Liz Babbs - The Pilgrim Heart

Reviewed by Gareth Paul Taylor

This wonderful multimedia hardback book/CD package encourages reflection on life's rollercoaster journey. Quality is doubly assured, with award-winning writer Liz writing and compiling the book, and acclaimed composer/woodwind player Simeon composing the instrumental CD. Consequently neither music nor text falls into the 'insipid' category such a combination could inhabit. The 35-minute instrumental music CD, easily worthy of a film score, is gorgeously evocative; Wood's dynamic playing is a wonderful antidote to the ubiquitous so-called 'pan-pipe' CDs from monothematic keyboard players! His compositions include breathtaking, unexpected harmonic shifts and even the odd 7/8 time signature; this is hardly background music - more like David Fitzgerald with Iona. (That said 'The Book Of Kells' regularly graced my local supermarket's speakers not so long ago!) Percussion is well employed, often creating a gamelan effect. The book, combining prose, poetry and salient quotations from worthy sources, is organised thoughtfully into nine chapters reflecting points on life's journey. They are named synonymously with the instrumental tracks, and both forms acknowledge the hard edges of sorrow and trials as well as the sweeter sentiments of joy. Beautiful photographed landscapes accompany the words, and many poems are presented visually and creatively too, the arrangement of words and lines on the page representing something of the content. This is beautifully conceived and presented - an ideal gift certain to be treasured.