Acorn Press Limited – www.acornpress.net.au
Acorn Press Limited – www.acornpress.net.au
New Book Information
Title: Eating Heaven: Spirituality at the Table
Author: Simon Carey Holt
Edition: 1st edition
Formats: paperback and eBook
Publication date: 8 October 2013
Launch details: 6.15 for 6.30 pm
Tuesday 8 October 2013
Reader’s Feast Bookstore
162 Collins Street, Melbourne
Bookings are essential
RSVP by Thursday 3 October to:
Tel: (03) 9662 4699
Email: [email protected]
RRP: $24.95 (paperback)
eBook price will vary depending on retailer
Acorn website quick link:
http://acornpress.net.au/publications/ethics-mission/eating-heaven-spirituality-at-the-table/
Synopsis
Sitting down at a table to eat is an activity so grounded in the ordinary, so basic to the daily routines of life, we rarely ponder it beyond the simple inquiry, ‘What’s for dinner?’ However, scratch a little deeper and you discover in eating one of the most meaning-laden activities of our lives, one so immersed in human longing and relationship it’s a practice of sacred dimensions.
In this age of culinary infatuations, global food crises, celebrity chefs and ‘biggest losers’, the need to reflect more seriously upon eating is pressing.
A trained chef, teacher, social researcher, minister of religion and homemaker, Simon Carey Holt draws on experience and research to explore the role of eating in our search for meaning and community. To do so, he invites us to sit at the tables of daily life – from kitchen tables to backyard barbecues, from cafe tables to the beautifully set tables of our city’s finest restaurants – and consider how our life at these tables interacts with our deepest values and commitments.
Author biography
Simon Carey Holt is the senior minister of Melbourne’s Collins Street Baptist Church. Simon taught spirituality and pastoral theology for 15 years in Los Angeles, Sydney and Melbourne before taking up his current role. Prior to his ordination, Simon qualified and worked as a chef. His continuing passions for food, theology and the city inspire his writing.
Additional details
ISBN: 9780987428639 (paperback)
9780987428646 (eBook)
Book details:
• Pages – 176
• Dimensions – 210 x 148 mm
Availability:
• Paperback can be purchased through Acorn’s website (www.acornpress.net.au). Wholesalers can contact Acorn’s distributors, Rainbow Book Agencies.
• Ebook available for purchase through the following sites:
o Amazon Kindle
o Apple’s iBookstore
o Kobo
o Barnes & Noble
o Koorong
Endorsements (not edited)
In a highly readable blend of the anecdotal and the scholarly, Simon Holt has demonstrated why ‘grazing with the herd’ is such a universal human practice. Our nature is relentlessly, essentially social, and the table – whether in cafe, home or church – is the place where our need of each other is most poignantly expressed.Hugh Mackay, Social researcher and author
Eating Heaven is a soulful reflection by a man who savours Melbourne as a city. He explores it through the way people share food and table together. Through stories, reflections and recipes, he warms the heart, feeds the body and nourishes the soul.Tim Costello, CEO World Vision Australia
Who doesn’t have a chequered relationship with food? Buying it, eating it, cleaning up after it. We live in a culture increasingly obsessed with ‘food porn’ but divorced from an awareness of food as a daily ritual of connection and meaning. Simon Holt cuts through the froth and bubble to sit us down at a series of tables in which the gathered experience of sharing a meal is the key to reflecting on the good life. Family, culture, community, and place are illuminated through the lens of a coffee, a meal, a feast. Eating Heaven manages to simultaneously ground and elevate, bringing the sacred back into the everyday. Its book for everyone who eats and wants to think a little about this daily, often unexamined, activity.Eating Heaven will restore your faith in food and feed your faith.Lin Hatfield Dodds, National Director, UnitingCare Australia
Considering the various tables we sit at as Simon Carey Holt shares his own experiences, in frank yet humble observations, is a privilege. This easy-to-read commentary on the everyday ritual of eating has evoked memories I’d long forgotten and simultaneously allowed me to sit at others’ tables for a while. I’ve pondered the relationship between food and community, questioned my approach to the tables at which I sit, felt the warmth of each eating experience leap out from the pages, and reveled in the ‘realness’ of it all. Kate Bracks, Winner, Masterchef 2011
