This month’s Church Times Book Club choice is Of Stone and Sky by Merryn Glover. On this Book Club Podcast, Ian Bradley, who has written an essay about the book in this week’s Church Times, interviews the author.
Of Stone and Sky is published by Birlinn and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £8.99.
Of Stone and Sky is a novel set in the hills and straths of the Scottish Highlands. At the heart of this multi-generational saga is the mystery of the disappearance of the Highland shepherd Colvin Munro. One of the main narrators of this modern-day redemptive tale is Mo, the missing shepherd’s foster-sister. Mo is a Church of Scotland minister, and her voice becomes the book’s moral compass. In the book, the author covers a range of themes relevant to the use of the Highlands, including land ownership, ecology, and the challenges facing sheep-farming.
Merryn Glover is a novelist and radio dramatist. She was born in Kathmandu and brought up in Nepal, India, and Pakistan, where her Anglican Australian parents worked as Wycliffe Bible Translators. The author now lives in the Upper Spey Valley, in the Highlands, which provides the setting for Of Stone and Sky, her second novel.
The Revd Professor Ian Bradley is Emeritus Professor of Cultural and Spiritual History at the University of St Andrews. His latest book, God Save the King: The sacred nature of the monarchy, is published by Darton, Longman & Todd at £8.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.09) (Comment, 28 April).
The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature.
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Click the play button above to listen to this podcast. You can also listen to the Church Times Podcast on the Church Times app for iPhone and iPad, SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most other podcast platforms. Music for the podcast is by Twisterium.