Yesterday I finished the first volume of Iain McGilchrist's The Matter With Things: our brains, our delusions and the unmaking of the world ; so I am about 2/3 the way through what is quite possibly the biggest book I have ever read. I do own bigger books - Kittel's Theological Wordbook of the New Testament, for example , and The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, but to be honest I've never read them. Occasionally, when necessary, I've dipped into them, in an eyes glazed over kind of way, but I'm not going to sit down, by the fire with them in the expectation of growth and expansion and delight, as I find myself doing with The Matter With Things . I'm reading it. Every word of it. Slowly. Taking breaks to think about it. Texting Eric Kyte, who's also reading it, to see if he wants to meet, yet again, to share coffee and responses to the book. Iain McGilchrist is a polymath. He read English at New College Oxford, published a well received boo...