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In the Library: Books and Reading with Paul Barker

Paul Mar 16

Paul Barker reads books, and in between times has been teaching Old Testament and training preachers in many Asian countries for the past nearly seven years. He is the Regional Coordinator for Langham Preaching in Asia. He is the author of no books of fiction but a few books on the Old Testament. Formerly he was Senior Minister of Holy Trinity Doncaster and in November will begin as an Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Melbourne.

TGCA: What books are currently on your bedside table? 

(i) The 10th and final Inspector Beck crime fiction, by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, a 1970s Swedish Marxist couple – brilliant series

(ii) Joseph Prince, Destined to Reign (heresy, but needing to write a critique of hypergrace for friends in Myanmar) 

(iii) Paul Avis: Becoming a Bishop: A Theological Handbook of Episcopal Ministry 

(iv) The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, the latest Pulitzer winner (and I cannot resist Asian-based good novels)

TGCA: What was the last book you left unfinished? 

It is very rare for me not to finish a book but I couldn’t manage Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths about 25 years ago. I am a bear of little brain.

TGCA: Fiction or Non-fiction? 

I prefer fiction overall. I make a point of reading all the Booker prize novels and am working my way through the Gold Dagger Crime Fiction winners.

TGCA: Do you read commentaries straight-through or dip-in? 

I began reading commentaries when I was given a set of NICNT for my 21st birthday! When preaching a series, I read commentaries through, and occasionally other times also. I recently read through the new Tyndale Leviticus commentary by Sklar—excellent!

TGCA: Should Christians write fiction? 

Absolutely. Only Christians understand the human condition properly.

TGCA: Do you re-read books? 

Only occasionally. I recently re-read Huck Finn, because for 30 years I have doubted my Year 10 English teacher that Twain was making a point and not just spinning a great yarn. My teacher was right.

TGCA: Best biography you’ve read? 

From the Land of Green Ghosts, autobiography by Pascal Khoo Thwe, heart-warming, gut-wrenching, mesmerizing story of a young Burmese man on the run from the military junta ending up in Cambridge doing an English literature degree.

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

Deuteronomy, and fiction: Greene, Power and the Glory, Fitzgerald, Gatsby, Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath, Carey, Oscar & Lucinda, Ishiguro, Remains of the Day, Potok, The Chosen, Collected Short Stories of Flannery O’Connor, Khosseini, Kite Runner, Tan Twan Eng, The Gift of Rain, and number 11 (please?) the rest of the Bible. And still there’s no room for A A Milne.

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TGCA: What was the last book that made you angry? 

Preeta Samarasan, Evening is the Whole Day, (a Malaysian author) for its appalling writing style that made me want to vomit every second page; most books/novels set in China, Cambodia, Pakistan, India, Myanmar, Vietnam, North Korea, … because of the appalling lack of human rights, bad government, poverty and corruption reflected in the books.

TGCA: Most overrated book? 

Moby Dick? Pride and Prejudice? Maybe the Harry Potter books, but I haven’t read them so cannot be sure!

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

Before I sleep, in a queue, on trains, buses, ferries, planes, before meals, while eating meals, after meals, waiting at the post office, doctor, bank, station, airport, at interval in concerts, while drinking tea, while not drinking tea, and occasionally when I am at red lights while driving! And some other times as well.

TGCA: What was the last books you read? 

Americanah by Chimamanda Adichie, a wonderful Nigerian author, and A Nervous Splendour by Frederic Morton, about life in Vienna in the astonishing year of 1888-89, around the suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf.

TGCA: Which book, apart from the Bible, has most shaped your approach to ministry? 

Baxter’s Reformed Pastor

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