3 comments about Damn Rebel Bitches.

1. While Maggie Craig's book shows that women had more influence and participation in the '45 than you may have thought, her book itself delivers less than you should expect. Written from an entirely modern perspective, Craig takes the stance that these women of Scotland were the exception rather than the norm. She seems to believe that until her generation any woman who dared express an opinion or lobby for her political ideas was ruthlessly suppressed. Nothing could be further from the truth, as women of that time were very influential in political and social action, even if they didn't always do so from the frontlines. In failing to admit this Craig does her readers an injustice even greater than that which the English Parliament came up with to defraud the House of Stuart. Craig's book relies on stories and personal observations about a 'woman's place' that contrast strongly with what scholars of the era know. Scottish Clan hierarchy valued women and children as the future, and their position in the clan 'family' was respected and greatly acknowledged. True, English law at the time was very abusive of women's rights, but those ideas had not yet taken root north of the border, despite the Act of Union. Though it presents some interesting characters and events, I found this book unconvincing.
   
   Also recommended: 'Lochiel of the '45' by John Gibson 'I Am Come Home' Treasure of Prince Charles Edward Stuart 'Scottish Highlanders' by MacKinnon 'British Kings & Queens' by Mike Ashley



2. I found this book to be one of the great finds in recent years. Scottish women, be they common or noble, have always had a unique place in Scottish History. Unfortunately their story is often missing from the pages of Scottish history annals. Ms Criag has provided readers with a unique glimpse into the romantic period of the second Jacobite uprising from the women's point of view. The women were remarkably loyal to a man and cause doomed from the start. This is a must read if you want an historical approach that is scholarly in its content but entertaining in its delivery. This one should be in all Scottish historians' keeper shelves.



3. This is a good book for the ladies of all of those kilt-wearing men who portray Jacobite soldiers in the '45 Rising. Extensive research is evident throughout. Women played a huge role in the Rising, from recruiting soldiers to gathering intelligence. This book explores the activities of some of the most fervent, yet overlooked, Jacobites: the women.

   Good resource for adding depth to reenactment personae.

1 comments about The Great Man: Sir Robert Walpole: Scoundrel, Genius and Britain's First Prime Minister.

1. The author's style is so casual and "chatty" that the overall work lacks a feeling of authority. It's clearly well-researched so the presentational failings are keenly felt.

No comments about Sheridan Le Fanu.

3 comments about Rome and a Villa.

1. "You walk close to your dreams"--that's the first sentence of Eleanor Clark's chapter on the fountains of Rome. Her book is lyrical but informative, and for some readers, perhaps too heavy with information, but I have found it indispensible both while in Rome and later back in the US thinking about where I had been. Orignally published as separate articles in The New Yorker magazine, each chapter focuses on a particular subject. One of my favorites is the section on Protestant Cemetery (actually the cemetery of the non-Catholics), where Keats, Shelley, Gramsci and many other non-Catholic writers, politicians, diplomats, and artists are buried. This is not a typical guidebook, however, and anyone who buys it in order to get maps, pictures, and restaurant tips will be disappointed. Nevertheless, it is an excellent guide to the city--it is thoughtful, it is full of strong opinions, and it is sometimes very funny, too. Eleanor Clark was married to the writer Robert Penn Warren, whose career overshadowed hers. Those who know his work but do not know the work of Clark may be surprised to find out just how good she is.



2. this book is deceiving...i admit, some will find it interesting, but clark jumps around with no transitions. it is more of a journal, or a collection of essays. she does describe in detail a number of things in rome, yet if you are looking for a novel or a piece of literature which is cohesive this is not the book for you.



3. If you need to escape from the drudgery of your everyday life for awhile than this is the book for you.

   Clark's masterpiece is as good as a month in the country. And not just any country either. All of Italy is opened to you by the mind and imagination of Eleanor Clark. She covers the territory from the haunted villa of Hadrian to the dangerous hills of Sicily and the cool depths of Saint Peter's Cathedral. You will meet with the ghost of the Emperor himself, a modern gangster cum matinee idol and the pilgrims of a Papal Jubilee.

   Clark's prose is a whirlwind that leaves you breathless. She throws off sparks in all directions like a Catherine's Wheel. You won't "get" all of this book on the first go round but it is well worth a second and a third reading.

2 comments about The Shorter Pepys.

