2 comments about Nothing But My Sword.

1. A somewhat dissapointing book. It begins almost
   as a biography written by a curate of the 18th century. Nevertheless the descriptions of the Russian wars conducted by Keith against the Turks and the Swedes are revelatory. Unfortunatley the only maps provided are thoses taken from Duffy's works. In the end. it is nice to see a new biography on one of the marshals of one of History's greatest captains.



2. It's a good book. Lot's of good information about the Keith's from Scotland. If you are a descendant of the Keith's you will love the history. If you are just a history buff you will learn a lot about a not very well know person who had a big impact on history.

No comments about Jack Yeats.

No comments about Sean Tracy and the Tan War.

4 comments about The Romanov Conspiracies : The Romanovs and the House of Windsor.

1. I don't totally buy the theory,but the book was well researched and made me think so I will give it three stars.
   As for previous reviewers, he does base some of his theory on the accounts of an 87 year old and a 91 year old, their brother-in-law/husband was the British Consul,in Ekaterinburg at the time of the murders, and this information was combined with other sources the book is not based entirely on their story.And he never claims she was a belly-dancer, in fact he debunks this (on several occasions) as a fabrication made up by someone around her to cover her real past.
   As I said I am not totally convinced in his theory but if you want to be critical you could at least get the story straight.



2. I certainly don't agree with the other reviews here. This book is one of the best written about the disappearance and unsolved questions of the last tsar and his family and I have read many! Michael Occleshaw is a brittish historian and he apparently has researched a lot for this book. He speculates a great deal about which of the missing daughters who might have survived and believes this to be Tatiana who possibly was saved by the English eccentric and adventurer Richard Meinertzhagen. I found a lot of information in this book that I haven't seen anywhere else including the best known like Massie's books. It was first published in 1993 so a lot of the events of the recent years in this field are not included but still it's one of the most fascinating and informative I`ve read. I recommend it to anyone who has a geat interest in the Romanov mystery.



3. I bought this book because of my fascination with the Romanovs, but I wish I hadn't wasted my money on this one!The book is riddled with errors; one example occurs on the first page that contains the Romanov Family tree.The author claims that Grand Duchess Xenia was married to Alexander Alexandrovich...she was actually married to Alexander Mikhailovich ("Sandro")Then in the first few pages he maintains that the Russians celebrated 300 years of Romanov rule in 1912..it was actually 1913! If the author can't get his basic facts straight, I am not inclined to believe his far fetched theory that Grand Duchess Tatiana was airlifted to England! He bases this outlandish claim on an interview with 2 women, ages 87 and 91,who reportedly witnessed the execution of the Romanovs. His story gets even more bizarre when he tells us that Tatiana worked in Turkey as a belly dancer! I would have given this book no stars if I had that option. For people who want an accurate account of Romanov history, I would start with Robert Massie's excellent "Nicholas and Alexandra" plus "A Fatal Passion" by Michael John Sullivan and Mironenko's "A Lifelong Passion" However, if you enjoy spotting inaccuracies or are in need of a good laugh, this is your book!!



4. With no mention of earlier well-researched writings, this book seems tainted and incomplete, lacking depth and insight. Perhaps prejudiced by an intention to mislead readers to a pre-designed theory. Better reference is the excellent author Robert K.Massie!

No comments about Joseph Stalin: A Biographical Companion (Biographical Companions).

5 comments about Crossing Highbridge: A Memoir of Irish America (Irish Studies).

1. Frank McCourt must've penned a primer for those who write autobiographies profiling their rise out of quintessential Irish childhood to become successful teachers, pub owners or actors in the Big Apple. If not, we'll develop a one, having slogged through a few Irish experience autobiographies in the past few years. CROSSING HIGHBRIDGE, a soulful reflection penned by Maureen Waters, fits the bill. The first of her family not born in Ireland, Ms. Waters left a secure Irish Catholic Bronx neighborhood to become professor of English at Queens' College. In HIGHBRIDGE Waters revisits her old neighborhood and youth in an attempt to exorcise a few demons and make sense of tragic loss.
   
   Speaking of school, name a primordial recollection that separates Catholic childhood experiences from those of the less fortunate. Stumped? Parochial school--does anything compare? I recall nuns swooping like hawks about the classroom slapping the ten-thumbed hands of boys while praising the girls, all who had mastered the fine motor skill control requisite to master the Palmer method of penmanship And priests, remember their surprise visits? They dashed about classrooms rooting out the heathens who failed to memorize today's catechism. Waters pens a charming reunion visit to that school we loved, where Sister Immaculata, or Sister Alvera, or Sister Whoever, ruled the roost with an iron claw, er, fist.
   
   Waters infuses a recognizable dose of Irish Catholic guilt. To wit: "You want to be a teacher? Are you daft Maureen? The proper thing, young lady, is to save yourself, marry a decent man and have a dozen children!" Or the refrain heard by many a young Irish lad, "Pat, the family hasn't ordained a priest in two generations. Your mother and I want you to consider the seminary." Familial guilt threads its way through CROSSING HIGHBRIDGE.
   
