iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

4 Oct - a proper book. Macfarlane is an extraordinary writer & this is an extraordinary book in its scope & reach & prose. I liked it more than The Old Ways, which I liked a lot - it is more human (despite its vast scale). Very bleak, very true-feeling, and not without hope.

Front cover of Robert Macfarlane, 'Underland: A Deep Time Journey.'

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

27 September - the second in the above series. I need to stop reading these or I will read literally nothing else. And part of my aim this year was to read _less_ YA urban fantasy, not more...

Front cover of Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing with Fire by Derek Landy

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

20 September - apparently having a 9yo means he recommends books to me as well as the other way round? And they're really good? Wow.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

14 Sept - the long awaited @cdjtheology.bsky.social book, as excellent and thought-provoking as we all expected. Particularly appreciated the emphasis that 'one of the effects of sacramental practice is to reveal the full extent of the destruction wrought by the powers of sin and death.'

The front cover of Sacramental Trans Feminism: Ritualism, Liberation and Trans Rites by Chris Clare Dingwall-Jones.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

2 September - as described by @mthrjo.bsky.social , a Wodehouse pastiche w the Bertie character as a magician-about-town (& gay as a picnic basket). Very enjoyable. I like Rivers of London and it was nice to see a young Nightingale in action (&, spoilers, drag) and the pre-war wizardly world.

Ben Aaronovitch - The Masquerades of Spring (A Rivers of London novella)

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Dropped in at the Weston to see the Muses before they go back on the Clarendon building. Felt for Polyhymnia, who is too busy with her rhetoric to notice her wardrobe malfunction. (Alternatively: isn't it interesting that the muse of rhetoric is depicted with one bare boob?)

A photo of a white marble-effect statue of the muse Polyhymnia. She has a halo (? It looks like a bobbly plate) and is holding a scroll in one hand, while the other is raised rhetorically. Unfortunately however she is experiencing a nip slip.

Caption for the statue. 'I am Polyhymnia, the muse of rhetoric - of persuasion, eloquence and the power of the spoken word. High above the city I once stood in quiet contemplation, my stillness reflecting the discipline of thought and expression. Taken down in 2024, I have since been strengthened and renewed. My name suggests "many hymns" yet my true art lies in language shapes to persuade. I now hold a scroll bearing the word suadere - to persuade.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

21 August (yes, I am on holiday; yes, I have read three books) - loved this. Ghosts, religion and philosophy; controlled, heartbreaking, but hopeful.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

16 August - birthday present from @idleconcern.bsky.social. V much enjoyed- interesting, insightful, a lot of historical characters I recognised slotting into new contexts. Biographies are sad- one becomes fond of the subject & then has to witness their decline&death- & I did become fond of James.

Queen James: The Life and Loves of Britain's First King, Gareth Russell

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

10 August - strange & sad book, not v well written, deeply unsatisfying conclusion (plot needed resolution that just didn't arrive). The author (a Classics teacher) was running children's activities in the Weston last week; we had a lovely chat & she was so nice I bought it to be supportive. Alas.

Front cover of The Birder by Lorna Robinson. The cover is great and there are some lovely linocut bird illustrations, but other than that, not worth it.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

18 July - found in a charity shop, wondered if the 9yo would like it, glad I pre-read it (theft, assault, neglectful parent, abusive parent, parent found dead, underage drinking by 12yo protagonist...) but it was good fun and he will really like it in the fullness of time!

Front cover of The Recruit by Robert Muchamore. (The series is called Cherub, and that text is also on the cover - leading me initially to think it was the name of the book, but it's not.)

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

25 July - my own audiobook over the last couple of months. A reread. Think I enjoyed it less than when I read it aged ~13. But some excellent moments. (And I love, in That Hideous Strength, how incredibly grumpy Merlin is.)

Front cover of CS Lewis' Cosmic Trilogy (I refuse to call it the Space Trilogy)

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

25 July - audiobook with said 9yo. He LOVED it. (As did I). Also listening to a lot of Holmes short stories which I won't list here.

Front cover of The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

25 July - catching up on a few weeks. Bought this in a charity shop for 9 yo... glad I read it before giving it to him. (Really good. But alcoholism, drug dealing, professional shoplifting, parental death, underage drinking - and then pretty sadistic training of 10 year olds to be spies.)

Front cover of The Recruit by Robert Muchamore

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

28 May - another one I've been meaning to read, recommended by someone at work. Made me cry. A midrash on the Jacob story which made it sadder in a lot of ways.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Sticking my head in the sand over All This, and very much enjoying the Colin Buchanan collection An Evangelical among the Anglican Liturgists. (You know he's an evangelical because Catholics would say 'amongst.')

A photo of text from the book mentioned, in which the highlighted sentence reads 'Liturgical creativity is an area in which no Anglican has had any fun or job satisfaction since Thomas Cranmer.'

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

9 April - catch-up over, reaching today with this, which has been on my list for ages and which I borrowed from my dad (it's possible I gave it to him). Very enjoyable, old-fashioned leftist fare (with a reminder of the bird site in its heyday, sic transit etc, and nice nods to Orwell).

