5 comments about The New Gold Standard: Charlie Weis and Notre Dame's Rise to Glory.

1. My the program is the most self-righteous program in all of college football trying to show the country morals (that it doesnt even have)...
   
   Lets see how bad Weis has been with his players (2007)... the only time he won was with... drumroll please... Willingham's players... Brady Quinn that stringbean receiver and the like... it is amazing how everyone likes to blame Willingham for "poor recruiting" for last season's disaster (actually more a sign of notre lame's true colors) but without Willingham's recruiting the 3 and whatever record would have happened the previous two seasons as well...
   
   notre dame football fans tend to not have any real sense of football knowledge as well as their horrible sense of entitlement which is not deserved...
   
   rise to glory??? more like settling into mediocracy...



2. I've never actually read this book, but neither have most of the reviewers here and that didn't stop them from writing a review.
   Funny how all but one of the bashers didn't write a review for this book until the Irish hit rock bottom in 2007. Where were y'all hiding?
   If Weis won with Willingham recruits, I guess Willingham won with Davie recruits since his only respectable season was his first. Weis also got a late start in recruiting because he was still coaching the Patriots to a Super Bowl championship. 2007 was a perfect storm as we see the results of Willingham's downward turn in recruiting. We've only gotten a glimpse of what Weis' recruits can do and they were still too young to make an assessment. He's been able to bring in Top Ten recruiting classes since he finally got the time to recruit full time. He's already been able to recruit two 5 star QB's. We should start to see an upswing in 2008 and look out in 2009. Bash the Irish while you can because here they come. Of course if they fall on their faces I'll be first in line to call for Weis' termination. He may still not be the right guy for the job, but that doesn't make Willingham any better. BTW, how have his Huskies done since he got there? Early prediction: Notre Dame handles them fairly easily (again) this season.
   
   (Oh, and for one reviewer, South Bend is two words.)



3. I like how the author made this book come together. Of course you can write any coach is good after having his first good season, and 2nd, but he had Brady Quinn as QB. He lost that, and now he has nothing...His stats are almost identical to Willingham's now, far from a gold standard. Maybe the author should have waited to publish the book before just thinking about $$$ since anything with ND+Football in its title will sell to the over obsessive fans over a crappy program.



4. This is one of the best works of fiction in the twenty-first century. Hats off to Charlie Weis, the Notre Dame football team and entire Southbend community!



5. Title ranks up there with "Dewey Defeats Truman." Amazon should pair this book with Bob Hill's "Basketball: Coaching for Success".
   
   Great Secret Santa gift for your favorite Fighting Irish fan.

No comments about 274 Things You Should Know About Churchill.

2 comments about The People's Princess: A Memorial.

1. I was a little bit disapointted the book had not much text. Of course it was nice to read the other's opinions about Diana with lovely photos, but as a big fan I expected more. A beautiful book to look at, I would say.



2. This book is done in great taste and style. I am glad I picked it up to add to my collection. I do not add Princess books to my collection that are of bad taste.

5 comments about Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett.

1. James Knowlson's scholarly, yet accessible and gripping, biography of Samuel Beckett enables readers to meet the real man behind his poems (e.g.,"Echoes Bones and Other Precipitates"), his prose ("More Pricks Than Kicks" and "Watt") and his plays (e.g. "Waiting For Godot"). For in sharing details from his long-term friendship with Beckett and offering sensitively written insights into Beckett's hopes and fears throughout his long professional career, as well as this reclusive author's personal loves and losses, Knowlson ensures our increased understanding and enjoyment of Beckett's notoriously complex texts. If you're a new student of Beckett's writing you must try this brilliant book.



2. 
   Considering the voluminous experience garnered by his subject, James Knowlson does a good job in this depiction of a great writer and and even greater personality - a life that showed about as much integrity as is possible in this time on earth. Since Knowlson knew Beckett for many years, he was intimate with aspects of the life of Beckett that would elude other biographers.
   
