No comments about Letters Of Queen Victoria, A Selection From Her Majesty's Correspondence Between The Years 1837 And 1861, Published By Authority Of His Majesty The King; Vol I.

No comments about The World of Mary O'Connell (1778-1836).

No comments about The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Volume IV, 1929-1931.

No comments about The venerable Bede (Outstanding Christian Thinkers).

3 comments about John Donne: Man of Flesh and Spirit.

1. Donne's poetry was a major factor in my eventual conversion to the
   Anglican Church. Whether you are interested in the Anglican tradition or just interested in Donne's amazing poetry, you should read this book. It exhibits all the sensitivity and scholarship which this complex man and poet deserves.



2. Not simply to engage with the previous reviewer, but I must wonder if we are reading the same book? Edwards' volume on Donne presents a very human view of the complicated individual that Donne was; very far from hagiography. Donne's own distinctive place in the Church of England of his time - and what we would now call Anglicanism - is vividly presented. This book does seem to me to be well informed in terms of literatary criticism and engages responsibly with Donne scholarship across the spectrum. The poetry is not disparaged; it's just not the main focus. This would be a fine introduction to Donne's theological and homiletical work.



3. This "biography/criticism" of John Donne does little more than reveal Mr. Edwards' own prejudices. As a theologian, Mr. Edwards showcases his contempt for Donne's early life and work, and uses Donne's later sermons and religious poems to display his own religious erudition. Mr. Edwards appears to see Donne as nothing but an Anglican apologist. The book shows limited understanding of historical or literary criticism, and scant sympathy with Donne's very human struggles. This book merely reinforces the already muddled body of Donne scholarship.

1 comments about Ernie O'Malley: IRA Intellectual.

1. Professor English, of Queen's University, Belfast, divides up this critical biography into sections that investigate Ernie O'Malley's life, his ideas, his writings, and his career after the publication of his well-known memoir On Another Man's Wound. The title refers, as English reminds us, not to (as Gerry Adams propounded) the slogan that one generation's freedom fighters must rise up upon the fallen bodies of a previous generation's failed fighters to seek victory, but to the fact that it's easy to withhold pity when someone else is doing the bleeding and the dying. As a medical student before the 1916 Rising, O'Malley knew this to be more than a metaphor. His choice in a few years to take up arms against the Crown only deepened his empathy, and his awareness of the divisions that tore Irish into pro- and anti-British soldiers and then pro- and anti-postwar Treaty soldiers once the British had left--most of the island. He never confused anti-British tactics with anti-British prejudice, and one of the most memorable parts of his memoir is when he tells of his love for Shakespeare's sonnets, a copy of which he took into battle.
   
   O'Malley was a rarity among those who were involved in the Irish war against Britain for independence that followed the failed Rising. He only was periphally involved, if at all, in 1916, but his powerfully described, deeply detailed accounts of his involvement in the war that followed show a university-educated, well-mannered, upper/middle-class Catholic who chose to lead troops most often from disparate backgrounds than his own into a guerrilla war to obtain the ideal Republic as a reality.
   
   If you want to read "Another Man's.." follow it up with his unfortunately incomplete "The Singing Flame," which tells of the civil war that followed the war for independence and his involvement in more pain, idealism, and compromise. English, by separating the life from the critical accounts, avoids having to recapitulate too lengthily what O'Malley himself conveys so well of his war experiences. He makes the biography briefer of the early years to elaborate upon his later wanderings in the Western US, his art collecting and book collecting interests, and his troubled domestic life.
   
   English succeeds best when he goes beyond the facts of O'Malley's life. He then provides valuable considerations of how one could be "IRA & intellectual" by considering how the Catholic intellectual class both succeeded and failed in its attempts to make the Free State into what the Republicans had fought for, and then failed to achieve. The writers from the struggles tended to be on the losing side to a man, and the sense of futility and frustration, English shows, made it imperative for many of the most capable and talented leaders Ireland could have kept to guide the new nation instead to seek exile from the state that emerged, full of censorship and censoriousness.
   
   This is not a long book, but one finishes it with a sense of sadness for the ultimate disappointments O'Malley and his peers endured as they sought aesthetic satisfactions to replace the loss of an Ireland for which they had fought so long, and to escape or endure the reality of a narrower state, intellectually and ideally, than they had lived and seen others die to achieve.
   
   Prof. English has subsequently published "Armed Struggle," an IRA history, and earlier had produced "Radicals & the Republic"--an account of the leftists who tried to advance 1916 ideals in a post-1922-39 Free State unsuccessfully. He has co-edited "Raids & Rallies," the Civil War letters of O'Malley.

3 comments about Samuel Pepys: A Life.

