Synopsis
If there was a prize for the book which best meets its moment, Getting the Message by Tom Davies would surely win. At a time when the world is erupting in terror, with riots, bombs and street shootings everywhere, this book tells you to take a close look at what's coming out of your television screens-especially the violence obsessed news - and you will be able to understand all the disasters that are befalling us and why.
Tom Davies excludes newspapers from his onslaught on media, arguing that they could – and should – react to and record the cultural events and their communities, even the bad stuff. He focuses his attack on the big reporting news machines like the BBC, CNN, ITN and Al Jazeera, all of which become menaces to world peace, he says with their continuous streams of active violent imagery which Davies calls the black rain, now sheeting down onto almost every country in the world, setting up killings as a global fashion, seeking out the alienated and sick urging them to conduct mass killings, in their search for new identity while filling the whole world with fear.
Told in the form of an autobiography, this book tells how such ideas were given to Davies in a series of visions when as a young man was teaching with Voluntary Service Overseas the paddy fields of North Malaysia.
Getting the message then is the story of a man, who for the rest of his life, sets out to unpack the meaning of his visionS and understand how they relate to the world.
He certainly understands the workings of the media since he was once Atticus on the Sunday Times, feature writer on the Sunday Telegraph and for more than two years Pendennis diarist on the Observer. He has now been a full-time writer for 30 years, producing 20 books one of which, Merlin the magician and the Pacific Coast Highway, was shortlisted for the Thomas Cook travel prize claimed by Bono as being the one book that saved his life.
He won the Winifred Mary Stanford prize for the best book with a religious theme.
Getting the message is an insightful, sometimes poignant and often hilarious account of one man's painful journey along the path of the Cross.
More recently Davies has found enormous support for his ideas on social media - his attack on the media for supporting terrorists with global publicity after the killings in Paris achieved well over half 1 million visitors. You can read this post in the last three pages of this book. None of his followers had a voice but they do now. Whatever else this writer is not alone.
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Review
'How utterly fascinating I found this book! What a life! What an epiphany! I am astonished by the profligacy of detail - inner and outer - and by Tom Davies' command of his own meanings.' Jan Morris, writer 'Steel worker's son, gossip columnist, coal yard owner, novelist, travel writer, religious visionary. Tom Davies' voyage through the last 60 years in this book is as strange and compelling as the Book of Revelation.' Ian Jack, Guardian columnist and former editor of Granta. 'Tom Davies takes the reader on a sensuous and, at times, harrowing pilgrimage. John Bunyan might have written something like this had he joined that rabble on a pub crawl to Canterbury. A testimony of hope, deep loss and a determination not to perish in the godless shadows of our days. Be inspired.' Stewart Henderson, poet and presenter of Questions, Questions, BBC Radio 4 'Rapturous in places, repulsive in others, but a powerful autobiography, grappling with faith, sex, the media and the horrific implications of fictional violence on our disturbed society. Not to be missed, even if it demands a strong stomach'. Michael Saward, hymnwriter and former Canon Treasurer of St Paul's Cathedral. 'Tom Davies, a steelworker's son from Cardiff, went on to enjoy - and sometimes endure - a high-rise career as a writer. This is a packed and passionate book from a man who kissed the Blarney Stone and found God talking to him.' Western Mail 'An autobiography told with the speed of fiction. Davies spills the beans on a life that mixed God with debauchery in almost equal proportions. Davies' trajectory starts where many do, in the boundary-pushing '60s. Colin Wilson, Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac all feature as early influences. Tom the Book's progress from provincial journalist to UK national icon is charted with an engaging mixture of humour and revelation. I found it compulsive.' Peter Finch, Chief Executive, Welsh Academy of Writers. 'This is a marvellous book which captures the spirit and atmosphere of working on a newspaper. The time Davies spent on the Western Mail is only one episode in the fascinating life he has led - but this revealing and painfully honest book will be of interest to anyone thinking of taking up journalism as a career.' Brian Lee, Echo Extra 'This is the story of a writer's visionary journey around the world until he finally ends up running an art gallery in Bala. The journey is always entertaining and his life changes completely when he sees a series of visions in Malaya in which he understands that God is in deep distress because of the corruption of our modern media. With his new insights Davies argues that the modern media, with its romantic obsession with violence, cruelty and perversion, is causing widespread damage throughout the world. During his journalistic career Tom investigated a number of cases in which violence on the screen or printed page have inspired acts of violence like Hungerford and American school massacres. I regard this book as one of the most significant spiritual memoirs I have ever read, comparable to C S Lewis' Surprised by Joy, Jack Clemo's Confession of a Rebel and Malcolm Muggeridge's Chronicles of Wasted Time. 'The Christian Librarian 'This autobiography has a dynamic forthrightness and range. The chapters on the Welsh miners' strike were a highlight as were those on the Sunday Telegraph. I never realised journalists were so drunken and badly behaved. ' John Davies, poet and publisher. 'Tom Davies is never less than entertaining, never more readable than when he is being passionate. This book is a riveting read and Tom possesses - like C S Lewis - the rare gift of making theology accessible and deserves a wide audience. Tom is a reluctant prophet - but a prophet nevertheless - and his prose is soaked in wisdom, clarity and the odd drop of whisky. Highly recommended.' Amazon 'I just can't wait for the film'. Anne Robinson
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