Cover of Long Road from Jarrow by Stuart Maconie

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

And this week! 8 April - another work-adjacent (or future-further-study-adjacent) one. Perceptive about problems and interesting about solutions.

Cover of Beyond Common Worship: Anglican identity and liturgical diversity (Mark Earey)

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

And finally for Lent - again, does it count if I read it to review it? My view might have been coloured by having to read it in a truly rubbish e-book platform, but I was unimpressed.

The cover of Worship and the Mystery of God: The Anglican Divines and the Reality of Divine Presence (John Shepherd)

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Lent - Lent book (my usual approach to Advent and Lent books these days being 'pull spiritual classic that I haven't read off the shelf where it has been since I bought it an embarrassing number of years ago, and read it as lectio)

Cover of (one translation of) (Pseudo-) Dionysius the Areopagite, The Divine Names

My Lent lectio. A ladder shape filled in with various colours and a sequence of words, sentences and phrases from The Divine Names. Some legible phrases are:
Yearning
Matter cannot be evil
He who Is
Perfect peace is there as a gift
No name for it or expression
A union far beyond mind

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Lent - bought on Kindle after seeing a thread of 'support queer writers' On Here. Classic YA fantasy tropes (entirely positively meant) - a small town with a dark secret, parental figures who are not what they seem, a teenage girl with a destiny - but unexpectedly developed. And queer. Enjoyed it.

Cover of Ghost Flower by Jessica Conwell

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Lent - sequel to The Amulet of Samarkand, above. Also good, very much more of the same. Started the third in the trilogy but apparently two and a half is enough for three months, and haven't yet got round to finishing it.

Cover of The Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Catching up after a Lent largely off social media... Lent - as audiobook, with 9yo G. He LOVED it. Had hoped he was the right age for Buchan (Boys Own adventures so much a part of my mental landscape between the ages of 8 and 14) and he absolutely is.

The cover of The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

16 February - a Christmas present. Semi-epistolatory novel w/ episodes of dialogue written as sketches; mildly irritating. Not entirely accurate about C of E process; you... can tell that the author writes for the Spectator. But I did really care about the characters. Not a hardship to finish it.

Cover of 'Love Divine: A Novella' by Ysenda Maxtone Graham.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

Some people collect icons of the patron saints of the churches they have served, I'm collecting tattoos... (a swan, for Hugh of Lincoln)

My upper arm, with a fresh tattoo of a swan. The swan is sitting on water, but his wings are just at the point of unfurling. He's looking across (at a healed tattoo of blossom). My arm is pretty red because it was just finished when I took the photo.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

I don't think there is a more usable translation than the NRSV, taken all in all, but the first reading tonight really does show up its shortcomings. 'When the queen of Sheba had observed... the seating of his officials... his valets and their clothing...'

A still from the 1990s 'Jeeves and Wooster.' Stephen Fry, playing Jeeves, is on the left, wearing a dark suit and looking disapproving. Hugh Laurie, as Bertie Wooster, is on the right, wearing a grey suit with red tie and straw hat and looking silly.

Jeeves, for those who don't know, is the archetypal literary valet, and when the reading talks about 'his valets and their clothing' it makes me picture this. Which I suspect was not intentional.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

5 February - another reread, read this as a teenager and remembered bits, especially the wonderfully evocative verse 'the trees that walk/ the streams that stand/ the beasts that talk/ the singing sand.' A strange sort of detective story; stranger than I think she intended, but very good.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

29 January - have been dipping in&out over a few months, and have read most of the stories before. Chesterton is a tradcath, high Tory xenophobe, but v good at atmosphere & (from a certain angle) plot. Extremely creepy, largely enjoyable, not sure how far the good theology is outweighed by the bad.

The cover of the Father Brown Complete Collection by GK Chesterton.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

19 January - also non-fiction. Started, optimistically, when the nearly-3-year-old was a newborn; finished within three years (by a couple of weeks). Erudite, well-written, interesting, the final chapter on the Reformation definite shades of Eamon Duffy, not perhaps the most *exciting* of reads.

The cover of 'Going to Church in Medieval England ' by Nicholas Orme.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

10 January - hesitated over listing non-fiction (especially work-adjacent non-fiction) but it is a Book and I have Read It. (Very chatty, very funny, I had read Craddock before and am not sure I have gained much from reading this as well.)

Cover of 'Craddock on the Craft of Preaching', a compilation of essays/ lectures by Fred Craddock.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

5 January - a Christmas present from @idleconcern.bsky.social. This is incredible. A reimagining of Huckleberry Finn; a dialogue with Candide; a play on picaresque that's immensely serious; and an all-action conclusion that made me cry in my son's brass band rehearsal.

The cover of James, by Percival Everett.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

1 January. YA fantasy in an alternative contemporary London run by a bureaucracy of magicians. It's a fairly common premise but a really good execution. I loved Stroud's Lockwood and Co and this is just as good. Narrated partly by a vain djinni (a very enjoyable voice).

