The Gospel of Jesus Green: Home for all, not just for humans by Neil J. Whitehouse (Wipf & Stock, £24 (£21.60); 979-8-3852-0024-5).

“Whitehouse draws on paleontologist Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and existentialist Paul Tillich to claim “home for all, not just for humans” is a universal biological phenomenon and a truth named by Jesus. A biodiversity of illustrations entertains and reveals; trees can speak, dead birds teach, and rivers become persons. Then Jesus Green emerges, as a systems thinker, for the home. If Jesus was homeless for a cause, he found his home on the cross, now a paradoxical symbol that lifts up our place within nature. This creative, passionate account delivers the punch other Green Christian books lack. It could not have come sooner.”

Companion to the New Testament: Introduction, interpretation, application, edited by James Crossley and Michelle Fletcher (SCM Press, £19.99 (Church Times SPECIAL OFFER PRICE £15.99); 978-0-334-05630-0).

“The Companion to the New Testament offers intelligent enrichment for encounters with the New Testament. Covering both historical-critical approaches and the history of interpretation, it provides a launchpad for students wrestling with some of the complex debates and concerns presented by the canon.”  

The Gathering place: A Winter Pilgrimage through changing times by Mary Colwell (Bloomsbury, £11.99 (£10.79); 978-1-3994-0056-5). New in paperback

“In the winter of 2020, author, nature campaigner and veteran solo walker Mary Colwell walked a 500-mile pilgrimage along the Camino Francés in northern Spain. In a typical year, many thousands of people walk this route, but Mary had it virtually to herself at a unique historical moment — a time of profound political change, escalating climate and biodiversity emergencies and global pandemic.” 

Selected by Frank Nugent, of the Church House Bookshop, which operates the Church Times Bookshop.