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In the Library: Books and Reading with Greg Clarke

Greg Clarke

Greg Clarke is Group CEO of Bible Society Australia (which includes the Bible Society, CPX, Eternity and Koorong). He is father of five and married to Amelia, and lives in Sydney. His most recent book is The Great Bible Swindle.

 

TGCA: What books are currently on your bedside table?

The Affluent Society by J. K. Galbraith
Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford 
The Chaser Quarterly (with Donald Trump on the cover)

TGCA: What’s a book you feel guilty for not reading?

Overcoming Guilt by Dr Windy Dryden

TGCA: What’s one thing you learned about Patrick White in your PhD studies that you want everyone to know?

White liked characters (and actual people) who cut away the pretence of class and manners, and faced the earthy, complex realities of life with grace. And I learned that difficult and grumpy writers can be worth the effort!

TGCA: Physical, e-book, audio, graphic novels?

Very biased to physical books, but enjoy short-form reading online 

TGCA: What’s a book that someone needs to write?

Sorry to get all work-focused, but we still need Bible translations for the 180 million people with no Scripture at all, and 1.5 billion still without a complete Bible. Then we will have reached the ends of the earth.

Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe Cover Image

TGCA: What books did you read to your children?

We read very widely with them when they are little, mainly books that sound fun: Dr Seuss, Shel Silverstein, Roald Dahl, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (LWW) in various formats. When they hit school age, we gave them shelves to roam to discover their own interests and tastes. In high school, we started talking about what was on those shelves.

TGCA: What was the last book you gave as a present?

Apart from Bibles, it was Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet.

TGCA: What books made a big impact on you during adolescence?

To be honest, in my early teens it was Mr God, This is Anna by Fynn and Run, Baby, Run by Nicky Cruz! In later teens, it was Samuel Beckett’s play, Waiting for Godot, Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. I am also fortunate to have been a Bible reader basically from birth.

TGCA: Best biography you’ve read?

I really do think David Marr’s Patrick White: A Life is wonderful, even if he underplays the role of religion in White’s life and work. Most important autobiographies for me were Augustine’s Confessions and C.S. Lewis’ Surprised by Joy.

TGCA: What 10 books would you take to a desert island?

Obviously a Bible. Then, given my lack of survival skills, I think I’d better stick with self-help titles. Maybe some P.G. Wodehouse 

TGCA: What’s your favourite time and place to read?

Everywhere and any time is a good time to read. I’m fortunate that my work includes a good deal of reading, but my preferred scenario is one long sitting very late at night.

TGCA: What is your favourite novel?

Always a hard one to answer. Most profound experience of the past five years was Cormac McCarthy’s The Road followed by Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead.

TGCA: What is your favourite poem?

Even harder. My favourite poets are all moderns: Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Manley Hopkins. There are many exceptions, such as Shakespeare’s and Donne’s Sonnets, which are nearly uniformly breathtaking. ‘Batter my heart, three person’d God’ would have a claim to the gold medal. Mind you, Australian genius, Les Murray, is a strong contender with ‘Poetry and Religion’ and, for the sheer joy of language, ‘Bat’s Ultrasound’. 

TGCA: What is one book, apart from the Bible, you’d encourage every Christian to read?

Impossible. But I think if pushed I’d say John Stott’s Basic Christianity, just to get everything in the right place mentally. That, or LWW

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