1. This is a good time for Pepys. Clare Tomalin's new biography has received lots of attention -- while a new weblog of Pepys' diary has been highly publicized (and is well worth checking out in its own right). I came to Coote's book for the meanest of reasons -- it was cheaper, but I have no regrets. This is a very readable, sometimes rollicking, turn through the details of Pepys' life. Don't expect careful analysis of the literary aspects of the diary nor rich historical background. (This is a popular history in both good and bad senses of the term.) Pepys is front and center on every page of this book and were it not for the extraordinary nature of his life it might have grown tiresome. We are with him in broad strokes and minor flourishes -- from silly infatuations to grand schemes of Royal skullduggery we see remarkable detail of both the man and the time. It is fascinating stuff and Coote doesn't get in the way. The details move quickly and coherently and when the diary itself ends the reader hardly notices. Compiling a detailed account of Pepys' subsequent trials and tribulations from letters and parliamentary reports, our vision of the man remains steady. Perhaps the greatest value of a biography of this sort is that it moves you towards the diary itself. This is no small achievement for Coote and says something about Pepys' himself.



2. In his biography of Restoration archetype Samuel Pepys, Stephen Coote takes as his theme the diarist's "personal motto": "[A]s is the mind, so is the man"-and so is the book (11).
   Coote, who also has written biographies on Sir Walter Ralegh and Charles II, draws upon letters, speeches, parliamentary documents, and naval records to produce a comprehensive account of Pepys's colorful life. Incorporating the city of London as a backdrop, Coote describes Pepys's private affairs and public accomplishments to reveal a quintessential bourgeois gentleman. The reader is given opportunity to view, through Pepys's keen eyes, the world of seventeenth-century England in all its bawdiness, turmoil, opulence, and greatness.
   Coote skillfully juxtaposes the two elements of man and city to create a panorama of the time. He evaluates Pepys's intellectual and emotional development in order to reflect the political and cultural tensions in contemporary London. For example, Coote opens his biography with the "saddest sight that ever England saw"-the execution of Charles I, at which the then fifteen-year-old Pepys was present (1). He describes how English society dismissed Cromwellian piety to embrace the decadence of the Stuarts, while simultaneously relating how the young Pepys struggled constantly to reconcile a Puritan upbringing with the temptations present in a loose society: "Beneath the severe surface encouraged by Pepys's homelife ran the deep, sensuous currents of a man whose feelings and sensations were easily stirred" (14). Through Pepys's experiences as a young man and office apprentice, we see the energy and recklessness of an entire people struggling to redefine itself. Throughout his life, Pepys repeatedly found himself at the forefront of this cultural tide. He entered into the service of the Royal Navy just as England was seeking to overcome the Dutch dominance of the sea trade (26). He gained in status and wealth as London society reached a peak of decadence; he did not resist the tantalizing pleasures the city offered: sailing on the Thames, witnessing royal processions at Westminster Hall, and visiting Nell Gwyn backstage at the theatre on the Strand (75, 81, 83). Even in old age, he served enthusiastically as the elected president of the scholarly Royal Society (337).
   Pepys recorded such experiences in his Diary, his primary claim to fame. Coote's sections on this work are the strongest and most enlightening in the biography. Coote produces some of his finest writing in his account of Pepys penning his first words:
   Pepys was making a balance-sheet of his world.... The young man
   brought up in a Puritan household was examining his worldly
   state. The historian was writing the history of himself.
   Above all, the artist was at work.... Like many great writers,
   he knew that he was his own best subject.... (34-35)

   In all that he witnessed and experienced, Pepys "resolved...to confide his wonderment strictly to his Diary" (46). Through his analysis of this personal work, Coote reveals Pepys as a man of both method and whim-of a man "keenly aware of the value of order, system and style," but who also possessed an "exhausting conviviality" (12, 76).
   Despite the vivacious lifestyle of his protagonist, certain sections of Coote's piece strangely lack drive and inspiration. Chapters five through seven, recounting the experiences of Pepys's midlife years, adhere so strictly to a chronological framework that the narrative slides into a dull cycle of work, play, writing, and work again. Instead of focusing so intently on a year-by-year evaluation, Coote would do well to structure his account around a unique element, such as the Diary.
   Readers hoping for a glimpse into the indulgence and intrigue of seventeenth-century London will find Coote's biography delightful. Those seeking a more intellectual challenge will receive solid information and a wealth of detail, but may want to supplement their research with additional works on the period. But readers of all pursuits will identify with Pepys's lifelong desire to better comprehend the yearnings of his own heart and of the society in which he lived.




3. It is almost certainly true that we would not remember Samuel Pepys without his diary, which is a magnificent blend of emotional candor and brilliant reporting of big events and small seductions. Pepys was, simply, a competent and often brilliant civil servant, even though he was involved in epochal and dramatic governmental changes. He did, however, live for thirty-four years after he had written his last diary entry, and so our picture of him is imbalanced. Stephen Coote has written a new biography, _Samuel Pepys: A Life_ (Palgrave), to correct the distorted picture Pepys unknowingly gave us. It is no small feat that Coote has been able to give almost as lively account of the years without the diary as the years so memorably recorded within it.