1. This diary in this abridged version, has given me more sheer pleasure than any other book I have ever read. Writing for himself alone, Pepys selected things for inclusion in the diary purely on the basis of how they struck him. This grand subjectivity would be fatal in a dull or passive or insensitive writer, but in Pepys it makes the work fresh and vibrant, constantly surprising, unlike anything else in literature. Even when describing an "important" scene, he is still his natural self and gives touches of his own behaviour, like this at the King's coronation: "But so great a noise, that I could make but little of the Musique; and endeed, it was lost to everybody. But I had so great a list to pissse, that I went out a little while before the King had done all his ceremonies...." Not just his behavior, but also his reactions: "As it grew darker, [the fire] appeared more and more, and in Corners and upon steeples and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City, in a most horrid malicious bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire." That is from Pepys's stunning account of the first day of the great fire of London. It has no conscious artifice: Pepys's descriptions owe their power to his uncanny knack for expressing how the events struck him. So he gives details which a more "responsible" writer would have overlooked: "Among other things, the poor pigeons I perceive were loath to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconies till they were some of them burned, their wings, and fell down." The diary gives us the texture of Pepys's daily life - what he wore, what he ate, what skirts he lifted, and what he paid in hard cash for all this; the plays he saw, how the audiences behaved, the doorman who swindled him out of a shilling; his book collection, his musical instruments, the improvements to his apartment; his growing wealth, from sources bright and shady; his bowels and his testicles; the list is endless. Along with stories that are variously amusing, touching, shocking, there are episodes like this: "Before going to bed, I stood writing of this day its passages - while a drum came by, beating of a strange manner of beat, now and then a single stroke; which my wife and I wondered at, what the meaning of it should be." And this: "I sat up till the bell-man came by with his bell, just under my window as I was writing of this very line, and cried 'Past one of the clock, and a cold, frosty, windy morning.' One of the topics is Pepys himself - his thoughts, feelings and actions, and his thoughts and feelings about these. He had a lively inner life, was intimately in touch with it, and had the ability to know at any given moment how he felt and to write about it clearly and purely. We get Pepys warts and all. He does not pose for his self-portrait. When a stranger importunes his wife, he records, "I did give him a good cuff or two on the chops; and seeing him not oppose me, I did give him another". This is not the writing of someone who wants to be a hero to his diary! He freely criticizes himself, particularly for his capacity - amazing in one so able and successful - for neglecting work and career in the pursuit of pleasure. After a bout with one of his mistresses, he went to see another but found that she was away: "So I back again to my office, where I did with great content faire a vow to mind my business and laisser aller les femmes for a month; and am with all my heart glad to find myself able to come to so good a resolution, that thereby I may follow my business, which, and my honour thereby, lies a-bleeding." (Where sex is the topic, Pepys usually scatters French and Spanish words through his text.) Sometimes he scolds himself for his feelings. After appearing before a tribunal of inquiry, and concluding that he is not in much trouble, he writes: "And yet though this be all, yet I do find so poor a spirit within me, that it makes me almost out of my wits, and puts me to so much pain that I...vex and fret and imagine myself undone - so that I am ashamed of myself to myself, and do fear what would become of me if any real affliction should come upon me." He later remarks that the tribunal had treated him "as a Criminall", kept him waiting and made him stand; but he seems not to have reflected that that is why he was so depressed. He is always interested in his inner life and willing to respond to it, judge it, lament it, rejoice in it; but as a child of his times he is not challenged to try to understand it. The Navy Board, and therefore Pepys himself, were potentially in much greater trouble only a month later. He did not collapse. His three-hour speech to Parliament was a triumph, though he describes it in less than a sentence: "I begin our defence most acceptably and smoothly, and continued at it without any hesitation or losse but with full scope and all my reason free about me, as if it had been at my own table...". Pepys was able to enjoy HIMSELF, to take his triumphs without vainglory and his reverses without self-deception. He had, as Robert Latham puts it, "a gift for happiness that amounts to genius".



2. Pepys's complete diaries are probably the closest thing to time travel that I will ever experience. This condensed edition takes the meat off the bones and serves it up with most of the flavor of the full Latham-edited version.

   The passion for women and for books, the details noticed at the Whitehall court of Charles II -- like the king's mistress's freshly-washed underwear hanging on a hedge in the privy garden to dry in the sun! -- and the layered record of the daily routine of a London man living in a time of immense change are fascinating.

   Note that this is a fine book for those who enjoy the Patrick O'Brian Aubry and Maturin series too. Pepys was instrumental in taking the British Navy from a ragged mix of merchant ships mixed in with war ships, haphazardly provisioned and manned by politically appointed (i.e. unexamined) officers to the fleet that brought Nelson to victory.

   This book is an excellent introduction to Pepys; I recommend it

No comments about Towards Ireland Free: The West Cork Brigade in the War of Independence 1917-1921.

No comments about An Ulster Christmas.

5 comments about 5 Women of the English Reformation.

