2 comments about A Life of Her Own: A Countrywoman in Twentieth-Century France.

1. I read this book quite a few years ago and it remains fresh in my memory. There was nothing about it I did not totally love, especially Emilie. I was sad to see that there was only one other review of this excellent book. Everyone should read it, it is absolutely beautiful.



2. This is a book about endemic people, who, like plants, are rooted to a certain time and place with a specificity that is hard for a lot of us alive today to know. Emilie's tale of her tough life in the rugged mountains near Italy is told with such a wonderful conversational and error-laden english - completely engaging and romantic, with photos of people in the story she is telling. I read it while at my best friends house in Grenoble, and then we drove to the very town in the alps that Emilie grew up in. It was like a time capsule except for the cross country ski inns that have popped up and started a commercialization process. But the story she tells is of people who are like certain french cheeses made in a certain valley, that if you went over the mountain and into the next valley, that cheese could not be replicated. This is a great story and you will fall in love with it if you are someone who is nostalgic for a time and place when harsh weather, rugged mountains, and lots of work to do at home made a journey of 20 miles felt like it took you to another planet.

5 comments about In Great Haste: The Letters of Michael Collins and Kitty Kiernan.

1. After Michael Collins was assasinated, Kitty Kiernan collected their letters to each other over the period of their courtship. Her sons kept these in trust after she passed away, eventually making them available for Leün ü Broin to present in this exceptional historical archive.
   
   The period in Irish history of independence from the UK and the Irish civil war has all the makings of great story-telling. This collection of letters gives the student of that time period unique access into the personal ife of perhaps the key player in that story. ü Broin presents these letters with minimal interference - inserting his own brief historic notes to help the reader keep track of the letters' place in the story. This is not gripping reading, but a marvelous resource for the history buff.



2. Although this book would have benefited from more photos and samples of the actual handwritten letters, the extensive collection of correspondence between Michael Collins and Kitty Kiernan is well worth reading for a feel of the times and especially the personality of Collins. However, I have to say that by the halfway mark I had just about had it with Kitty Kiernan's repetitive ruminations about his love, her love, her personality quirks, their future, etc... She sounded very immature, difficult and self absorbed for a woman in her 30s and it made me think that if she was as irritating in person as in her letters, SHE may have been what kept Collins on the road working 24/7 for the Republic. Independent Ireland may owe a lot to this woman! A funny side to this is that it reminded me of a collection of e-mails between any man and woman... hers rambling on and on embarrassingly spilling her guts out and his short, containing of bits of news, and not giving too much away.



3. I fell in love with this book. I have to admit I am a sucker for love stories, this book, however, is not only "love" letters, but an interesting look at the life of one of Irelands greatest people.
   
   Michael Collins love of Ireland and his hopes for his country are clearly stated in his own written words to Kitty. He is a man of great faith. While Kitty Kiernan seems a little immature or wishy washy at times, it is still a great read.
   
   Michael Collins was an amazing man. This is definitely a look at a different side of a man who was such a powerful and important political figure. A man who was so important to Ireland.



4. These excerpts from the voluminous correspondence between Michael Collins and his fiance Kitty Kiernan reveal a rather strange relationship between a dynamic revolutionary leader-turned-statesman and a woman who seems almost totally focused on herself and virtually oblivious to the pressures and dangers under which he was laboring. The feelings between the two seem to reflect a range of emotions, including irritation, jealousy, perfunctory interest and exhaustion (his)during a particularly fascinating period of Irish history. One wonders what the attraction was between these two since she seems very little interested in or informed about the momentous events in which he was a key player. One also wonders whether the match would have been very successful had Collins lived long enough to marry his lady. Nonetheless, engrossing reading.



5. I've been reading many books of late about Irish history in general and Michael Collins in particular. I was fortunate to find this one in my read stack one night, when I wanted something "different" from the normal biography -- this book fit the bill!

   First, it a collection of letters, with a few pages of text from the editor. These pages help place the letters into the context of Collins' and Kiernan's life.

   Second, the editor didn't edit the letters (though there are few comments to explain a few obscure references); thus the reader is allowed to read the text with a minimum of "outside interruptions"; some people may not like this.

   Third, there are a few photographs and samples of handwriting included. The photographs were what one would expect; they included the couple, as well as some mutual friends. What intrigued me more than the photos, were the samples of handwriting. Collins and Kiernan both referred to their pages as "quick notes" and such, yet the pages contained few cross outs and changes which indicated that that both writers gave their "quick notes" quite a bit of thought.

   These letters are remarkable, as they allow the reader to see how the events impacted the writers; especially true for Collins, as he was quite dedicated to writing letters to Kiernan in addition to his duties. It is remarkable to read these notes from a man whose time was consumed by governmental duties, treaty negotiations and fighting yet still found the time to tell his beloved how much he loved her.

   This volumne is a rare bird, as it both a book for historians and for lovers. Enjoy

1 comments about Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure.

1. This 1977 biography has been reissued this year, the 90th anniversary of the Rising, in its original form. It is difficult to imagine a subject for a biography which would be more capable of stiring controversy. It is also difficult to imagine an author taking a more reasoned, scholarly, and evenhanded approach to their subject.
   
   This biography manages to humanize a man who is often reduced, in character and deed,to a faceless political icon. The book is thorough in relating his work in the Gaelic League, his writings, his tenure as a schoolmaster, and the development of his political philosophy and activism.
   
