Living History Books

Rarely does a book of this calibre come along that brings to so much light the mind and heart of "the footprint of Our Lady", St. Clare of Assisi. This book will be enjoyed by anyone who enjoys the writings of Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C. Sr. Teresa Francis, as a Poor Clare herself and having lived the life established by St. Clare, has a profound grasp of this beautiful spirituality and has been able to clarify many issues important to St. Clare, which seem to be confusing to those who do not understand this form of life. Unlike several books available on the market, Sr. Teresa Francis does not apologize for the thoughts and ideas of St. Clare. Rather, she shows their beauty and vitality in their most radical form. This Living Mirror is proof that there is no gap between the woman and her Order that lived in the 12th century and the Order that lives today.

Wonderfully refreshing and a must for any lover of St. Clare or the contemplative life.

Please note my email address has changed to colonel@dhc.ne

Jay Anderson provides a very valuable look into the world of living history, museums, and reenacting by analyzing the different aspects of living history and how and why it is used. He does this by breaking the study into three different parts:

1. Memory Machines: Living History Museums
2. Time Bandits: Living History as Research (experimental history)
3. Doin' the Time Warp: Living History as Play

Anyone who is a student of Museum Studies and/or living history must read this book! Anderson is known as "the Father of Living History", being a pioneer in the field, and is very qualified in what he has to say. His writing is intimate, weaving in his own experiences with living history, thus making the book more personal, insightful, and enjoyable to read.

The only negative thing I'd have to say is that there isn't a more recent, updated edition, as these hobbies, museums, and such have evolved so much since 1986 when this book was published.

Deftly written by the talented author Virginia Hamilton (whose Children's Literature awards include the Hans Christian Andersen Medal, the Newberry Medal, and the Coretta Scott King Award), Time Pieces: The Book Of Times is an audiobook coming-of-age story for young people. An eleven-year-old African-American girl named Valena lives with her family in rural Ohio; as she deals with daily events, the threat of a tornado, the excitement of going to a circus, and the oppressive pallor of racism, she also listens to her mother's tales of her family's proud history. A remarkable story of the importance of family ties and taking pride in one's heritage, skillfully narrated by Lisa Renee Pitts. 3 CDs, unabridged, tracks every 3 minutes for easy bookmarking.

It's a pity this book is out of print; it would pay an enterprising publisher to bring out a second edition since there is so much for those interested, as we all are, in what the world was like before we got here. It's quite an experience to see the procession of Leeds people going to their graves in the Beckett Street Cemetery through the author's accounts of what brought them there. Some got there through what are now third world diseases, such as cholera. Some got there through Victorian notions of warfare, as was the case of British soldiers of the Crimean War, so remote from the tactics of zapping the enemy from a god-like distance in force more recently in the Gulf War and the Kosovan conflict, for example. What strikes us is the extent to which the dead were victims of the times they lived in. There is the case of the printer and the bookbinder, Walter and Ann, an engaged couple who were engulfed in fog on their way home from a shopping trip on a Saturday night in 1897. They walked into the waters of the Chadwick Street Dock and turned up the next day in the mortuary. Urban pollution on a scale long unknown in Britain and a world without cars killed them. As well as writing about the residents of the cemetery, the author is the founder of the association of Friends of the Beckett Street Cemetery whose aim is to keep the area as a green space for present day citizens and visitors.

Inspite and not despite the cover this book is an innovative and artistic compilation of images meant to provoke critical thought and thinking. The cover is a brilliant documentary of the ever increasing blanket of uniformity or branding, labels and marketing. The cover provides minor shock value in good taste relative to much of what is used by advertisers today and is a preview as to the consumerist phenonema that you are drawn to conclude from making your own connections between related images that are placed in a seemingly random fashion throughout the first 350 pages of this book.

Entertaining and insightful if you are familiar with popular culture.

Maj. Egland is a graduate of the Air Force Academy and an intelligence officer who served on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. He offers a number of great suggestions on supporting the local community in notifying US Forces about roadside bombs. For example, now the military "rewards" such tips with script that has to be redeemed at a base, exposing the tipster to retalliation. Maj. Egland knows many officers use their own $20 bills for bomb tip rewards and suggests the distribution of cell phones (Cingulars work in Iraq) so that people can phone in anonymous bomb tips. He also says the current use of regular road patrols, while a good tactic in Bosnia to "show the flag," is only an invitation to bombers who see the regularly scheduled patrols as an opportunity to do harm. There are many other ideas, from having central databases for donations to the troops to databases of terrorist information. This book is a real eye opener on how to fight a 21st century war against a 21st century opponent equipped with everything you can buy online from Radio Shack or its European counterpart.

An easy to read, inclusive study of a little-known period of Iberian history, highly recommended for those interested in Roman or early Iberian history. This work merges history and archaeology and bridges a gap between Roman Iberia and the Gothic era. Graphs and maps help illustrate key points. Hopefully this author (or another) will follow-up with similar studies of subjects from Roman Iberia and the much-neglected Gothic era.

I read Victory Over the Darkness to discuss with a group of friends, and reading the book was a great experience for me. Neil Anderson reflects thoughtfully on what it means to have an identity based in Christ, instead of worldly attributes, without sounding "preachy" or overly complex. Anderson's style is comparable to Max Lucado's works. The book flows easily, with lots of concrete examples from Anderson's experiences. Recently, I gave my copy of this book to a friend who was questioning her faith, and I highly recommend it for anyone who has questions about what it means to have a relationship with Christ.

Alexander's long-awaited third book in the four-volume Nature of Order series finally provides a practical guide to creating great places based on his concepts of "centers", "wholeness" and "structure-preserving transformations."

Page after page of photos and diagrams give weight to Alexander's process-oriented approach to building.

This tome should be required reading for anyone who has wondered whether there is a way to reinvent our cities and suburbs away from "sprawl" and into vibrant, living places.