1. Dean Zahl is an intriguing and interesting preacher and author. I read the book as I am deeply interested in the Reformation - particularly in the United Kingdom. I was most impressed with his chapter on Lady Jane Grey who certainly should be the role model and main subject of the five. I believe he should have downplayed the role of Anne Boleyn because of the great sorrow her marriage to Henry VIII caused to his wife of 20+ years. I am of course referring to Katherine of Aragon. Henry and Cranmer's treatment of the Queen was cruel and should not be defended in any modern Protestant forum. Indeed in Britain in Peterborough Cathedral her grave (desecrated by Protestants) was restored and now befittingly says "Katherine The Queen". I otherwise enjoyed the book but wish he had not remained silent on this issue when proclaiming Anne's virtues. A modern parallel might be considered in the relationship of Edward VII and Alexandra - Alexandra a devout Protestant endured Edward's numerous affairs. Katherine endured the same with Anne. I have read all of his books and consider him a scholar on Anglicanism. A little more compassion for Katherine would have made me rate the book higher.



2. I don't have the book in front of me anymore, so I can't pull quotes from it, but I remember thinking as I read this book that the author didn't really understand what the Reformation was about. At one point, he says in effect "God's love responds to man's faith". The Reformers clearly taught that man's faith responds to God's love and His calling. I know that the book wasn't about in depth theology, but statments like the above made it hard to take the rest of the book seriously.



3. "There was a king of Yvetot, " wrote the French poet Pierre-Jean de
   Beranger, "little known to history." Pick any period of history of which
   you are especially fond, and you will feel strongly that some figure you
   deem important is too "little known."

   Consider the era of the English Reformation. It is a time of tumultous
   change. A king shifts his faith, leaders are burned at the stake, people
   flee the country, many monasteries are destroyed, and the king's successors

   shift back and forth in the middle of the sixteenth century with astonishing
   rapidity. Read any work on this time and the authors TEND to focus on the
   politics, the leaders, the church, the liturgy and the men. When a woman is
   mentioned at all, the one bright light that gets nearly all the attention is
   Elizabeth I (1533-1603).

   Nearly all the other women are less noticed, and when they are focused on
   little is said about the role THEOLOGY plays in their lives and ministries.
   In a highly provocative and little noticed book, "When Life and Beliefs
   Collide : How Knowing God Makes a Difference" (Zondervan, 2001), Carolyn
   James writes: "As I have met with hundreds of women, I have encountered a
   wide spectrum of negative attitudes towards theology, from casual
   indifference to open hostility, and all points in between. Here and there,
   a few women may find theology fascinating, may even devote a lot of time to
   study it, but they are exceptional and, in the opinion of some, a little
   peculiar. Beyond these rare exceptions, most women cannot be bothered."

   Well, in the period of the English Reformation women COULD be bothered,
   indeed fascinated, by theology, as Paul Zahl's "Five Women of the English
   Reformation" (Eerdmans, 2001) shows. Dr. Zahl picks Anne Boleyn
   (1507-1536), Anne Askew (1521-1546), Katherine Parr (1514-1548), Jane Grey
   (1537-1554), and Catherine Willoughby (1520-1580) for his examination. "All
   of these woman thought theologically," he writes. "They were lay
   theologians. They read theological books, most especially the Bible, and
   anything to which they could gain access from the continental Protestant
   Reformers. They talked theology. Their inner circles were
   twenty-four-hours-a-day Bible studies. They saw everything that happened
   through two lenses: the lens of the providence of God and the lens of the
   furtherance of the Reformed religion."

   For Dr. Zahl, the "Reformed religion" comes to England in three successive
   parts. "The first phase of Reformation theology was justification by grace
   through faith rediscovered. The second phase was the implications of
   justification by faith for the Mass, the Mass being the central action and
   transaction of medieval Catholicism. The third phase of the English
   Reformation was the focus on election and predestination."

   Phase one concerns Anne Boleyn, "who died meekly but gave away nothing." So
   completely was she erased from the official record "it became as if she had
   never lived." For Zahl, however, she left the indelible mark of her faith.
   "As queen, Anne understood her providential mission to be.to bring the
   Reformation to England and employ every single instance of patronage and
   influence to that end." What is the human predicament? "The human person is
   caught up in himself and herself until set free to love by a prior exterior
   love." That prior love is the love above all loves, and the heart of Anne's
   faith, "the forgiving love of Christ Jesus, without which all human
   endeavors of love are doomed to be scripted and need projected."

   The second phase of the Reformation involves another Anne. "Anne Askew's
   primary target was biblical teaching concerning the eucharist, and more
   precisely the idea of transubstantiation. Anne was burned for denying
   transubstantiation. Her denial of it was aggressive. In fact she mocked
   the concept!"

