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I Spy with My Little Eye: A Journey Through the Moral Landscape of Britain

Linnea Mills (Goodreads Author)

4.14 · Rating details · 14 ratings · 7 reviews

Which direction is our society heading in? Does it provide a good enough nurturing ground for the next generation to flourish? Is it time we took a good look at our values and behaviour and changed course? Dr Linnea Mills offers a frank discussion about the prevailing norms and values in today’s Britain, interpreted through the seven deadly sins and seven heavenly virtues. ...more

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Published November 27th 2017 by Linnea Mills

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Jan 29, 2018 Tom Behr) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Review of Linnea Mills’ I Spy With My Little Eye: A Journey Through the Moral Landscape of Britain

Sir Francis Bacon wrote: “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested … to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”

Linnea Mills’ I Spy With My Little Eye: A Journey Through the Moral Landscape of Britain is just such a complexly interesting, deeply nourishing literary feast. And unlike the mind-cluttering “fast food” of today’s post-factual, Review of Linnea Mills’ I Spy With My Little Eye: A Journey Through the Moral Landscape of Britain

Sir Francis Bacon wrote: “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested … to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”

Linnea Mills’ I Spy With My Little Eye: A Journey Through the Moral Landscape of Britain is just such a complexly interesting, deeply nourishing literary feast. And unlike the mind-cluttering “fast food” of today’s post-factual, media-crazed world, this is healthy food indeed.

In her Preface, Mills writes, “Most of our lives seem to happen on autopilot, but some junctures provide us with a rare chance to look up, see things with fresh eyes and step out of automatic mode.” For Mills, that triggering moment was the May 22, 2017 terror attack at a pop concert in Manchester, followed by the catastrophic June 14 Grenfell Tower fire in West London.
Almost daily, she observes, we are offered a numbing, toxic diet of tragedy: terrorism−and its evil doppelgänger, unfettered greed and crushing poverty. But at the same time, she notes “Amid the anger evoked by these tragedies came glimmers of hope. Communities came together and ordinary people showed awesome acts of kindness and generosity. The old and young queued up to donate blood, taxi drivers drove victims home free of charge and children’s playgroups were set up in support of traumatised families.”

“What have we become?” “Where are we going?” Those are the two central questions this book explores in consistently fresh, engaging, penetrating writing. In I Spy With My Little Eye Mills has chosen an apt framework for this inquiry: juxtaposing the seven deadly sins against their corresponding virtues: Pride vs. Humility, Greed vs. Generosity, Envy vs. Kindness, Wrath vs. Patience, Lust vs, Chastity, Gluttony vs. Temperance, and Sloth vs. Diligence. She brings those choices into sharp clarity through her impressive research and astute observations of today’s society.

For me as a reader, that’s an inspired framework, because ultimately dealing with the disturbing world we now live in comes down to a matter of personal choices about, in Mills’ words, “…the paths we are currently more or less sleepwalking on, which do not seem to lead to particularly beneficial places.” These are choices which, for our own sanity and the future of those we love, we need to make. I strongly recommend Mills’ book as an essential guide to achieving that healing wakefulness.

And as a postscript, while Mills centers on values in today’s Britain, this is not a meal of fish and chips, bangers and mash., In dealing with our own disintegrating society, there’s plenty for Americans to chew on.

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Apr 14, 2018 Vernita Naylor rated it it was amazing

