Darton, Longman Todd Ltd

This book demonstrates that cultural icon Doctor Who is, always has been, and always should be, a political narrative. As this much-loved science-fiction show, now in its 62nd year, continues to entertain audiences around the world, some people have complained that the writing, themes and presentation is too political. But, claims Lizbeth Myles, Doctor Who has always explored important and controversial political issues, and it is vital that it continues to do so. This insightful, intelligent and entertaining book looks back at some of the most prominent political themes that the series has tackled over the decades - including Nuclear Annihilation, Feminism, Colonialism, Environmentalism, Scientific Responsibility, and Transhumanism - the historical context in which they has been framed, and how the messaging has changed in different eras of the show''s history.

When Chris Bowlby’s son Ewan was diagnosed with a brain tumour aged 17, you might have thought football would be the last thing on their minds. But in the following decade in which Ewan faced growing threats to his health, the love of football they shared seemed to grow in importance. It was a kind of thread, defiantly holding some kind of normal life together, and a passion that prompted fascinating discussion about why a sport could matter so much.After Ewan’s death from cancer in 2022 Chris faced a choice. He wondered whether his lifelong love of football might fade. But gradually he found a way of including grief in a return to life, all of life. He understood as never before how much football had meant to him, how it had shaped the world he had lived through, and how it could now help him cope. Yet there was tension too. Was he now more aware of how the modern game might be leaving its humanity behin? his book explores that experience, ranging from top-level football to community clubs, the intensely local to the global, the women’s game as well as the men’s. It has football at its heart but is about much more than sport.

Marking the installation of Sarah Mullally as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury – the first woman to take the role, at a time of unprecedented levels of challenge facing the Church of England – this unique book is essential reading for all who care about the future of the national church and the wider Anglican Communion. The book opens with an insightful biography and exclusive interview with Sarah Mullally by journalist Tim Wyatt, helping us to better understand her qualities as a person, as a pastor and as a leader. This is followed by ten short chapters by prominent Anglican writers, each outlining the background and scale of the most significant challenges facing Archbishop Sarah as the new leader of the Church of England. The Afterword by Rowan Williams offers words of solidarity from someone who has been there before.The chapters and writers are: Spirituality (Mark Oakley), Mission (Chantal Noppen), Anglican Unity (Amatu Christian-Iwuagwu), Safeguarding (Andrew Graystone), Climate Crisis (Ruth Valerio), Same-Sex Marriage (Charlie Bell), Transgender Inclusion (Christina Beardsley), Disability Inclusion (Emily Richardson), Poverty (Jon Kuhrt), Nationalism and Racism (Eileen Harrop). Each chapter is written candidly but constructively, in a spirit of hope, and ends with a prayer for strength and support for Archbishop Sarah.

Gravity Defied continues the tradition of DLT’s popular movie-based Lent course series for small groups. Rachel Mann, author of the bestselling course From Now On (The Greatest Showman) has written this stunning new course based on the BAFTA award-winning movie, Wicked. Over five weekly sessions, she uses clips from the film, Bible passages and discussion-starters to help us relate the movie to the scriptures and the Gospel. Themes include: How we judge goodness; belonging; pleasure; indulgence; temptation and redemption.

** This title will be released on September 30th, 2025 but is now available for pre-order **Following his retirement as Bishop of Liverpool in 2022, Paul Bayes and his wife Kate moved to a different part of the country. Kate developed a serious illness and died two years after the move. For Paul, the paths of life have taken a very different direction to what he had expected. ‘My lungs could not handle religion’s warm, humid, triumphant air any more. I found myself rediscovering my first love; a love for testing, and questioning, and wondering.’The Door, based on the farewell sermon he preached to the Diocese of Liverpool, explores this new theological landscape through a series of profound and deeply moving reflections, that should prove helpful to all of us in times of increased grief and uncertainty. ‘I have come to believe more and more that God is to be found in the desert and in the public place, and that it is deceptively easy, and mistaken, to look for God in some middle place, some religious place, less transcendent and less immanent, availably supernatural, reliably available, unquestionably predictable, a middle place like a pocket where meaning and God can be tucked away and preserved.

** This title is available for pre-order and will be released in late September 2025 **It’s time to retire, time to downsize, time to slow down and exit stage left. Does this mean becoming invisible, putting on the slippers and settling down in the rocking chair? Or is it perhaps the time to embrace the most fulfilling challenge of all - to mature inwardly into our wisdom years? This book by best-selling spirituality writer Margaret Silf explores some of the invitations that await us in these wisdom years – the harder things, like learning the art of slowing down and letting go, increasingly aware of our own mortality, – and the joyful surprises, as our perspective changes and we glimpse more clearly the possibilities that the longer view reveals and the unexpected gifts that winter brings. It invites you to discover, and celebrate, your own wisdom years.