   No growing-up-Irish spiel should lack a smattering of old-country angst, and it doesn't hurt to parade a skeleton or two out of the family closet in the offing. Forced by her father to work the family farm at an age when she should've been in school, Water's Mayo-born mother exuded the lifelong melancholy of lost opportunity; melancholy she wore on her shirtsleeve. According to Waters, an aunt told her that her maternal grandfather beat the six daughters, including Maureen's mother, Agnes. Also prone to unleashing impressive levels of violence, maternal grandpa Ruane was once hush-hushed off to a mental institution. Further, Water's father, Daniel, witnessed his share of perverse Black and Tan justice and senseless political murder while caught in the flame of Ireland's republican fire of the 1920s. Waters also lost an uncle in a failed attack on a Sligo military garrison during the Free State revolution. There's more--but perhaps these are skeletons better left in the closet.
   
   Which leads us to the subject of humor rampant in Irish tragicomedy. CROSSING HIGHBRIDGE is bound with all the Irish charm and storytelling one would expect---but not the leprechaun-like humor. Waters might've survived unscathed an abusive marriage, the lofty expectations of the Church, the vagaries of a difficult mother, and a professional career bound by the shackles of sexism, but the loss of a son in a tragic accident stopped her in her tracks. Waters wrote CROSSING HIGHBRIDGE, she offers, as a step to recovery and to pay homage to those who had gone before her. Writing with the passion of someone who needs to unlock the past in order to make sense of the present, she keeps an optimistic eye on the future. CROSSING HIGHBRIDGE is a worthwhile read.
   
   Along with her title of Professor of English, Maureen Waters' résumé includes, Director of Irish Studies at Queens College in New York.



2. I was able to identify with nearly everything Miss Waters wrote about her Irish Catholic upbringing in Highbridge, because I too came from the same place, and I knew her sister Agnes many, many years ago. However, if I had not had the privilege of knowing Maureen and her literary family, I would still have been able to appreciate the writer's gift of style where she combined gracefully, history, philosophy, religion along with the socioeconomic conditions of the 1940's and 1950's growing up in Highbridge.



3. I could relate to nearly everything that Miss Waters wrote about in Crossing Highbridge, because I came from that Irish Catholic enclave, I knew the Waters family long ago, and I went to Sacred Heart with Maureen's sister, Agnes.

   Maureen Waters is a gifted writer who combines history, philosophy, religion, and the socio-econimic conditions in a working class environment in the 1940's and 1950's, with utter grace, and at the same time, the reader can experience some strong emotions of saddness and joy.




4. This profoundly moving memoir of growing up Irish/Catholic/female in the midcentury Bronx began with the author's need to understand the loss of her son to accidental death by drugs and alcohol. As she puts it, "the drive to piece together cause and effect was a belief that I had far more power than I actually did for good or ill." She sifts the past out of psychological necessity, desperate, guilty, and finds ordinary treasure: in human characters - her father, an immigrant from Sligo, her mother from Mayo, a feisty and lovable little sister, Agnes, and, above all, in her beautiful and enigmatic lost child of the flaming red hair, Brian Patrick - and also in their brave and lonely human places (Highbridge on Hudson, Long Island). She looks back for clues to her loss from the perspective of a divorced single mother trying to juggle children and hold her own in academe (she's now a professor of English). Memory sifted through the prism of such luminous prose and honest emotion offers a gentle and moving consolation to this reader. The story of the author's Catholic journey, from insider - the parish was Sacred Heart - to outsider is told with devastating brevity. I'll never forget the final image of women's exclusion. It rings so true. The abyss is present in Waters' world, but to me this is a book of hope



5. This beautiful memoir of growing up Irish-Catholic-female in the Bronx at midcentury began with the author's tragic loss of one of her sons to an accidental death from drugs and alcohol. In order to survive herself, she must understand: "The drive to piece together cause and effect was a belief that I had far more power than I actually did for good or ill." The bereaved mother, who is also a professor of English, sifts her past for answers. She uncovers the treasure of human characters (her father, Daniel Waters, an immigrant from Sligo, her mother from Mayo; her rebel little sister, Agnes) in their brave and lonely human settlement (Highbridge on the Hudson). She looks back on the cost of parenting alone as a divorced young mother and trying to hold her own in academe. The consolation that memory - and Waters' luminous prose - makes for her and for this reader is profoundly moving. The story of her Catholic journey, in particular, the movement from insider - the parish was Sacred Heart - to outsider, is especially strong: she tells it with a devastating brevity and one final image that I'll never forget. It rings so true. This is a courageous book about loss in which you come to see that what remains is, after all, a matter of life understood and hope.

No comments about The Life and Work of Sarah Purser.

1 comments about Tales of Sir William Wallace.

1. This is a work of tales of William Wallace, freely adapted from the poem of Blind Harry by Tom Scott, with illustrations by James Hutcheson. A very readable, quickie version of Harry's epic.

   For those wishing Harry's version, but not caring to wade through the poem and some of its language.

   Very good for young students.

1 comments about King William IV (Cassell Biographies).

1. This book was excellent. I have been an amateur student of the Hanover era of the British monarchy and there are many books out there on the Great King George III or the Bad King George IV. There are numerous books on Queen Victoria and the Era she heralded, but there is little on King William IV, son of George III, younger brother and heir of George IV and previous monarch of his niece Queen Victoria. King William saw England through only 7 years but in that seven years he saw a lot of changes in parliament and help begin restoring the faith of the British in their monarchy that was lost during the reign of George IV. Mr. Ziegler does a wonderful job of showing William's private life and the trials he endured from his time in the Navy, to life with Mrs. Jordan and their 10 children, to his finding proper wife and becoming King. A great story of a good man.

No comments about As I Was Among Captives: Joseph Campbell's Prison Diary, 1922-23 (Irish Narrative Series) (Irish Narrative Series).