and a number of long conversations offline. Last week I finished my job and will spend the rest of my time before going up to St Andrews in revision, part time work helping my father and other aspects of preparation. Last Friday I attended the wedding of my friends Dave and Vicky down south, with a number of others from our church. It was a very special day. Yesterday I finally finished reading the Harry Potter books that have been released so far. Book 6 was probably my favourite, as I felt that it most opened itself (and the rest of the books in the series) up to closer examination. Some of the questions that it raises are very interesting. I started looking through John Granger's website yesterday and was encouraged to see that I am not alone in certain of my speculations about Book 7. Granger's article Why Half Blood Prince is the Best Harry Potter Novel is quite simply fantastic. If you have read Book 6, you must read this. I really haven't done much other reading beyond this over the last few weeks. I have been functioning well below peak efficiency. Richard Hays' latest work, The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel's Scripture is a good follow-up to Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, even if it is nowhere near as groundbreaking. Elaine Storkey's The Origins of Difference: The Gender Debate Revisited gave me many causes for disagreement. However, apart from Harry Potter books 5 and 6, these are the only books that I have really read since returning from the Netherlands.