Queen The Books

This is historical fiction at its finest. Masterfully written, the author weaves a spellbinding tapestry of events that chronicles the life of Mary Stuart, the Queen of Scots, while in captivity.

The book details her stay at the castle on the island of Lochleven in Scotland, while at the mercy of her illegitimate half brother and self-proclaimed Regent, the Earl of Moray. It recounts her daring escape from her Scottish captors, as well as her woefully misguided decision to flee to Enland, rather than to France or Spain.

Instead of the succor that the beautiful, charming, and very Catholic Mary, an anointed Queen, expected to receive from her cousin, the wily and Protestant Elizabeth I of England, Mary found, instead, an uneasy captivity. From the moment of her entry to England, she was in effect a prisoner, commuted from castle to castle with a never ending succession of jailers whose task was to ensure that she did not escape. It was a captivitry that was to span nineteen years.

Filled with the political intrigues and conspiracies that abounded in sixteenth century England and Scotland, the book paints a sympathetic portrait of Mary, a queen that ruled with her heart, rather than with her head. She was a woman who was at a disadvantage in negotiating with her cousin, as Elizabeth, unlike Mary, ruled with her head and not with her heart. Elizabeth was very much aware of the political realities of the time and sensitive to Mary's own claim by blood to the English throne, making Mary someone to be kept in check, rather than helped.

Based upon actual historical figures and events, the author creates three dimensional characters and infuses them with all the pomp and pageantry of the time. It is a stirringly written narrative that fully engages the reader. Those who love historical fiction, as well as those who have an interest in the life of Mary Stuart, the beleaguered Queen of Scots, will most certainly enjoy this book, as will anyone who simply loves a well-written and compelling story.

"L'affaire Delorme", which was what the Quebec press called the lengthy prosecution of a Roman Catholic priest for the murder of his half-brother, is still referred to as Canada's most controversial homicide case. Its author, Jean Monet, is the grandson of Dominique Monet, the presiding judge at one of the trials.

In January 1922, the body of Raoul Delorme was found in his Montreal residence. He'd been shot several times. Universal shock was immense when his half-brother, Father Adélard Delorme, was arrested for the crime. The priesthood and murder were so incompatible in the mind of the public, particularly its Catholic population, that even the press voiced a certain amount of disbelief. The circumstantial evidence against Father Delorme, however, was too damning: he'd recently taken out a life insurance policy on his brother, bloodstains were found in his car, and during one of the earliest known examples of ballistics testing, the police matched the bullets extracted from Raoul Delorme's body to a gun that the priest had purchased only days before the murder.

Anyone else would have been convicted after a speedy trial and executed, but the Roman Catholic church was a powerful force in 1920s Quebec. Allowing a priest to be punished for fratricide would have been a fatal blow to its omnipotence, so the Catholic judiciary readily accepted the insanity plea presented by Delorme's lawyers and ruled that he was unfit to stand trial. A year later, the superintendent of the hospital to which he had been committed asserted that the priest exhibited no sign of dementia, and the case was re-opened. Two high-profile murder trials ensued, but the jury in each instance was unable to agree. The case was finally closed, and Adélard Delorme was declared a free man in the fall of 1924.

Based on trial transcripts, archival research, and interviews with those who were connected to the event, "The Cassock and the Crown" is a fascinating and daunting look at a murder case that was tried in a religious climate blindly favourable to a villainous priest. The Delorme affair should be held up as an example of what happens when church and state are not rigidly separated.

Casting the Gods Adrift is a wonderfully written tale of an Egyptian boy's struggles between following his father and following the Pharaoh. Historically accurate and full of challenging vocabulary, this is a must read for anyone studying Ancient Egypt - or anyone who simply loves great literature!

This book is another great entry in the Midnight Louie series, giving us the back story on Darcy McGill and Steven Austin. I really enjoy finding out about the characters before we got to know them in the other Midnight Louie "The cat and the..." books. If only I didn't have to wait until June to find out what happens next...