   Yet, as good as this book is, it could have been better in that it gets awfully windy with inconsequential and petty details. Do we really need to know about Beckett's bouts with the flu, or the morbid details of so many friend's deaths over his eight decades? The fact that there are 125 (!)pages of footnotes makes one wonder where the copyeditor was on this book. Richard Ellman's "James Joyce" has but 65 pages, and that is way too many. Was Knowlson trying to outwrite Ellman on this bio or what? It sure is hard on the reader when footnoted material that should have been folded into the text is not. I suppose this is what is referred to as "exhaustive detail".
   
   In spite of my items of critique, this is still a good book and an invaluable resource for those interested in one of the 20th Century's literary giants. The bibliography is a valuable compilation in itself.
   
   As far as the Tepi review, it is overblown with false characterizations.
   Knowlson actually does depict the emotional struggle between Beckett and his domineering mother, while Beckett's life with Suzanne is adequately told. This is one review best ignored.
   
   Recommended reading.
   
   The Cloud Reckoner
   
   Extracts: A Field Guide for Iconoclasts
   
   The Amplitude of Growlers, Part I
   
   The Amplitude of Growlers - Part II
   
   
   



3. James Knowlson is both a preeminent Beckett scholar, and cherisher of Beckett's friendship and memory. There is thus in his biography a degree of caring, and perhaps too a degree of personal protection. Nonetheless it provides any student of Beckett with a wealth of new information to enhance our knowledge of a great writer, but not solve completely the mystery and meaning of his greatness.
   Joyce , Beckett's boss, and great inspiration , taught him the meaning of total dedication to the craft. But Joyce also gave him the key negative example. The feary father was greedy, and always added on and made more words than any other maker could possibly contend with . So Beckett chose a contradictory technique and became the great minimizer, the great substractor, the master of 'Less is More'.
   One reviewer on the Amazon site(Tepi)excoriates Knowlson for playing down the emotional and psychological drama and difficulty of Beckett's life, of underestimating the role the cold mother played on her creator son. The criticism too of the biography is that it does not come to life in providing real portraits of the real people in Beckett's life, including the companion of twenty - years Susan.
   Nonetheless I believe in general we search for the good in the book, value what it gives us. And this book does give us much new detail about a master in the art of making meaning out of what is smaller.
   My own reading of Beckett goes back a long way in misunderstanding and appreciation. I in reading years ago the trilogy of novels felt that Beckett comprehended a basic aspect of human experience, in old age and dying, in a way no one else had. He made into 'Literature' kinds of experience which had not been made into Literature before.
   His fierce inner poetry the Irish lyric spirit was strong in him as Joyce.
   A biography can provide us details and insights into the life, and even the creative process of a master, but it cannot solve the mystery of great creation which always has within it something of a ' divine gift' a ' surprise' that even the creator himself cannot fully understand.



4. If the scale permitted, I would give Knowlson's biography of Samuel Beckett 4 1/2 stars. It is an impressively thorough, passionate, and scholarly work by an ardent admirer. Knowlson's ardor for Beckett, the man no less than the work, is everywhere evident as a predominant strength and an odd occasional weakness. I could not help feeling, every now and then, that it pained Knowlson greatly to have to write anything negative about Beckett. As a biography, it is less emotionally detached than I usually like, but only slightly. It was a compelling read, all 618 pages, which is saying alot.



5. The review below by Tepi distorts Knowlson's accomplishment and misguides readers to Bair's biography, which relies heavily on supposition and is flat out wrong on the details of Beckett's life in almost countless cases. Tepi expects Knowlson to track Beckett's mother's effect on him throughout the entire piece, but this isn't a psycho-biography; it's a biography that considers the man as a whole, not the man as formed by his mother.
   
   This is the standard biography of Beckett because Knowlson has access to more first-hand information than any other. Doesn't hurt to have Beckett's authorization and good graces, either. It is true that the amount of information here is overwhelming, but this makes it the piece that a student of Beckett needs to have, something that one can consult for the rest of one's life. If one wants idle and sensationalistic speculation on Beckett's complexes, then you should waste your money on Bair. The choice shouldn't be hard.

