Ships of Heaven: The Private Lives of Britain’s Cathedrals
By Christopher Somerville
Doubleday, 352pp, £20/$39.95
This is the book in which the walking correspondent of the Times gains his sea legs. Well, sort of. Positing the idea that the cathedrals of the United Kingdom are ships of heaven, Somerville provides a vessel-by-vessel account of “a year’s passage with this grand flotilla”. He has plenty of fun with a metaphor that first occurred to him when he fell flat on his back while admiring Wells Cathedral as a child.
