Most years it would be a safe bet that preachers leave space in their Easter sermon notes headed: “Insert latest ‘Jesus exposé’ here!”

Like most recent Booker winners, The Gathering is not feel-good fiction. Enright, herself, admits that “when people pick up a book they may want something that will cheer them up, in that case they shouldn’t really pick up my book”.

St Stephen's, Penrith has used the 170th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone of their historic building to connect with the local community.

“When AE (i.e. African Enterprise) introduced this training course, it was like God had come down from heaven. It has been so awesome and has opened so much of the word to me,” said Sylvia Pillay (not pictured), a South African church leader and evangelist.

Kiran Desai successfully weaves together the microcosm with the macrocosm in the 2006 Booker Prize-winning novel The Inheritance of Loss.