Not sure what to read next? Two Britpapers offer the following lists:

• The Telegraph’s 100 novels everyone should read
• The Guardian’s 1000 novels everyone must read

I offer you 10 (less known & better known) novels everyone might consider reading:

• KJ Bishop, The Etched City
• Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky
• Jonathan Coe, The Rotters’ Club
• Steve Erickson, Arc D’X
• Denis Johnson, Fiskadoro
• China Miéville, The Scar
• David Mitchell, Black Swan Green
• Charles Portis, Masters of Atlantis
• Geoff Ryman, Air: Or, Have Not Have
• Edward Whittemore, Nile Shadows

Truly, a little bit of everything for the ravenous reader.

Expect The Holy Bible in its Original Order to be the first of many new translations restoring the Bible to its proper forty-nine books (rather than today’s sixty-six) and reëstablishing the correct seven divisions:

Particularly important is the placement of Paul’s epistles after the seven general epistles, fulfilling the principle “to the Jew first”:

But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.

Perhaps this will help people to rightly divide the word of truth.

A fascinating commentary, “Beauty and the Best,” by Theodore Dalrymple.

I’m sure many (not just artists) will take offense to the following, but I really thought Dalrymple nailed our times:

The successful modern artist’s subject is himself, not in any genuinely self-examining way that would tell us something about the human condition, but as an ego to distinguish himself from other egos, as distinctly and noisily as he can. Like Oscar Wilde at the New York customs, he has nothing to declare but his genius: which, if he is lucky, will lead to fame and fortune. Of all the artistic disciplines nowadays, self-advertisement is by far the most important.

Seems too many have forgotten, “The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.”

Few things are harder to overcome than one’s own past, our days spent bearing under the weight of vices turned into habits and memories recalled as regrets.

Positive change, then, becomes the sine qua non of our lives; a race to betterment against the clock of fate.

Perhaps, then, we should remember what Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 7:16-17:

Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself? Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time?

And then consider what Paul wrote in Philippians 4:11:

. . . [F]or I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

In the end, however, salvation is only gained through grace which has already been given to us and can’t be taken away. Why? Because it’s not our faith, it’s Christ’s. That’s the gift: the imputation of Christ’s perfect faith to us (Ephesians 2:8-9):

For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works lest any man should boast.

Instead of preaching what we must do in order to be saved (nothing), churches should be teaching what Christ did that got us (mankind) saved. (What purpose, then, do churches serve if we’re already saved? Who would fill their coffers if they preached universal salvation instead of eternal punishment?)

So, really, we have all the time in the world to accept our gift.