I'm glad they these books are now in print, as they give the series an added dimension.

Cat of Many Tails is Ellery Queen at his best. Written in 1949, this suspenseful story, as much a thriller as a mystery, sits almost exactly midway in the Ellery Queen canon.

Cat of Many Tales illustrates the willingness of Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee to take risks by deviating from their highly successful formula, that of the Ellery Queen deductive puzzler. In this story Dannay and Lee focus more on the victims as actual individuals, and not simply as pieces in a puzzle. Each victim is realistically described; these vignettes add a strong emotional dimension to the story.

The middle chapters examine New York City itself, not the geographical entity, but the living, breathing metropolis of seven and one-half million people. Dannay and Lee offer a fascinating sociological study of collective fear as thousands of individuals become terrorized by the actions of a single, unknown assailant. Contrastingly, the later chapters shift focus from mass psychology to the motivation and psychology of a single, disturbed individual.

Despite this somewhat atypical structure, Cat Of Many Tails is a solid example of Ellery Queen's remarkable deductive skills. Without giving too much away, Cat of Many Tails is an example of one of Ellery Queen's challenging solutions within a solution, a multi-layered conclusion.

Cat of Many Tails ranks among the best Ellery Queen mysteries, worthy of five stars.

It was dangerous to be married to Henry VIII. His first wife was cast away and died prematurely; the second was beheaded; the third died in childbed. When Henry was casting about Europe for his next wife, Christina of Denmark is supposed to have quipped, "If I had two heads, one should be at the King of England's disposal." Fortunately for his fourth wife, she was merely divorced (and outlived Henry); but the fifth was beheaded; and the sixth too had a brush with the king's deadly wrath. Only by her wits did Catherine Parr survive.

In the first biography of Catherine Parr (1512-1548) in a quarter century (since Anthony Martienssen's), Susan James approaches her subject as more than just the sixth queen of Henry VIII (which is the context of books like Antonia Fraser's, Alison Weir's, and David Starkey's). The present book is a new, slightly shortened edition of the 1999 biography Kateryn Parr: The Making of a Queen. The footnotes of the earlier book have been relegated to the end, and gone is the last section on Catherine's brother William Parr after her death, as are the appendices, including the love letters of Catherine and Thomas Seymour and a discussion of the painting previously thought to be of Lady Jane Grey. What remains is a lively (if abruptly ended) account of Catherine Parr's life, rich in detail about her before, during, and after her reign as queen.

It is a Victorian misconception that Henry married Catherine for her nursing abilities--but she was well-versed in the medical arts of that period. She also had a humanist education normally given to noble boys at the time, since she was tutored in the same group as her brother, her sister, and their cousins, all under the keen eye of their mother Maud Parr. (Maud had been widowed young and took advantage of the independence this allowed; she was also a lady-in-waiting to Katherine of Aragon, who, ironically, was probably Catherine's godmother.)

Rather, Henry became genuinely attracted to Catherine when she was still married to Lord Latimer (her dying second husband) and in the service of the princess Mary. No doubt it helped Henry with his competitive spirit that Sir Thomas Seymour was also courting the soon-to-be widowed Catherine. And it was perhaps key that Catherine (unlike Anne of Cleves) didn't offend Henry's sensitive nose: "she carried with her small jewelled boxes of lozenges flavoured with liquorice or clove or cinnamon for sweet breath."

The notion of Catherine as Henry's nurse gives the impression--wrongly--that she was secure in her position. She certainly found her niche in the royal family, making peace between its warring members and restoring her stepdaughters Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession (she'd had practice with her Latimer stepchildren, and this part of the traditional view is correct). And she made a good and competent regent when Henry was making war in France--almost too good, though, because her conservative enemies (including Bishop Gardiner and Thomas Wriothesley) began to conspire against her. Ever since the break with Rome, Henry had been growing steadily more conservative in his religious views, although he tolerated Catherine's progressive beliefs and her choice of his younger children's tutors (enthusiastic reformers). She'd had to keep her beliefs secret during her previous marriage, especially when she was a hostage in the 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace protesting Henry's dissolution of the monasteries. But now as queen, she felt the freedom to read forbidden books and argue with the king--tendencies that the conservatives exploited in their efforts to overthrow the queen.

