No comments about Queens Elizabeth the Queen Mother: Chronicle of a Remarkable Life 1900--2000.

2 comments about Mary Queen of Scots.

1. This is a wonderful book about the Queen of Scotland! I was in Edinburgh, Scotland a couple months ago, and saw this book. It contains wonderful pictures and is well-written! Great book for anyone interested in the Mary Queen of Scots!



2. What an excellent addition to a library dedicated to Mary of Scotland. This book covered her life in a beautiful way, what with portraits (done during her life and modern), pictures of the places she lived, and members of her court. Although every detail of Mary's life just couldn't be incorporated into this book, there was enough to help a person see the time that she lived in and, perhaps, what motivated her to do some of the things she did. For a thorough understanding of her days, please enjoy the grand bio of her by Antonia Fraser. For a quick synopsis of her life, this coffee-table style edition is just wonderful.

1 comments about Charlotte Smith: A Critical Biography.

1. Charlotte Smith was a Romantic poet who influenced William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge. She had 12 children, 3 died, and she raised the other 9 by herself. Her husband was a womanizer of the worst kind who landed the whole family in debtors' prison. None of that matters in the end because she wrote poetry and novels in order to support herself and her children. The poetry she left behind is beautiful, especially her elegaic sonnets, and her novels can still be found and read today.
   
   Fletcher does a wonderful job bringing Smith's personality to life in this biography. Although I had read much of Smith's works before reading this biography, I felt I understood Charlotte Smith so much better after reading this biography.
   
   Although this biography is written by a scholar, it is very readable and engaging. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to understand more about Charlotte Smith, her life, the time in which she lived, and how and why she is considered the first of the great Romantic poets. There are many explications in this book of her poetry which sheds even more light on Smith.

1 comments about Kings and Queens of England.

1. The history of the British Royal Family extends well past 1000 years ago, but for a long time, the date of 1066 has had pride-of-place as the demarcation of the 'proper' lineage, and Brenda Ralph Lewis' book on the kings and queens of England follows suit. Lewis does not pretend to give an extensive or in-depth history here - this being a book with the Reader's Digest imprimatur, it is as one might expect, a summary and overview of the highlights of the reigns. This is not to say that Lewis gives short shrift or lack of attention to her subjects - far from it! But she does concentrate on the highlights (and lowlights) of each subject, focusing a bit more on the more headline-worthy aspects of each reign, as one might expect from the subtitle of the book, 'Murder, Mayhem, and Scandal: 1066 to the Present Day'.
   
   Scandal and attention-getting intrigue is hardly the province of the current generations of the British Royal Family. Indeed, compared to some of their predecessors, the current crop of royals can be considered rather mild in many respects. Lewis details the intrigues around many dynastic shifts - the Wars of the Roses, the race for an heir to George IV, etc. - as well as some of the personal battles - the aforementioned George's ongoing battle with his wife, Caroline, the 'Injured Queen of England', the current Queen's 'annus horibilis', and finally the Charles and Diana split, ending with Diana's death, the point at which Lewis' book on murder, mayhem and scandal concludes.
   
   One gets a bit of a distorted view of the royals from this text, in that one wonders if there is any merit at all in any of the lot for the past 1000 years. In fact, Lewis holds up various figures for their virtues, sometimes against type-casting: Queen Mary Tudor, the first queen to reign in her own right, is nicknamed by history as 'Bloody Mary', but Lewis points out that, in her own time, she was known as a kind-hearted and long-suffering woman. However, there is more than enough juicy gossip to keep the narrative going for several times the page number allotted to this text, so Lewis necessarily had to be selective in her presentation. This is, of course, the story of the English monarchs, so the various tales of the Scottish, Welsh and Irish leaders are only drawn in as they impact the English 1066 - present standard lineage.
   
   Each page is generously illustrated with full-colour photographs, paintings, diagrams, charts and other graphic images. Not a single page is without an image and colour. The text is also laid out in such as way as to make reading very easy and pleasant, with bold face, pull-quote boxes, and other such devices employed throughout. This will make reading a history text much more palatable to younger readers - this text will be of interest to secondary school students and beyond.
   
   There is a useful index, but it is a bit incomplete. The genealogy charts are also drawn so as to focus only upon the key figures in the drama, rather than the whole family, so readers hoping for more complete information in that regard should look to the Oxford History of the British Monarchy, or one of books by Antonia Fraser, among others. However, despite these minor flaws, the book is fun to read - one gets the sense that, had the popular press been around throughout the history of the royals, this would be very much what the stories and headlines would have looked like.

2 comments about Eye of the Storm.

1. Similar in some respects to Mike Curtis' 'CQB', this is an account of the author's SAS career, having joined via the parachute regiment in the 1970s. It divides up into three distinct battlefields - Oman, the Falklands the the Gulf, with the meat of the book taking place in the latter area. The first two sections are fairly run-of-the-mill, although it's interesting to compare the Falklands section with Max Hastings' 'Battle for the Falklands' and the aforementioned 'CQB', as one particular moment - in which an SAS soldier shoots down an Argentine aircraft with a Stinger - pops up in all three books, each from a slightly different perspective.
   It's the coverage of the Gulf war that's particularly interesting, though, as Ratcliffe took part in an SAS operation that's been gone over comprehensively in other books, books which he has read. Consequently, like some real-life 'Rashomon', he points out the exaggerations and untruths in 'Bravo Two Zero', 'Sabre Squadron' and others, all books which you can find elsewhere on Amazon.com. Whilst he seems slightly petulant at times (his account of leading a patrol gives the impression that he was blissfully unaware that he might come across as being, well, smug), it makes for fascinating reading...



2. I've read a few Special Forces books but this one is by far and away the best one yet. There's so much in it that one doesn't usually hear about and also I enjoyed 'Billy's' sense of humour which crops up now and again. Tremendous read.

No comments about The History of the Kings of Britain: An edition and translation of the De gestis Britonum (Historia Regum Britanniae) (Arthurian Studies).

No comments about Eminent Victorians: Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr. Arnold, General Gordon.

2 comments about John Soane: An Accidental Romantic.

1. 1st paperback edition, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1999, soft cover, 358 pages, 2.73 lbs, over 7¾" - 9¾" tall, lavishly illustrated biography filled with 219 illustrations: images, photographs, paintings in color and grayscale; index; bibliography & notes. It is not an architectural monograph, though the author "concentrates on putting the background to his buildings in focus".



2. This book is an outstanding introduction to the life & amazing works of John Soane.

1 comments about George IV (The English Monarchs Series).

1. This guy was the epitome of decadents. The author described in 3D so it seams the parties,the spending, the frustration, the many mistresses of this unpopular king. No one was sorry when he passed away. That is sad indeed. The author also showed that this king was a great patron of the arts. He built schools. Great book.

No comments about The Private Life of an Elizabethan Lady: The Diary of Lady Margaret Hoby 1599-1605.