5 comments about The Women Who Knew Hitler: The Private Life of Adolf Hitler.

1. the writer tells the story of a man to me was afriad of women all his life.the women who give a twisted evil man power over their lives.



2. The book purports to talk about the women who knew Hitler. That would include his mother, his sisters, his girlfriends, the wives of close Nazi associates, Leni Riefenstahl, Hanna Reitsch, his secretaries, and of course Eva Braun. From the title, and coming from experienced writers of history, I was expecting a focused in-depth discussion of the Hitler that women saw.
   
   Instead, I mainly got Hitler & Eva, and Walter Wagner. Wagner, it turns out, was the Nazi functionary who did the honours in the Fuehrerbunker before Adolf and Eva put themselves out of the world's misery. The book's Big Revelation is some detective work that establishes Wagner's final fate (after performing the nuptials, he went back out and died defending Berlin with the Volkssturm). Wagner was not a woman, so this reads like the tidbit to which the authors decided to anchor a book. Nearly half of the pages cover the 1945 days in the Bunker; besides Eva, the main viewpoint we get on a woman is secretary Traudl Junge--something, yes, but it leaves one wanting to know more about the rest, as the title proclaimed.
   
   Most of the women besides Eva make relatively brief appearances; even Geli Raubal only rates a couple dozen salacious pages. Hardly anything about Klara Poelzl (mom) and Adolf's sisters, though there's a pretty good analysis of Hitler's sexuality. Which would be fine, except the book isn't titled _Hitler's Sexuality._
   
   The photos are uninspiring, except that you can see why he was attracted to Geli Raubal. In my edition, the first set appear in complete duplicate--some editor's head should roll for that one. Some repetitiveness here and there, and proofreading errors mystifying in a work by trained historians, suggest to me that I got a messed-up version the publisher didn't intend to release; perhaps they caught the mistake halfway through the print run, fixed it, finished the run then dumped the error-laden edition on the market. That happened to Allen Barra with his great Wyatt Earp book, and I suspect it occurred here as well. Shoddy practice one way or another.
   
   The authors can't be faulted for the publisher's errors, but they should stand accountable for a misleadingly titled book that doesn't give you what you paid for. Can't recommend it.



3. The title is a bit of a misnomer. It is only partially about Hitler's women and goes on too long about the functionary who married Adolf and Eva in 1945 - a mere footnote in history at best. The authors are fascinating when they concentrate on the women themselves and their relationship with him.
   
   For the first half of the book. I thought this could be that rarity - a work which treats Hitler in an unbiased way. But, as with all Hitler biographers, eventually they cannot resist telling us what to think about their subject. But even then the humanity of the man comes through the propaganda.
   
   For instance, one of the witnesses in the bunker said that she saw Hitler cry just twice: once when Eva Braun returned to Berlin to share his fate; and once after the wedding. This would demonstrate to most people that he clearly loved the girl, but the authors unconvincingly try to show that it is yet more evidence of his evil nature.
   
   Even with the obligatory biased asides, I would still recommend the book to anyone interested in the subject, the most interesting man of the twentieth century and a man still awaiting an honest historian.



4. I bought this based on the reviews and the general subject matter. It is supposed to be based on previously unknown information, etc. A book that says it is a history and does not darken one page with a foot note that specifies where they got the information to make that statement is not a history. It is a gossip column.
   
   For a man who was "married to Germany" he sure did get around and apparently, for reasons not clear, a lot of people knew about it. That little whispers of his activities did not get around is even more interesting. An explanation of how he kept his social activities so quiet would be appropriate for a book like this.



5. I had limited expectations of this book given the subject matter. Perhaps in part due to the title or the rather bad cover art, I thought it might be a throw-away text written with a bent towards the salacious. I was surprised to discover that it was a relatively moderate, well-written exploration of Hitler's relationship with women and an excellent summary of his last days.
   
   Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting flesh out an interesting portrait of Hitler with an elevated treatment of the subject matter. Refreshingly, the authors refrain from rampant speculation and amateur psychoanalysis and present instead a rather temperate treatment of the subject. They explore Hitler's known relationships with women and attempt to provide some insight into this aspect of the man - all the while doing so against the background of the image Hitler maintained as the public man.
   
   Despite the title, only about half of the book explores Hitler's relationships with women. The last half deals more with Hitler's final weeks and days in the bunker as Berlin falls about him. Nevertheless, the change in focus is welcome as the second half of the book is perhaps even more engaging than the first.

5 comments about Confession of Saint Patrick.

1. St. Patrick's Confession will prove a good read for Christians and non-believers alike. Any good man's regrets, or his handle on his faith, should give anyone of conscience, pause for personal reflection. No man,
   save "the one", leaves this life "innocent of sin", and St. Patrick's
   Confession should endear him to everyone.



2. The book arrived in a timely manner and was in perfect condition.
   As for the content, what can I say? St. Patrick is an inspiring man and these writings enable one to see real person. But at the same time, the writings also show the reason he became a saint. How many people do you know found God after being sold into slavery by Irish pirates?



3. If you would love to get a picture of this great man,or you are Catholic like me,and want to learn a few of his writings.I say "read this book". His style is a little old fashon, but he was that. This is a good read ,and a short book check it out.



4. This is a very short book (81 pages long, 111 if you include the prefaces and the frontispiece, big print, easily fitting in your jacket pocket) and includes Patrick's Lorica -- the hymn known as the Deer's Cry or Faeth Fiada as well as The Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus (basically a public pillory of Coroticus) and St. Patrick's Confession.

   If you are interested in buying The Confession because you want a straight-forward account of St. Patrick's life, you should be warned that it will not serve that purpose. If that is what you're looking for, I recommend you buy a biography instead. Given that the literary conventions for autobiographies had yet to be established, this work is much like St. Augustine's Confessions but more laconic and oblique. Apparently, it was written in defense of his character, having been recently defamed by his ecclesiastical competitors in England. As such, I think it would be best approached as an example of St. Patrick's theology. The editor has been very helpful in this regard by noting in the text every instance St. Patrick is quoting from the Bible. I'd estimate, on that basis, that quotes from, allusions to, the Bible account for around 40% of the text. Thus, if you want to understand the work, you probably want to read it with a Bible near so you can follow the thread of St. Patrick's argument/allusion. However, as you might imagine, this adds substantially to the amount of time required to digest the book.

   I found A Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus much more accessible, which makes sense given its intended audience - the faithful of Ireland. It comprises about a fifth of the book and was very interesting to me, at least, as an example of the power of ideas, how they can be used to bind together a community which can then be wielded as a tool, and why, in the competition between the old or pagan meme with the Christian one, the Christian meme more or less prevailed.

   "Deer's Cry" is only a few pages long, and not more than nice to have. It clearly illustrates, however, the difficulties John Skinner (the translator) notes of translating these works, namely the loss of the chiastic structure and overall prosody. This is a problem of translation in general, but I would wager that these works are particularly difficult in that regard. I trust the translation is good, but I thought prospective buyers who, like me, are unfamiliar with St. Patrick and his times should be made aware of these difficulties.

   With the above in mind, I would recommend this book as an interesting primary source for the thinking, life and times of St. Patrick which, in places, are both beautiful and disturbing.




5. This charming little book is a great guide for anyone who wants to know the man who is St. Patrick. In this work, O'Donohue doesn't discuss the legends that surround Patrick but translates Patrick's own writings and adds an insightful commentary. The author offers a new examination of Patrick as he suggests that Patrick's hard-to-decipher language is not the result of Patrick's lack of learning, as Patrick and many of his commentators claim, but the result of Patrick's own brilliant mind trying to bring the message of the Gospel to the Celts in their own language. This book will take you directly to the heart of a simple saint who's witness to Christ changed the fate of Ireland and, consequently, the fate of the world.

