- “Dishonesty Is The Second-Best Policy and Other Rules to Live By” by David Mitchell
- “Michael Palin In Venezuela” by Michael Palin
- “Happiness: Lessons From A New Science” by Richard Layard
- “The People on Platform 5” by Clare Pooley
- “Encyclopaedia of Narrow Gauge Railways of Great Britain and Ireland” by Thomas Middlemiss
- “Moscow Coup: The Death of the Soviet System” by Martin Sixsmith
- “The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged Thirteen and Three-Quarters” by Sue Townsend
- “The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole” by Sue Townsend
- “Adrian Mole: The Collected Poems” by Sue Townsend
- “How To Live Like A Stoic” by Tom Hodgkinson
- “The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass aged 37 3/4” by Adrian Plass
- “This Present Darkness” by Frank Peretti
- “Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes” by Daniel Everett
- “Brutal Scotland” by Simon Phipps
- “Idler XXX: Thirty Years of The Idler, A Visual History” by Tom Hodgkinson
- “We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin
- “British Railways Mark 1 Coaches” by Keith Parkin
- “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius
- “The Story of Railways” by Richard Bowood, illustrated by Robert Ayton (Ladybird)
- “Riders” by Jilly Cooper
- “The Dark Half” by Stephen King
- “Everything In Color” by Stephanie Stalvey
- “Final Destination: Riding Britain’s Trains to the End of the Line” by Nige Tassell
- “Willie, Willie, Harry, Stee” by Charlie Higson
- “Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to Happiness” by Bill Bailey
- “West Highland Landscape” by Colin Baxter
- “How God Becomes Real: Kindling The Presence of Invisible Others” by T.M. Luhrmann
Date Started: 12th September 2026
Date Finished: 25th September 2026
4/5 stars
I first heard about this book in a recent Genetically Modified Skeptic video, where he referenced it when commenting on a “challenge” for atheists to pretend God is real for 30 days. He looked at someone who ended up becoming a Christian as a result of doing this. Here’s the video:
The book has a very interesting premise, which is that gods and spirits are “real” to believers in very different ways to solid everyday objects like tables and animals. For them to become real, and remain real, believers have to adopt practices and certain ways of thinking that are very different to those adopted by people with purely secular beliefs – essentially, an experience of God as real has to be cultivated, and is actually quite hard work.
This concept fascinates me, as even back in the days when I had no significant doubts at all about my faith, I did wonder how much of it was all in my mind, and whether certain people are more susceptible/able/whatever psychologically to adopt and sustain spiritual beliefs. This book very much identifies that this is the case, with the author identifying personality traits that make it more likely for certain people to have “spiritual experiences”, and identify them as such. She also looks at what happens to people when they adopt certain spiritual practices, such as prayer, and how these might be seen to work in a way that discounts actual supernatural elements.
It’s all quite an eye-opener, and has really helped me get my head around how and why I got involved in some quite extremist belief when I was younger, and how I’ve adjusted, changed and got out in subsequent years. There’s a lot about how the mind and body can be trained to interpret things in a particular way, that could easily be explained away as other things.
As someone who no longer believes that there’s any concrete supernatural things out there, this was a very eye-opening read and helps make sense of a lot of what I’ve been exposed to over the years. The book pays particular attention to the practices of charismatic evangelical Christians, who have a strong expectation that God will “show up” and act in tangible ways in the lives of believers. I found this very useful, because I feel this is a particularly harmful variant of Christianity that relies a lot on manipulation and exploitation of those who desperately want what they believe to be true. I’ve long felt that many of the supposed workings of God in terms of “spiritual gifts” and “miracles” have a much more mundane explanation behind them, and can be manifested using some extremely ungodly techniques, similar to those used by mediums and psychics. This book goes a long way towards explaining how it’s done, and shows why there’s such an emotionally-charged and suggestive atmosphere in many charismatic and Pentecostal churches.
It’s quite an academic and dense text, but remains highly readable and quite accessible, with a lot of pointers and references for further reading and study. It’s given me a lot to process and mull over, and is a hugely valuable book for those of us seeking to make sense of past experiences now we’ve emerged from the other side of them.