Books with title Walking Backwards to Christmas

Though the Christmas story is well known, most of us have learnt it from school nativity plays and carols. On the whole, this familiar version is more concerned with light than darkness. The backwards approach taken here allows the movement to be in the opposite direction, enabling us to get under the skin of a complex narrative. We begin by seeing through the eyes of Anna, the prophetess; followed by Rachel, who weeps for her children; King Herod; Casper, a wise men; David, a shepherd; Martha, the (so-named) innkeeper's wife; Joseph; Elizabeth; Mary; Isaiah and, finally, Moses. Each imaginative reflection is prefaced by a Bible reading and followed by a prayer.

Congregations are often confused or uninspired by the emphasis on Old Testament themes during Advent and too "over" Christmas by December 26 to pay much attention to the gospel stories that follow Jesus' birth. Walking Backwards to Christmas starts at the end of the story, with Jesus' presentation to Anna and Simeon at the temple, and moves backwards through Herod's slaughter of the innocents, the wise men's visit, Jesus' birth in a stable, Mary's pregnancy, and finally to the much-earlier hopes and dreams of Isaiah and Moses. Telling the Christmas story through the eyes of both famous figures like King Herod and imagined characters like the innkeeper's wife, Stephen Cottrell invites readers to experience Jesus' birth anew, with greater appreciation of the dark themes and ancient figures relevant to the Advent story.

Using the brilliant, deceptively simple device of telling the Christmas story backwards, Stephen Cottrell helps us encounter it as if for the first time. Narrating the story from the perspective of key characters gives us insights into its many horrors and uncertainties as well as its joys. The book may be used as a fresh and unique Advent study course or even as an adult Nativity play. Though the Christmas story is well known, most of us have learnt it from school nativity plays and carols. On the whole, this familiar version is more concerned with light than darkness. The backwards approach taken here allows the movement to be in the opposite direction, enabling us to get under the skin of a complex narrative. We begin by seeing through the eyes of Anna, the prophetess; followed by Rachel, who weeps for her children; King Herod; Casper, a wise men; David, a shepherd; Martha, the so-named innkeeper's wife; Joseph; Elizabeth; Mary; Isaiah and, finally, Moses. Each imaginative reflection is prefaced by a Bible reading and followed by a prayer.

This beautiful literary memoir framed in six days walking on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in 2015 is a love letter to Spain and to women’s lives. It weaves together rich seams of hard reality with profound lyricism, the political with the personal, suffering and fear with love and joy. It moves from the silver of Scotland’s North Sea coast to the terracotta and gold of Iberia, the sterile white of hospital wards to the bountiful blues of the deep Atlantic. It is a story of banker knights, dangling caterpillars, handsome lovers, aching pilgrims and policemen’s bottoms, and it is all true. Alison Chandler is a one-time student of Hispanic Studies now a newly exhibited Scottish artist in her sixties. The thousand-year-old pilgrimage way winds through her experiences of 1970s Catalunya and Galicia, 1980s Notting Hill and her survival of cancer and return to Camino in 2018. As she makes her way, we catch glimpses of Europe’s great crossroads, its myths and our mortality as their impressions on all our lives flicker through the wet green woodlands of north-west Spain. A colourful and original mix of profundity and humour, it is redemptive and full of surreal adventures and new beginnings.

This beautiful literary memoir framed in six days walking on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in 2015 is a love letter to Spain and to women’s lives. It weaves together rich seams of hard reality with profound lyricism, the political with the personal, suffering and fear with love and joy. It moves from the silver of Scotland’s North Sea coast to the terracotta and gold of Iberia, the sterile white of hospital wards to the bountiful blues of the deep Atlantic. It is a story of banker knights, dangling caterpillars, handsome lovers, aching pilgrims and policemen’s bottoms, and it is all true. Alison Chandler is a one-time student of Hispanic Studies now a newly exhibited Scottish artist in her sixties. The thousand-year-old pilgrimage way winds through her experiences of 1970s Catalunya and Galicia, 1980s Notting Hill and her survival of cancer and return to Camino in 2018. As she makes her way, we catch glimpses of Europe’s great crossroads, its myths and our mortality as their impressions on all our lives flicker through the wet green woodlands of north-west Spain. A colourful and original mix of profundity and humour, it is redemptive and full of surreal adventures and new beginnings.