1 comments about Winston Churchill: Soldier, Statesman, Artist.

1. Winston Churchill: Soldier, Statesman, Artist, is an outstanding, and easy to read book for young adults. It is very detailed and not hard to follow along. It basically describes the entire life of Winston Churchill starting even before he was born. It is an amazing book, yet does get dry at points.

5 comments about Eminent Victorians (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics).

1. In 1918, the Victorian Era was the visitable past, but World War I had wrenched the British far from their former frame of mind. According to Michael Holroyd's concise, non-spoiling introduction to the Penguin edition of EMINENT LIVES, author Lytton Strachey belonged to the camp that largely held the Victorians responsible for delivering the younger generation to the horrors of that war. So it is that Strachey, one of the Bloomsbury crowd, felt free to break with the tradition of sober, deifying biography and produce critical profiles of icons of Victorian culture. He went looking for the humans behind the legends of Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightengale, Dr. Thomas Arnold and General Gordon . . . . and found them wanting.
   
   Strachey provides more than enough evidence that his four subjects were driven by ego, ambition and the certainty of moral superiority. Cardinal Manning's story reflects the 19th century religious debate as the Evangelists and Catholics battled for England's soul. Manning followed his mentor Dr. Newman and capitulated to Roman Catholicism, after which he rose to prominence in Rome, helping to ratify church dogma (especially, the infallibility of the Pope), all the while marginalizing his original mentor. Florence Nightengale's achievements are not in doubt, it is how she pushed them through, probably bringing her friend and colleague Sidney Herbert and cousin Arthur Clough to early deaths. The Victorians called her an angel, Strachey thought her a demon. Dr. Arnold was sentimentalized as the headmaster of Rugby in TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS, but in the long view, he squandered the opportunity to make real educational reform by limiting curriculum to morally instructive classical texts in their original languages. General Gordon brings up the rear, his own ambition and ego the perfect catalyst for igniting the proclivities of Gladstone's government by doing things his imperialistic way in the Sudan, causing untold casualties and getting himself executed (not to mentioned dismembered) in the process. In a way his ending speaks for Strachey's overarching theme: General Gordon, faced with the final rebel attack at his door, did not take the moment left to escape. He used it to change out of his dressing gown and into his proper dress whites.
   
   Strachey trolled public record, personal journals and letter and eye-witness accounts to elucidate his subjects, their thinking and the effect of such. True, he shapes the facts to fit his vision, but all the same, they are facts and rather telling. Sometimes the text is dense with historical detail, but mostly it flows. I found it to be not only a valuable perspective on the Victorian era and the mood of the world in 1918 but a cautionary tale about cultures creating their icons. It is irresistible, and frightening, to draw contemporary parallels.



2. The work itself is a great read; however, I wish there were some footnotes or endnotes to provide some background for the text. I would recommend another version such as the Oxford edition, which has extensive notes.



3. It is difficult to imagine anyone actually reading nineteenth century biographies. If encountered today, say in dusty archives, these works commemorating the dead - typically two thick volumes of "ill-digested masses of material" - are notable for their tediousness, seeming lack of design, and "lamentable lack of selection".
   
   With this book, Eminent Victorians (1918), Lytton Strachey deliberately set out to revitalize biography. His subjects - Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr. Arnold, and General Gordon - were all legends in their time, archetypical Victorians. His incisive style, sense of drama, and subtle irreverence made Eminent Victorians an immediate success, and one that remains fascinating today. Florence Nightingale and perhaps General Gordon have retained some eminence, but Dr. Arnold and Cardinal Manning have faded into the background, at least from the perspective of American readers.
   
   In his introduction Strachey wrote: "That is what I have aimed at in this book - to lay bare the facts of some cases as I understand them, dispassionately, impartially, and without ulterior intentions." Be that as it may, readers will undoubtedly discern some passion, some partiality, and some unstated objectives. Regardless, Eminent Victorians is an enjoyable, entertaining, intellectual adventure that brings life to Victorian biography.
   