Cover of The Amulet of Samarkand, Jonathan Stroud.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

The upside of not being precentor is that I can have festive nails. (The downside is not being precentor. Not used to Christmas without 36 lessons and carols.)

My hand, with sparkly red fingernails. I'm stroking a fluffy black and white cat.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

A belated Christ is Risen, Happy Easter to all! With thee O let me rise As larks, harmoniously, And sing this day thy victories: Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

Centrally, the Paschal candle. It is lit, and in a candle stand decorated with flowers. Paschal candles traditionally have motifs on them, and this one has a red cross with a rainbow and a dove. It's on the edge of the chancel in Christ Church - on the right is a pillar, on the left the chancel ceiling which is white and wedding-cakey.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

I like this one particularly (in Le Mans)

A photograph of a carved wooden panel from the Cathedral of St Julien in Le Mans. It depicts Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection. Mary is on the right, kneeling and looking stricken. Christ is on the left, standing and reaching towards her. He wears an inexplicable floppy hat.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

I refuse to pay for Daily Telegraph 'journalism' so it is POSSIBLE that the actual article is more nuanced, but this headline (provided by Google alerts, whom I didn't ask for it) has made me CROSS. After the last ten years of exposing safeguarding failures and the prevalence of abuse where...

A Google alert giving me a headline from the Daily Telegraph, reading 'Safeguarding courses for flower arrangers? The Church of England is heading for oblivion.' Illustrated with a sweet old lady doing flowers, of course.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Happy birthday to Small, who is now Eight and Large, and has gone to school with sparkly cupcakes for his class.

Two kinds of iced cupcakes for my son's birthday. The cooling rack on the left has yellow (vanilla) with turquoise icing (glace) and a sprinkle of stars and a jelly tot on each. The rack on the right has brown (chocolate) with white icing (white chocolate ganache) sprayed with silver glitter and a jelly tot on the top. The cakes themselves are not a notable success but I'm hoping the icing can salvage this in the eyes of the 7 and 8 year old class for whom they are destined.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Autumn: Loved - seeing some far-flung friends Achieved - finishing and handing in dissertation And - new tattoo! (Of which for some reason I only have a picture when it was just finished. It's healed now!)

My second tattoo, pictured as soon as finished (so a bit red). It's a posy of six wild flowers, three violets (purple, five petals around a yellow centre) and three snowdrops (drooping white heads).

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Summer (2): Loved - glorious holiday in glorious France, exploring and eating and drinking and kind kind people when our car broke down. Achieved - a lovely family holiday And - started proper work on dissertation.

The stunning gatehouse of the Château de Carrouges. It's red brick (but old red brick - fifteenth century), square, with a turret at each corner (topped with a conical black-tiled roof) and a black-tiled pitched roof in the centre.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Summer (1) (term-time) Loved - solidarity with lovely colleagues Achieved - a huge amount of work (see also above) And - pleasing sticker on my work notebook

A navy blue notebook with a vinyl sticker on it. The sticker is 'Mother's Comfort' by Art of Marza; it's a modern Orthodox icon showing the Blessed Virgin Mary embracing a Jesus aged seven or eight, who holds her tight and looks scared.

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Easter: Loved - Holy Week; deaconing Easter vigil (as always, best service of the entire year) Achieved - wrote a hymn for the thirtieth anniversary of the ordination of women to the priesthood, used it chez nous, then saw it used in at least 3 other cathedrals (!) And - a lot of normal life

A page from an order of service (Southwell, as it happens), showing 'my' hymn for the thirtieth anniversary of the ordination of women to the priesthood. Text:

'1. Called to worship, called to service,
called to bring God’s presence near;
called to preaching, prayer and blessing
speaking peace to conquer fear.
Thirty years of joys and sorrows,
priestly service gathered here.
2. We have walked where Christ has called us,
borne our cross and suffered pain.
To God’s call we have been faithful,
and in loss have found our gain.
For indeed our God is faithful,
and we give our thanks again.
3. Called to tell salvation’s story,
brought in safety through the sea;
brought into the new creation,
from the weight of sin set free.
Called to speak of God’s forgiveness
— at our voice let sorrow flee.
4. Here we stand where earth and heaven
meet in praise and offering;
here we make Christ truly present,
hearts and lives the gifts we bring.
Where our hands share blood and body,
hearts and souls and voices sing.
5. In this House of prayer and teaching,
where our songs of praise arise,
Lord, receive our great thanksgiving
joy that echoes to the skies.
All for God and all with gladness,
which our service sanctifies.'

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Phil White @revdphilippa.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Lent: Loved - Eleanor Parker's Winters in the World Achieved - bought a plant on impulse, kept it alive (now have 17 plants from cuttings of that one plus have bought six more) And - managed to get to York for a friend's hen do AND Newcastle for @rpwhaite.bsky.social 's installation

Two pieces of Nalbindung (nail binding), a Viking fibre craft (distinct from both knitting and crochet). The lower piece is circular with yarn tails on either side; the upper piece is rectangular with one tail. The yarn is cream and there's a binding pin visible to the right. They are on a red table. Produced at the hen do in a brilliant workshop at Jorvik.

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