Artwork: Antony Gormley - 'Field for the British Isles'
Drama: Film 'Chariots of Fire' (1981)
Music: J S Bach - St Matthew Passion
Novel: Victoria Hislop - The Island
Poem: Wilfred Owen - The Parable of the Old Man and the Young
Novel: The Island - The 2005 work by Victoria Hislop is based around a quest by the main character to discover their heritage. This opens up to fascinating revelations of the mysterious island called Spinalonga where lepers are despatched once their symptoms have been discovered. On Spinalonga a microcosm of society emerges, then later everything changes with the advent of WW2 and subsequent advances in medicine. However, the island of Spinalonga does actually exist on which there is now a museum of the former leper village. Victoria's thorough research means the blur twixt fact and fiction is only maintained by the storyline and the evocatively described characters that play it all out in your imagination.
This wonderful book has many deeply touching themes which align it with the importance of sacrifice, devotion, committment and discipleship.