   Henry Edward Manning at age thirty-eight was a rising man in the Church of England. He had many powerful connections: he was the brother-in-law of Samuel Wilberforce, who had lately been made a bishop; he was close friend to Mr. Gladstone, who was a cabinet minister; and he was becoming well known in influential circles in London. Within two years Manning - later to become Cardinal Manning - resigned his position and was received into the Roman Catholic Church.
   
   The real Florence Nightingale, not the saintly, self-sacrificing, delicate maiden lady of popular legend, was, according to Strachey, more interesting, but also less agreeable too.
   
   Dr. Thomas Arnold acquired the position of headmastership of Rugby School in August, 1828, and subsequently changed the face of Public School life.
   
   General Gordon is remembered for his death at Khartoum. Strachey's controversial account is great biography. (In the 1966 movie Khartoum, Charlton Heston played the role of General 'Chinese' Gordon.)



4. I just don't see that Strachey made Florence Nightingale and General Gordon look as foolish as he made Cardinal Manning and Thomas Arnold appear in "Eminent Victorians". I suppose that impression comes from having been brought up reading 20th century 'warts-and-all' biographies rather than the 'if-you-can't-say-something-nice-don't-say-it-at-all' biographies of the 19th century. Although Strachey made Manning and especially Arnold seem pretty icky, Nightingale and Gordon come through as pretty admirable human beings -- not perfect (i.e. human) but on the whole admirable.



5. Some of Lytton Strachey's choices of subject for the four scathing biographical essays contained in _Eminent Victorians_ may seem rather strange. Florence Nightingale was an obvious choice for any biographer, but who cared about Matthew Arnold in the post-war era when Strachey was writing these essays? Who gave a thought to Cardinal Manning or Chinese Gordon? And why combine their biographies into one book?
   
   The answer may be that all four shared one unusual character trait, one so reminiscent of the Victorian age that even the thought of it brings the scent of lavender to mind: extreme earnestness. Each figure cared very, very deeply about something, but for each that earnestness also masked a corresponding personal craving. Like many young Britons in the post-WWI era, Strachey was deeply distrustful of earnestness, often seeing it as an excuse for personal gain or fulfillment. This was especially true when one man's deeply held beliefs sent others to their deaths, as it often had during WWI. He had no time for official incompetence, ignorance, or inaction, but often found the opposite just as dangerous.
   
   The first essay in _Eminent Victorians_ is that of Cardinal Manning. Manning was a priest in the Church of England who became involved in the Oxford Movement, a group of churchmen who disliked the increasing secularization of the C of E and who wished to bring it back to its Catholic roots. Most of those involved remained in the Anglican communion, forming the nucleus of the "High Church" movement of the late 19th century. Manning found that he could not stop at that, though; unable to reconcile his belief in a Church Universal with his membership in a church that existed basically because Henry VIII was a serial adulterer, and unable to 'take back' the text of a tract he had written that was deeply critical of the Anglican church and which eliminated any chances of his gaining higher office, Manning found himself eventually in the arms of Rome. Strachey paints Manning as a weak, vacillating, impulsive man of great ambition whose conversion to Roman Catholicism was as much a political and career move as one of the heart and soul. Had Manning remained in the Church of England, Strachey implies, he would have been an archdeacon until death; only conversion to Roman Catholicism allowed him to fulfil his ambitions towards higher office. It's a masterful biography, one that explores not just its purported subject but also the birth of Anglo-Catholicism.
   
