Reading the Backlog

At the moment I’m reading my way through the TBR pile. First was Colm Toibin’s “Homage to Barcelona,” the story of a place that isn’t just a city but incarnates a culture (Catalonia). I lived in that city during 1982 when the Catalan language was really taking off but I believe now it’s much changed. Interesting that the language took off because of its use by the middle classes (a lot of the working class are not Catalan by origin) whereas in Wales their language seems marginalised by the perception that it’s middle-class, i.e. used by essentially the same people. I wonder what the difference is?

Then it was Richard Rohr’s “Everything Belongs” which I don’t know why I was reading it as I’m not a practising Christian (or any other sort really) but Rohr does find common cause with other paths and seems particularly fond of Buddhism, arguing for a kind of devolved (to the individual) Christianity that might not seem alien to a Buddhist.