Pippa’s Progress

‘Pippa’s Progress – A Pilgrim’s Journey to Heaven.’ by  Simon Parke . First published in 2012 by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd.

ISBN: 978-0-23252954-8  price: £9.99

 

In 1678, while languishing in Bedfordshire County Prison, John Bunyan began writing ‘A Pilgrim’s Progress’ – an allegory of the Christian life, which became and has remained a world classic. The book has been translated into two hundred languages and has never been out of print.

‘Pippa’s Progress’ is a twenty-first century attempt to write such a book as ‘Pilgrim’s Progress today; this is the story of the journey of Pippa, a twenty-first century pilgrim.

Simon Parke’s witty and insightful modern re-telling of ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ follows a journey through the trials and temptations of our modern age. Within its pages we meet characters such as Glossy Mags, Shaw Thynge and Dee Straction, and many others, as she journeys along the Path of Yortether and the Headspin’s Hallucinatory Mental Circus, the Rock of Hidden Self, the City of Socialmeja and the village of Lower Bile!

In view of our Diocese’s theme for 2013-14, and while local parishes are busily arranging pilgrimages, I heartily recommend this thoroughly enjoyable book. It is divided into twenty short chapters; ideal as a ‘book at bedtime’, but more importantly, it is a thought-provoking, heart-searching book about all of us.