God is said to have given humans freedom. Yet in the story of Genesis God is a punishing father-figure. Why have humans portrayed him like this? Here, a contemporary writer called Adam imagines God behaving as a good father should, seeing it is time for his children to leave home. Adam writes an account of this, and the story of his own child Sophie and his relationship with her. The scene moves from London to New York to Israel to Iran to Iraq. And might not God as well as Adam have a wife to take up the cause if things go wrong?...

Paradoxes of Peace continues the meditation of Mosley's Time at War, at the end of which he wrote that humans find themselves at home in war because they feel they know what they have to do, whereas in peace they have to discover this. But what should inform them—custom? need? duty? ambition? desire? Forces pull in different directions—fidelity versus adventurousness, probity versus fun. During the war, Mosley found himself having to combine fondness for his father, Oswald Mosley, with the need to speak out against his post-war politics. In times of peace, his love for his wife and children, too, seemed riddled with paradoxes. He sought answers in Christianity, but came to see organized religion as primarily a social institution. How does caring not become a trap?...