   Finally, the book allows the reader a firm basis with which to independently evaluate Pearse the man. This is not to say that the work is inchoate, for the very title itself, The Triumph of Failure, reveals a steely frame upon which the facts are sculpted. By this it is meant that the book breathes life into a subject whose reality is given fair treatment rather than obscured by an ideological or euhemeristic approach.
   
   The author notes in the 2006 preface that she has been constantly in controversy with those who use or condone the use of violence to accomplish political ends. The author does make judgments about Pearse with respect to his character and the Rising. She notes that Pearse was an exponent "...of a romantic morality which sanctined the the sacrafice of self and others in the pursuit of self-realization." It is clear that the Rising was in the author's eyes an undemocratic insurrection.
   
   It is also clear that the author has attempted, and in my view successfully, to produce a balance and fair biography of Pearse the man which in some respects must be fairly described as sympathetic.
   
   
   It is well worth the time and it is written in a clear and reader-friendly style.

No comments about The Boys: Biography of Michael MacLiammoir & Hilton Edwards.

1 comments about Liebe Mutti: One Man's Struggle to Survive in KZ Sachsenhausen, 1939-1945.

1. Pindera Jerzy was a Polish officer captured in 1939 and put in Sachsenhausen - one of the first German concentration camps set up on the outskirts of Berlin. Originally meant to house political prisoners, the camp eventually served the prime purpose of all camps - slave labor.
   
   Himmler's camps were a grisly version of General Motors - an empire of slave labor to build the buildings, dams, factories, etc. of the 1000 year Reich - and make Himmler second in wealth only to Hitler. Himmler was able to control these camps because he first controlled the SS who policed them. Young, idealistic Germans who'd been carefully indoctrinated in special schools to do the 'hard but necessary' brutal work to serve the Reich were the original members of the SS but their numbers were soon eclipsed by sadists, deviants and alcoholics, etc. whose inner brutality found an outlet in the SS. Himmler used them all to brutalize the slaves whose value he calculated as calmly as one calculates how many logs an ox can drag before the beast dies of exhaustion.
   
   Jerzy's calm description of the sadism of the SS guards makes it more real and frightening than if he'd ranted and raved. He describes the stupefying mind games which the SS first used on all prisoners to break their will to rebel - forcing the prisoners to endure days, weeks, even months of uncertainty about their fate while listening to the hellish screams of other inmates being punished, stripping them of their names and giving them numbers, forcing them to 'honor' the guards by instantly snapping to attention like obedient dogs, etc. But the ghastly power of the SS guards was brought home to me by one hellish night in Sachsenhausen - a night that nearly broke Jerzy. A prisoner had burnt a bunker and, in punishment, the entire camp of inmates were punished. As the minutes, then the hours ticked by in that cold night, every prisoner stood at rigid attention, unmoving, staring straight ahead, not even glancing to the side as one by one fellow prisoners gave up and fell to the ground to die on the spot from exhaustion and despair. As the night wore on, and more and more inmates collapsed, Jerzy could not look at them. He could only sense their bodies lying all around him while listening to the crunch of the SS guard's boots on the cold ground as they walked slowly between the ranks of helpless prisoners. I had to put the book down at that point and struggle to become calm.
   
   Jerzy survived only because the next day he was able to talk himself into the engineer section of the camp. These engineers were better fed, housed and less physically brutalized - not because the guards honored their humanity but because they honored their 'value' - engineers were hired out at more money to Speer's factories than mere laborers.
   
   It is interesting that despite suffering brutally, Jerzy did not descend into brutality himself. And that is the prime lesson of this astounding book. Jerzy early on apologizes that he is not a natural writer - yet he is wrong. His honest, calm description of the camp reveals a truth which more 'gifted' writers have failed to - the truth that a man has a choice of what he will or will not become. Every day of his internment in Sachsenhausen, Jerzy was faced with that choice and time again he made the choice for humanity - whether it was arranging the body of a dead comrade on a wheelbarrow in a respectful fashion as he wheeled it towards the crematorium, stealing a loaf of bread or meat for his starving comardes, or refusing to carry out the order of an SS officer to sentence fellow inmates to death because a building had not been constructed in time, Jerzy made the choice of whether to become a beast or not - and time and again he chose to remain a human. It is as simple as that, and as profound.
   
   This book is powerful. It is well written. It needs to be read.

No comments about Nelson: A Medical Casebook.

No comments about Seek the Frozen Lands: Irish Polar Explorers 1740-1922.

1 comments about Early Kings Of Norway.

1. This is it, it is very illustrous book with a lot of detais, facts, names, relations and so on. Highly recommended to anyone who likes Scandinavia, Norway, Sweden, Vikings and middle ages.

No comments about A Radical Lawyer in Victorian England: W. P. Roberts and the Struggle for Worker's Rights.

1 comments about Michael Collins.

1. Of the now fairly numerous biographies of Michael Collins, this is one of the shortest but most readable. The author had access to many of Collins' personal papers and he writes in an easy and easily understood manner. The essential facts about the famous Irish revolutionary are there but there is much less detail than in more extensive biographies,not necessarily a bad thing. Overall, this account of Collins' life and exploits rings true and presents a picture of the real man and the incredible service he gave to Ireland during his short life. It also gives a vivid picture of the great love and loyalty he inspired in his rag-tag band of rebels, from whom he drew acts of bravery and devotion they themselves hardly realized they were capable of. Highly recommended if you want to get a real feel for a critical period of Irish history and a man unique in any era.