   The third essay, of Rugby school headmaster Matthew Arnold, reveals Strachey's hatred of the English public school system (or what we in North America would call the private school system). He skewers Arnold for failing to make the educational reforms he was hired to make and for delegating the discipline of younger students to the senior class, thereby condoning and even encouraging the type of severe bullying that caused many young men to consider suicide. Arnold, whose earnestness in creating 'Christian gentlemen' did not go so far as to allow him to teach them himself, refused to update the school curriculum ostensibly because gentlemen didn't need science, maths, or English literature, but really (as Strachey contends) because Arnold had studied Latin and Greek himself and didn't want to feel his own learning was unnecessary. Strachey points out that Arnold did little at Rugby except pronounce the Sunday sermon, intimidate students, and foster a personality cult that eventually made him the father of modern education in many Britons' eyes - even though he made no changes to the educational system itself. His reforms in discipline and in religion (and his lack of reforms in curriculum) were copied by most public schools, to the great detriment of the British people.
   
   In Strachey's essay on General Gordon, Strachey shows how a brave man with a strong belief in the rightness of his cause and an overwhelming desire for adventure may have been used to precipitate a war and to advance the cause of imperialism. Gordon, a war veteran and former colonial administrator (and a rather unstable fellow), was sent to the Sudan during a revolt to report on conditions there and to evacuate civilians who were loyal to Egypt, which was then controlled by the British. Gordon did none of the above; he instead tried to wipe out the insurrection, and for his troubles was killed and his staff and allies massacred. His death was used by the imperialist factions in the ruling party as a call to arms. Strachey wonders: was this deliberate? Was Gordon given alternate instructions by the imperialists? Did they intend for him to die, so that his death could be used as a rallying point for further imperialism? He argues his point well, and the essay is definitely worth reading.
   
   Strachey's portrait of Florence Nightingale is not quite as successful as the rest. Nightingale was born into a wealthy family, and like all young women of her class and time was expected to marry young, have children, and generally be nothing more than a society lady. Florence wanted more: she wanted to work, to make a difference, to change the world, and she wanted everybody around her to work as hard as she did. After many years of waiting, she finally had her chance; her efforts to reform British military hospitals and eventually the practice of medicine in the Empire did in fact change the world. Strachey seems to have thought that she pushed her colleagues too hard, that her own drive was so abnormal that her friends and family could not keep up. Granted, she did push some of her colleagues very hard, and one may have even died from overwork, but they chose to work with her because they believed in her, and given what she was able to do I think they were right to believe in her. It also appears that Strachey may not have been comfortable with a woman refusing to hide her intelligence or personal strength when dealing with men. I had the distinct impression while reading this essay that Strachey was sneering at those men who took orders from Nightingale or who assisted her in her work. Another reviewer mentioned that Nightingale is portrayed here as a 'pushy woman' - and she certainly is; however, most of Strachey's implied criticism seems to be directed towards the men who treated her as the intelligent, hard-working, valuable human being she was. Strachey also seems to have viewed her invalid status as something of a neurotic problem, which in the light of recent research (showing that she likely had undulant fever) may not be accurate.

1 comments about William and Mary.

1. William and Mary is a fascinating look into two of the most unique of British monarchs. The only joint sovereigns in British history, William and Mary reigned togther from 1689 to 1693, when Mary died and William ruled alone until 1702. Van de Kiste's clear writing style and interesting anecdotes make the history come alive, and a series of carefully selected plates enliven the text. Overall a very good read into what most historians simply gloss over- the feelings and aspects of daily life of the period.

2 comments about Discovering Saint Patrick.

1. The perfect place to start if you want to learn about St. Patrick or early Irish Christianity. O'Loughlin is the best scholar in the world on this subject, but his books are easy to read.



2. Written by a theology lecturer at the University of Wales, Lampeter, Discovering Saint Patrick is a religious and biographical study of Saint Patrick, that strives to understand as much as possible about his life, his impact on history, how he influenced the development of Irish Catholicism, and much more. Thoroughly researched, drawing heavily on original sources as well as directly from scripture, Discovering Saint Patrick approaches the life and times of the famous saint with a scholarly eye for detail and as much corroboration and verification as reasonably possible. A welcome contribution to church libraries and biographical collections of holy figures, and a "must-read" for anyone who is curious to understand what St. Patrick's Day is really all about.