These seven stories, written between 1965 and 1975 while the author was serving in the Royal Navy, take the reader on travels across the world, from the old Portuguese colony of Macao in China to the sardine fishing grounds off Lisbon; from the island of Lamu on the east coast of Kenya to the cockpit of an Airborne Early Warning aircraft on patrol off Mozambique, and from Pulau Tioman, an island off the east coast of Malaya, to the remote Portuguese vineyards of Vargelas in the upper Douro. Together they form a vivid snapshot of the world as it was in the mid twentieth century.

Blackwood's...

Iota is the acronymic name given to God-or-Nature. It stands for the Infinite One which is conceived under the Two Aspects of thought and matter. Following the 17th century philosopher Benedict Spinoza, from whose works he quotes extensively, Wheeler shows that dualism of any sort, whether theological, philosophical or scientific, always leads to contradiction, division, and conflict, and that regarding ourselves as parts of Nature and of each other is the only way forward to healing the divisions and conflicts between absolutist religions, cultures, and faiths. The most important implication...