Shelves: cultural, education, relationships, social-issues

What is feeding, empowering and developing the next generation? Is it the TV, music, movies, tech toys or the videos games that they're exposed to? These vices possess a great hold and influence on the future generation. Through these vices, both the current and future generations can either succeed or fail life’s challenges. Everything around us impacts how we view the world and those around us. In I Spy with My Little Eye: A Journey Through the Moral Landscape of Britain by Linnea Mills, the r What is feeding, empowering and developing the next generation? Is it the TV, music, movies, tech toys or the videos games that they're exposed to? These vices possess a great hold and influence on the future generation. Through these vices, both the current and future generations can either succeed or fail life’s challenges. Everything around us impacts how we view the world and those around us. In I Spy with My Little Eye: A Journey Through the Moral Landscape of Britain by Linnea Mills, the reader will be guided along the pathway of how the Seven Deadly Sins and the Fruits of the Spirit affect our lives and who we are from a British perspective. With an ebb and flow between pride/humility, greed/generosity, envy/kindness, wrath/patience, lust/chastity, glutton/temperance, and sloth/diligence, it can become difficult to keep up. “Much greed can be found in the business world, to the detriment of people’s trust in the system and job morale,” says Mills.

Unless you have a moral compass or the Fruits of the Spirit that you live by, you can become entrapped by the Seven Deadly Sins. This book is a great resource in helping the reader to develop an idea of how and what are the fine lines between morality and guilty pleasures. In today's culture, it's clear to see that the lines are becoming blurred, but this book indicates what's happening around us, as close as in our neighborhoods or next door. Through various forms of data, the reader will learn about how human trafficking, particularly within the immigrant community, is closely connected to sexually transmitted infections amongst children, or how the high consumption of food, beverages, and material things leads to a higher volume of environmental waste and lack of respect.

While Mills gives us three views of the world, it's important that you are left with these words: “My journey through the moral landscape of Britain is over for now…I wanted to make sense of the prevailing values that underpin our society and discover what direction we’re heading in. The result has been a smorgasbord of different topics, reflecting on different aspects of our society…I think a wider societal debate, as well as a change in societal direction, is required,” says Mills. What are your thoughts? I Spy with My Little Eye: A Journey Through the Moral Landscape of Britain ...more

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Aug 20, 2018 Billy Buttons rated it it was amazing

This book was entered in The Wishing Shelf Book Awards. This is what our readers thought:
Title: I Spy with My Little Eye – A journey through the moral landscape of Britain
Author: Linnea Mills

Star Rating: 5 Stars
Number of Readers: 20
Stats
Editing: 10/10
Writing Style: 9/10
Content: 10/10
Cover: 9/10
Of the 20 readers:
20 would read another book by this author.
18 thought the cover was good or excellent.
19 felt it was easy to follow.
20 would recommend this story to another reader to try.
12 felt the aut ...more

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Mar 09, 2020 Melanie Harvey rated it really liked it

Interesting approach from 7 deadly sins/virtues to examine what is going wrong with our society. Nothing new or startling but sound scientific evidence to support what we are instinctively suspecting, in terms of greed, apathy, short term politics, racism etc. It is very beneficial to have it pulled apart and examined in detail so that you can see what underpins our current moral viewpoint. Easy to read too

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Apr 14, 2020 Kayla Tornello rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: adult, non-fiction

This book offers a lot of food for thought about modern society. Perhaps I would have liked it more if I had been British, though. There was nothing new in this book, just putting together information we already knew about.

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Aug 31, 2020 Jack rated it liked it · review of another edition

An interesting if somewhat brief look at what influences behaviour (for worse) in society today.

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Jun 16, 2018 Mary rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A very interesting read

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topics	posts	views	last activity
UK Book Club: Free on Amazon	4	11	Feb 14, 2018 08:55AM
Goodreads Reviewe...: Nonfiction book about norms and values in Britain	2	8	Dec 12, 2017 06:52AM
UK Book Club: Newly published nonfiction about the values and norms in Britain	1	3	Dec 11, 2017 02:36AM

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About Linnea Mills

Linnea Mills

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I’m Linnea (I also go by the names of Dr Mills and Mamma).

I'm the author of 'I Spy with My Little Eye: A journey through the moral landscape of Britain'. It's a book about the prevailing norms and values in today’s Britain, interpreted through the seven deadly sins and seven heavenly virtues (apart from having this structure it’s not a religious book). It includes topics as diverse as celebrity cu ...more