Category Archives: Sample Book Chapters

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Have You Ever Wondered Why We Long For Justice?

Have you ever wondered why we long for justice? Why when we see or experience injustice or violence, our instinctive reaction is not to say “Ah, that’s just the survival of the fittest, isn’t it marvellous!” but to protest, to cry out for justice? Where does this universal urge come from — and is it a clue to the bigger story of us, life, and the universe?

This is also one of the big questions we explore in the best-selling book, Have You Ever Wondered? … Not got your copy yet? Check it out here.

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Have You Ever Wondered Why We Long for Happiness?

We are a happiness obsessed culture. Every day, a million Westerners type “happiness” into Google. There are hundreds of books telling you how to find happiness, podcasts discussing it, movies and songs all about it. Coming of age in the 90s, I can still remember the cheerful bubble-gum flavoured lyrics of R.E.M.’s classic Shiny Happy People. Whilst more seriously, among the most popular programs ever run at Harvard University were Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar’s lectures on positive psychology, nicknamed “The Happiness Course”.

But have you ever wondered why we humans pursue happiness? After all, the rest of the animal kingdom usually seems pretty content with just the biological basics: survival and reproduction. But humans? We need so much more than merely the bare necessities of life: so what is going on here?

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Lost and Found: The Story of John Newton

A sample from 'Heroes: Five Leaders From Whose Lives We Can Learn'

What follows is a sample first chapter of my book, Heroes: Five Leaders From Whose Lives We Can Learn.

If you enjoyed it, please do consider buying the full book, which is available as an ebook through Amazon.

In the full book, you can also read the stories of William Wilberforce, C. S. Lewis, Lesslie Newbigin, and Tim Keller.

The date was 10 March 1748; the location was the Atlantic ocean. The winds that had been building for days had finally exploded with violent ferocity and in the midst of a crashing gale with waves as tall as buildings, a wooden merchant ship called The Greyhound was struggling to stay afloat. The storm had already wrecked huge sections of the ship, even punching a hole in its side. As flood waters raced through the breach, crew members worked feverishly to patch the hole whilst others desperately manned the pumps. Some unfortunates screamed in terror as they were swept overboard, along with much of the provisions. The end looked near and it was surely just a matter of time before the ship was consumed by a hungry sea. But for one man in particular, this storm was to prove even more significant, for it would mark a radical and dramatic turning point in his life. That man was John Newton.