10 Successful writers whose fathers were ministers

Sayers, Austen, Buchan, Crane

1. Charlotte Bronte (And Anne and Emily)
2. John Buchan
3. Pearl Buck
4. Jane Austen
5. Lewis Carroll
6. Stephen Crane
7. Elizabeth Gaskell
8. Ronald Knox
9. Harriet Beecher Stowe
10. Dorothy Sayers

The Thirty Nine Steps

I was in a charity shop the other day when I saw a nice copy of John Buchan's novella, The Thirty Nine Steps.(Published by Polygon). I started reading it and half way through remembered that some years before I had bought a very nice illustrated hardback edition and so started reading that edition. (That one is pubkished by Chatto & Windus). It's a great little thriller with plenty of good background material on London and Scotland. The plot is a little unlikely, of course, but still a good yarn. I wonder of the other books in the Richard Hanney series are any good.

10 Literary Greats whose fathers were ministers

1. Jane Austen (Anglican Rector)

2. Pearl S Buck (Presbyterian missionary to China)

3. John Buchan (FC of S minister)

4. Lewis Carroll [Samuel Lutwidge Dodgson] (Anglican cleric)

5. Stephen Crane (Methodist Episcopal minister)

6. Elizabeth Gaskell (Unitarian minister)

7. Dorothy L Sayers (Anglican cleric)

8. Harriet Beecher Stowe (Presbyterian minister)

9. Charlotte Bronte (Anglican Rector)

10. Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Anglican Rector)

Novelists 46 - John Buchan

John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (1875-1940) was a Scottish novelist, historian and Unionist politician. After a brief legal career, Buchan simultaneously began his writing career and his political and diplomatic careers, serving as a private secretary to the colonial administrator of various colonies in southern Africa. He eventually wrote propaganda for the British war effort in WWI. In 1927 he was elected MP for the Combined Scottish Universities but spent most of his time on his writing career, notably writing The Thirty-Nine Steps and other adventure fiction. In 1935 he was appointed Governor General of Canada by King George V, on the recommendation of Prime Minister of Canada R. B. Bennett. He occupied the post until his death in 1940. He proved to be enthusiastic about literacy, as well as the evolution of Canadian culture, and he received a state funeral in Canada before his ashes were returned to the UK. I have only read his most famous novel. He was an active elder of St Columba's Church here in London for many years. It would be nice to check out some of the other titles - Prester John, Greenmantle. He wrote 30 novels as well as many other works.

Book Buys August

It has been a very busy month as far as book buying is concerned.

I bought three books over the net in connection with the John Owen Centre course

Francis Schaeffer An Authentic Life by Colin Duriez
Cornelius Van Til Reformed Apologist and Churchman by John Muether
Christian Apologetics by Cornelius Van Til (ed Bill Edgar)

In the EMW bookstall and the Alfred Place Bookshop I bought several volumes including

John Calvin Pilgrim and Pastor by Robert Godfrey
Living for God's Glory An Introduction to Calvinism by Joel Beeke
John Calvin a heart for Devotion, Doctrine and Doxology by Burk Parsons (ed)
Calvin's Teaching on Job by Derek Thomas
The Sovereign Spirit by Gwyn Walters

Why Johnny can't preach by T David Gordon
The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller
Letters of Geerhardus Vos
The Family at Church by Joel Beeke
Heirs with Christ: The Puritans on Adoption by Joel Beeke

I also picked up the much praised Bruce Gordon on Calvin in Ystwyth Books

Then there was also a book on the British Empire and The invention of Dr Cake by Andrew Motion second hand in Aberaeron, and 3 Wordsworth Classics for £5 in Aber - Life's Little Ironies (Thomas Hardy), The Professor (Charlotte Bronte), The Three Hostages (John Buchan).