   Zahl believes Anne Askew rejected transubstantiation for two reasons.
   "First, it is irrational to say that God can be contained within any object
   of any kind..`God will not be eaten with teeth': This is the Enlightenment
   or critical, deconstructing side of Protestantism in early form." Anne's
   second reason Zahl calls an "evangelical" one, namely the notion that Christ
   's atoning death occurred once for all. "To conceive of the Eucharist as a
   sacrifice of repetition, by which the benefits of Christ's death are
   presented new and actual each time on the altar, was to denigrate the `one,
   full perfect sacrifice'" of which Cranmer wrote.

   The final phase of the Reformation concerns Catherine Willoughby, the
   duchess of Suffolk in 1533, who lived the longest of the five women treated
   by Dr. Zahl. She addresses primarily the subjects of divine will,
   providence, and election. When she loses her sons Charles and Henry to
   death, she seeks to understand it as a "mercy. She means that by taking
   away from her, her very most cherished prerogative-her children and her
   attachment to them-God has intentionally forced her to rely solely on Him."
   Zahl confesses this is "counterintuitive" yet sees it as the inevitable
   outflow of Luther's theology. "If grace alone saves, then God alone is the
   willing actor in all human events.Contemporary people make heavy weather of
   this. Our ancestors generally accepted it."

   So here is vintage Zahl: compact, pithy, and theologically oh so rich.
   Appropriately, there is a chapter of reflection by Mary Zahl which concludes
   with the best call of the book: "Study the Bible.be courageous.See God as.
   [your] only authority.Be grateful that .[we are] not being asked to die for"
   our faith.

   For all the talk about theology, however, this theologian was most struck by
   all the suffering these women went through, the physical agony, the
   emotional trauma of becoming convenient victims in other's schemes, and the
   lives cut so terribly short (Willoughby excepted). "What I think we can say
   regarding the steel of our heroes' convictions is that in each case their
   new convictions were made firmer by means of affliction, loss and
   harassment." Indeed. "Shall I fall in desperation?" Katherine Parr asks.
   "Nay, I will call upon Christ, the Light of the world. The Fountain of
   life, the relief of all careful consciences, the Peacemaker between God and
   man, and the only health and comfort of all repentant sinners."

   Oh how they suffered, but they suffered for and with Christ. May God grant
   us similar rich and deep devotion to him in our generation.

   --The Rev. Dr. Kendall S. Harmon (ksharmon@mindspring.com) serves as Theologian in Residence at St.
   Paul's Episcopal Church in Summerville, South Carolina




4. Biographical historians would do well to emulate this book. This is history enthusiastically--never dully--told. Paul Zahl spins his true tales with zest, wit and total commitment to the subject: five women who dared to think and tell what they knew to be the truth. It's a difficult book to put aside, simply because the author is obviously time-travelling: you feel he was actually there, witnessing the remarkable times in which his subjects lived. Zahl brings each woman to life and makes the reader wish for more. Mary Zahl adds an epilogue that injects just the right amount of support for Paul Zahl's courage to write about women who are bigger than life--from a male perspective. Well done!



5. Biographical historians would do well to emulate this book. This is history enthusiastically--never dully--told. Paul Zahl spins his true tales with zest, wit and total commitment to the subject: five women who dared to think and tell what they knew to be the truth. It's a difficult book to put aside, simply because the author is obviously time-travelling: you feel he was actually there, witnessing the remarkable times in which his subjects lived. Zahl brings each woman to life and makes the reader wish for more. Mary Zahl adds an epilogue that injects just the right amount of support for Paul Zahl's courage to write about women who are bigger than life--from a male perspective. Well done!

No comments about Joan Denise Moriarty: Founder of the Irish National Ballet.

5 comments about The Corrs: The Unofficial Book.

1. when i first hear the beautiful & great voice of the corrs its very good so Im now always buy their albums starting talk on corners from now on and my favorite of all was anrea. So andrea stay as you are. See you in Las Vegas



2. This book was great and informative. Only one problem though. A vast majority of the pics were of Andrea! I mean, I think Andrea's great, and there'd be no band without her, but I think Jim, Sharon, and Caroline deserve some recognition too! Again, don't get me wrong, I love Andrea as much as the next Corrs fan, but there's just not enough pics of everyone else!!



3. This book contains a lot of pictures and information about the Corrs. How they grew up, got the recorddeal, etc. The only thing I criticize is that on about 95 % of the pictures, there's "just" Andrea Corr.



4. This book is Corr-ific! Love the pictures of everyone in the book. I highly recomend this book to any fan of the Corrs. And remember the Corrs is with in you.



5. A very good book about The Corrs! Many pictures of them and it explains all about them. It should be the official book or The Corrs!