Herne the Hunter: Seeking Shakespeare’s Ghost, Windsor’s Demon, Wicca’s God unravels an intriguing process of mythmaking to show how the familiar antlered man of British folklore has his origins not, as commonly assumed, in local legend or ancient Celtic myth, but as a creation of William Shakespeare.Through speculation, wishful thinking, misunderstanding, and an amazing cast of people – including George III, Queen Victoria, Jacob Grimm, Margaret Murray, Gerald Gardner, Arthur Sullivan, and major literary figures such as Richard Brindley Sheridan, William Harrison Ainsworth John Masefield, Robert Graves, Alan Garner, Susan Cooper, and Terry Pratchett – Herne has transformed from Shakespeare’s joke (in The Merry Wives of Windsor) to a famous ghost, a legendary figure of popular culture (The Box of Delights and TV’s Robin of Sherwood) and a manifestation of the Celtic horned god Cernunnos in the Wicca religion.This fascinating historical investigation by Edmund Newell is illustrated with beautiful original artwork by printmaker Charles Shearer – including the eye-catching cover art and eight colour illustrations inside the book.

Back in the 1960s a little girl of nine who was deeply in love with Narnia wrote a book of short stories. Written in spiky blue ink with various crossings-out and spelling mistakes, Katherine Langrish’s Tales of Narnia filled an old hard-cover notebook from front to back. Some of the stories were illustrated with dramatic, poster-painted scenes, and Katherine drew a map of Narnia on the inside back cover.Now a celebrated adult writer of children’s and young adult’s literature, Langrish has revisited C. S. Lewis’s Seven Chronicles of Narnia to explore what they mean to her today. In From Spare Oom to War Drobe she analyses what once enchanted her and asks whether it still has the power to do so. Hand in hand with her nine year-old self, she traces many paths through Lewis’s thick forest of allusions not only to Christianity, but to Plato, fairy tales, myths, legends, medieval romances, renaissance poetry and indeed to other children’s books.Here are two very different ways of reading the Narnia stories: the adult, informed, rational way and the passionate childish way. For whenever children fall in love with a book they love it fiercely, loyally, completely; and as anyone it’s ever happened to will know, it can be a transformative experience.The Foreword has been written by award-winning writer and broadcaster Brian Sibley, who dramatised the BBC radio adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia.

Following the same format as his popular The Dog Walker''s Guide to God, Henry Martin presents 52 further reflections on life, faith and the mysteries of God, to be read and considered in the company of your canine companion. It provides ideal material to chew over when out walking your dog but is just as suitable for reading at home. The lessons we learn from thinking about our dogs can inspire us to surprising insights about deeper themes. This beautiful hardback book is illustrated throughout by the author.

This eloquent new book of philosophical theology challenges and aims to remedy the underlying assumption of both believers and atheists that their arguments depend on proof that God either exists or doesn’t exist. It is a controversy conducted in misleading terms – as if atheists believed in all the things that exist in the universe, and theists also believed in all those beings but also believed in one additional being which they call ‘God’.A much more useful enquiry about ‘God’, suggests Gilbert Márkus, is ‘Why does anything exist, rather than nothing?’ If God created everything that exists, according to a very ancient tradition, God cannot be one of the things that exist. God is no thing. Or Nothing.In God as Nothing, Márkus traces the history of this idea through the long development of the Jewish and Christian philosophical and literary tradition. He identifies it in the Bible, in the thought of Augustine, Aquinas and Eckhart, and in the poetry of R.S. Thomas and Paul Celan. He explores its significance in relation to Hegel, Feuerbach and Marx. In the second part of the book, he shines the ‘single white light’ of the idea through various prisms, to help all of us divine further enlightenment in the refractions that emerge.

Who am I? That is one of life’s deepest questions, common to us all, and it can be the work of a lifetime to find the answer. In The Art of Spiritual Writing, Eirene Palmer and Richard Palmer, both published authors and leaders of Christian spiritual retreats, demonstrate how clearer self-awareness can come through the practice of writing. This practical, friendly, transformative book offers a treasure trove of ideas to help you write about your spiritual life from that deep reflective place that is inside each of us. It shows you how your writing can help you explore your own journey, past, present and future, exploring those areas of unique individual interest and maybe recording your story for others. It will help you to discover the value of writing meditative and reflective work, as well as the benefits of writing for therapy and prayer. It also provides invaluable advice, good journalling practices, and tips for encouraging readers to get into the habit of daily writing and reflection.