When the conservatives contrived to have Catherine arrested, she had her forbidden books destroyed and then took to her bed, sick. She was probably more sick with fear than anything, but the ploy brought Henry to her, and she expressed her fear of his displeasure and eagerness to make amends. The next day when she was permitted to visit him, Henry baited her for another argument, but she demurred, saying that she had only argued with him to distract him from his health troubles and to learn from him. This savvy appeal to his self-concern and vanity had the intended effect, and Henry received her back into favor--and into his bed. Wriothesley and the guards were not informed, and when they came to arrest the queen, Henry publicly humiliated them. The conservatives thus fell from power, and into their place came the reformers, including Edward Seymour and John Dudley, who would wield power during Edward VI's reign.

Catherine, too, had influence with the new king, until she alienated him by her ill-advised affair and hasty marriage with Sir Thomas Seymour. It was, finally, a marriage for love long frustrated--but it was fateful all around. Catherine herself died in childbirth (and the child appears to not have survived infancy); Thomas Seymour went to the block; and her stepdaughter Elizabeth suffered a blow to her reputation and nearly lost her life.

Susan James has written an excellent scholarly biography of Catherine, illuminating her motives and passions and highlighting her influence on the future Elizabeth I (who shared with Catherine a particular "restraint in the face of religious excess"). Catherine Parr comes across as a formidable woman, a match for Henry VIII, and a role model for her stepdaughters.

The book is written for the general reader or student as a factual chronicle of major events in which kings and queens come to life. This informative enteretaining read tells, with wit and understanding, England's history in narratives on lives of it's monarchs.Emphasis here is on what Americans admire and really want to know about our English heritage.
Being from the UK, it made England's History clearer.
Clear and discriptive, a Jolly Good Read!

CEO Speak: The Language Of Corporate Leadership by Joel Amernic (Professor, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto) and Russell Craig (Professor, National Graduate School of Management, Australian National University) is an informed and informative analysis pertaining to the complex and competitive demands of corporate "speechcraft", especially through the media channels of radio and television, as well as in-house communications and meetings. Offering a descriptive linguistics analysis, CEO Speak covers knowledgeable and tactful applications of CEO-level oral presentation, including their consequences, subtleties of the language of accounting as expressed through CEO speak, as well as what such speech tells us about corporate attitudes to society, employees, markets, and corporate competitors. CEO Speak is very strongly recommended reading for MBA students and all corporate executives, managers, and policy makers whose duties include the giving of speeches to their employees, stock holders, board members, journalists, government agencies, and the general public.

I am sad that this book is out of print. Golf is increasing in popularity and more golfers are making the pilgramage to the great Scottish courses. This book was a wonderful way to get acquainted with the history, traditions,and methods of playing Turnberry, Carnoustie, Troon, Muirfield, Gleneagles, and of course, St. Andrews before ever setting foot onthe old sod. I am afraid I am wearing out my only copy

This book is simply stunning, and a bargain at this price. It is a large coffee-table sized volume that combines beautiful production values with scholarly articles on various aspects of Champlain's eventful life. Many perspectives are included, from historians, archaeologists, art historians, archivists, museum curators from around the world. For the professional historian or just the lover of history, this book is a real treat. Original maps and illustrations, photos and images of all kinds delight the eye. It makes Champlain - a true Renaissance man - and his world really "come alive", as well it should, for modern audiences. Dive in and read sections as your interest leads you. The only downside is that because of it's size, you'll have to read it on your lap.