Saints of the Shadow Bible - Ian Ranking

A post-retirement Rebus novel.  Another meditation on the self-serving self-involvement of the members of society's leadership.  Also another look at how the vacuous, impersonal rights and respect babblings of modern corporate culture blind us and make us incapable of engaging with elements that endanger our social order.  There are crossovers in Rankin's view of the modern police force with the ideas in John Gray - this living in a mythical, fantasy world that in the end blinds us to the world around us, leaving us in a hollow echo chamber of our own babble.

Another great book by Rankin.

The Cellist of Sarajevo - Steven Galloway

A fictional account of a part of the siege of Sarajevo told from the point of view of three or four different characters.  Based on a real series of cello recitals given in the street in Sarajevo during the siege.  He does a good job of conveying the inner reality and experiences of the characters who all play different roles in the city.  He also conveys the casual horror of the experience without overdoing it.  A look at different ways of staying human in this extreme situation and of refusing to be defined by the horror and inhumanity of what is going on around you.

A good read.

The Silence of Animals - John Gray

Subtitled "On Progress and Other Modern Myths"

Collection of short essays that flow from on to another but shift between topics.

Interesting examination of his usual issues, but also of our very concept of what it means to be human and how we set ourselves apart from the natural world - again a reflection on the role of Christianity (and other Eastern Mediterranean religions) in shaping the mythology (personal, historical, political, social of our time).

He also spends time examining the concept of our "true self, real me" that is at the heart of modern western economics and social mythology.

In sections he explores the experience of animals and the world from other nonwestern religious points of view.

A book to reread repeatedly if you want to get everything out of it.

False Dawn - John Gray

A look at the ideological (or perhaps better "ideological" roots of the 2008/2009 economic collapse.  Through this event Gray explores a wide-ranging set of ideas, dreams and fantasies that underlie our current understanding of economics, progress and society.  He brings in environmental issues, historical overviews of how western economies have worked, how christianity has mutated into the post-modern neoliberal ideology, underlying assumptions and wishful thinking at the heart of the globalization project.

One of my favourite ideas he explores is the close historical and developmental relationship between communism and neoliberalism - both western, both an aberration of protestant christian religion, both messianic cults of bringing perfection on earth.  The defeat of communism as in fact the beginning of the end for dominant western economic and social ideology in general.

Another - the post war period in Europe as a social and economic aberration, where labour actually gained value almost as fast as invested capital, and how this has distorted our view of the nature of politics, social interaction and the role of government.  An interesting but unsettling idea, given that this implies my whole experience so far has been in an aberrant historical era, and that we are now living through a readjustment to a different social and economic reality.

There is crossover with the risk and probability ideas of Nicholas Taleb (where I picked up the reference to this book...)

Heresies - John Gray

A collection of short essays by Gray.  You can get a sense of the main themes or ideas he explores - the illusion of modernity; the social, political and economic fantasies of the "modern" era; progress and technology as religious doctrine in our modern time; the christian roots to much of what defines the ideology of modernity in the west.   The essays can be quite biting and sharp in their focus.  It is  to the best book to get an overview of his ideas, however - False Dawn and The Silence of Animals both offer a more coherent view of his ideas.  Still worth reading, although the sections dealing with politics of the Blair Bush era are now dated - though it would be interesting to spend some time looking at Gray's predictions and compare them to what really happened.