   Pepys was the son of a London tailor who performed a social rise within his life that was almost unimaginable in his time. Eventually as secretary to the Admiralty, he was simply brilliant at his job. He had been raised Puritan, and although he loved his pleasures, also loved order, efficiency, control, and domination. Some of his innovations were small but useful; no one else is on record as starting the business lunch, but Pepys took his clerks home with him, "by that means I having opportunity to talk to them about business, and I love their company very well." Some innovations shook the navy to its foundations, such as insisting that even a member of the upper class who bought himself an officership in the navy would have to serve a term as midshipmen and pass an examination. A staunch loyalist, he rubbed many Whigs the wrong way, and he was imprisoned in the Tower of London for a year, accused of Popery. It was Pepys's ability, which he had perfected in his years of naval administration, to gather massive quantities of exculpatory information that enabled him to expose and explode the case against him brilliantly.

   As Coote says, after the diary, Pepys wrote even private memoranda which would "show him as a public figure. The artist had, perforce, given way to the bureaucrat." His enormous service to the navy would have been what Pepys would have wanted to be remembered for, but his diary has made him immortal. Coote has diligently pursued ancient administrative documents as well as letters to give a bigger picture (even if it is not possible to examine the years after the diary with any hope of Pepys's detail), and has placed him within some of the most complex decades of English history. His explanations of the forces of history in the time are excellent, and his comprehensive portrait of the diarist and the bureaucrat gives us in full one of the most fascinating figures of English history.

1 comments about William the Conqueror.

1. William the Conqueror was an ambitious political leader who was the driving force of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. Scholar David Bates' new biography WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR documents the man's achievements in Normandy and England, examining these successes in light of European history as a whole. A 'must' for any student of the era.

5 comments about Requiem: Diana, Princess of Wales 1961-1997 - Memories and Tributes.

1. Yes, this book is now 10 years old. And it's been 10 years since Princess Diana died, but this book is a very vivid reminder of that horrible week following her death. That week where I, and I'm guessing millions more, stayed glued to the TV not quite believing what had happened. This book brings the chaos of that tragic time back, but gives us the most beautiful remembrences of the late princess from people she touched. People she visited at hospitals where she shined her brightest helping people.
   
   I was hoping there would be pictures in this as well, but the picture on the cover is the way I'd like to remember her. Beautiful, happy, radiant. And really I wouldn't want to see pictures from that week anyway. It was too sad to remember it just reading about it. This book captured that one week in a tiny time capsule in a way I've never seen any book on history do. Because now that is what she is believe it or not-history.
   
   During the 10 year memorial stuff my 5 year old niece asked who the pretty blonde woman on the TV all the time was. We told her she was a princess who was very kind to sick people and cared for others, but had died before she was born. She looked up at me and asked, "A REAL princess?" When she's older I'll gladly give her this book to show her how the entire world stopped to grieve over the most amazing woman in the world. And tell her how one ordinary person CAN change the world. Princess Diana was proof of that.
   
   So YES! This is a book for anyone's collection!



2. I think Princess Diana was one of the most loved royal family members of England and the world and this book proves that! I felt like she connected with everyone she met. I never met her but I was in a car traveling through the streets of London once and her royal auto passed by, it seemed to glow with her warmth. Review written by the author of Bruised But Still Strong which contains a poem about Princess Di called HRH.



3. at least in a very long time. I picked up the book as soon as received and had a difficult time putting it down. Its been a long time (over 2 years) since Diana's passing but this book made it feel like it was last month. All the feelings and emotions came flooding back & made me remember what a great loss this was to the world. Obviously the writers of the essays etc had very strong emotions towards Princess Diana. The feeling of love for this lady comes pouring out of each story.



4. While dozens of pictorial testimonials to Princess Diana have already appeared Requiem offers more than eighty written tributes and recollections. Dont buy this book for pictures it leaves that to others. But this 43 year old does not mind saying the tributes and recollections moved him to tears. If you are a Diana fan this book is a must have.



5. THE GOSSIP AND SNIPING THAT SURROUNDED HER IN LIFE IS CUT TO THE QUICK BY THE HONESTY THAT CAME THROUGH HER DEATH. THIS BOOK PROVIDES A REALISTIC LOOK AT DIANA. A MUST HAVE FOR DIANA COLLECTORS AND DEVOTEES.

1 comments about Novelist to a Generation: The Life and Thought of Winston Churchill.

1. I just won a trivia contest, coming up with the "significance" of the person herein described. What did I win? Nothing. Imagine what you'd win, if you knew ANYTHING about this NOBODY.
   Read this book and see if you can amaze your friends.