Ireland Books

Compulsive reading, author has an incredible way of making history come alive for young people.

Lynne Kositsky tackled difficult subject matter in Rebecca's Flame -- and pulled it off in a way that is memorable and compelling. The controversial subject matter of the romance between Rebecca and Sean is sure to raise some eyebrows, but even though the novel is set in the 1800's, this is still a current issue in the Jewish community. Rebecca's decision on how to handle the situation is surprising and ultimately calls into question issues of faith and love.

I absolutely loved Rebecca's flame. I was irresistibly drawn in within the first ten pages, and I had the worst time putting it down. I just had to know what happened next. I thought that the characters weren't as well developed, in general, as in her other book, Candles, but I loved the character of Sean. Many characters, so-called "love interests" are not as well developed as the main character, but I got a real sense that Sean was a real person. Just like last time, Lynne Kositsky hits the nail on the head!

There is a lot of racism against Korean's in Cambridge University. Most of this racism seems to emanate from French students, who appear to have an irrational hatred of Korean's. A good example would be when a group of Korean's came to my College bar to watch South Korea play against France in the World Cup. The Korean's were told repeatedly to shut up by a group of French students whenever they cheered for South Korea (known as the red devils). The French students were very aggressive towards the Korean's, especially after Park Ji Sung scored the equalizer. I hope that France gets knocked out of the World Cup in the group stage.

It is a shame that Christian Kim was asked to leave Cambridge since he did a lot of good work as president of the Cambridge University Korean Society. Racist attacks against Korean's fell during Christian Kim's presidency, however they are now on the rise. I feel that this is a very important book in the fight against anti-Korean racism. All korean's in Cambridge need to read this book.

I have been looking forward to reading this book by Christian Kim. I have read his other books and find them quite impressive. He is insightful and understands social dynamics of today. I would recommend all books by Christian Kim.

This book written by one of the prominent leaders of the Korean community is great! Koreans have been struggling for many years to empower ourselves and it's great that there is a person out there who is willing to sacrifice himself to empower Koreans.

Teresa Bateman's Ring Of Truth is simply wonderful! I enjoyed reading this wild tale of "true" blarney. Delightful and entertaining---A great read.

Rich, complex and gorgeous illustrations provide the perfect compliment to the story of the braggart Patrick who is tricked by the Leprechaun King and must now tell only the truth. Obviously, this will be a decided disadvantage in the Blarney contest in which he is entered. Or will it? A thoroughly enjoyable tale which has the familiar feel of a truly great fairytale for the ages.

"Patrick O'Kelly was a peddler of scarves and trinkets, with a habit of telling magnificent lies." So begins "The Ring of Truth". "Magnificent" may even be an understatement for him. He is supposed to have kissed the Blarney Stone once, that fabled and mystical rock that gives one the gift of gab, and by the way he carries on, it's believed that he managed to get a bit of that rock stuck in his teeth! He is such a fine artist of Blarney, that he easily boasts that he could out-fib the very king of the Leprechauns himself!!

Well, as any good Irish legend will tell you, be careful about what you say about the Fair Folk, for they have great ears for hearing and egos to boot!! It's hardly long before Patrick O'Kelly is swept off to the very land of the Faeries to meet the king of the leprechauns himself!

Like any fine Celtic tale, the book is full of twists and turns and play on words, of which the title of the book is just one (I'll not give away the ending for fear of spoiling the fun for readers!). The ending is a fun surprise for readers, as well as for our brave hero, Patrick O'K. Himself! What will stick to readers' ribs most, however, are the illustrations.

Illustrated by Omar Rayyan, the book resembles now an illuminated manuscript, now a surrealistic painting. Faeries and other Fair Folk are mischievous creatures, to say the least, and to step into their world, however briefly, is to take a roller coaster ride into the ethereal and strange. Winged sprites flit too and fro, and the King has always about him a smile that is first playful and fun, and upon closer inspection, hinting at some darker purpose. Once Patrick has gone to their fair land, they are all about him, hiding here and there, yet the reader knows that they are invisible to everyone-another example of that mischievous, almost sinister magic they weave.

All in all, a tremendous book and perhaps too overlooked in the children's section. Though Irish in nature, it is not about St. Patrick's day, so there is no need to keep it mothballed until then! Bring out this treasure of a story and illustration and read it often!!

Essentailly, this book provides great analysis on the current state of the Russian Airforce. Since the fall of Communism in 1990, the country has gone into an extreme debt. Due to that debt the Russian Airfoce has been forced to endure extreme budget cuts and upgrades to existing aircraft. Most development programs are now only research and development for scientific purposes. Many of the more advanced aircraft such as the Mig 1.42, S-37a or SU-47, and SU-37 will never see combat service. The history behind these planes, however, is fantastic. Huge recommendation for any Cold War fans. This is way better than Popular Mechanics on individual jets.

This book represents a remarkably successful attempt to present the aviation elements of the numerous branches of the Russian armed forces and their equipment. Although detailed accounts of the latest Russian aircraft have been available for years, this lavishly illustrated volume succeeds in presenting these impressive aeronautical achievements in the context of the operational requirements and national strategy of Russia. Tactics and weapons are thoroughly discussed and major shortcomings, especially in training and maintanance are dealt with as well. The organisations themselves are presented in some detail; however, the reader who expects a detailed "order of battle" of these organisations will be disappointed.
The outstanding achievement of this volume is that it combines the russian perspective on airpower with some unknown aspects of Russian operations, e.g. Russian army UAVs, the two Chechen campaigns as well as fascinating future developements.

Yefim Gordon is one of the top aviatian journalists in the world today, especially in regards to Soviet and Russian aircraft and designs. Being Russian, he offers an insider's view on the history, design, manufacture, and development of all major Soviet/Russian aircraft programs. Together with co-author Alan Dawes, Gordon has created the ultimate study of the modern Russian Air Force. The book analyzes and details the various air forces from the Soviet Union (Long Range Aviation, Frontal Aviation, Transport, Air Defense, Naval,etc) to today and gives an up-to-date breakdown on the current usage including squadrons, aircraft types, and airbases.

Lavish with full color pictures and rich with detail from an insider's perspective, Russian Air Power is a must have for any aviation enthusiast and well worth the money.

O'Hogain has done it again, by providing another invaluable resource for those interested in learning more about Celtic and Irish pre-christian religion. Very well-researched and written, this book will take you on a journey back in time, which you'll never forget! Don't miss his other works either.

Excellent! Very blunt, well put, and provides the information in a way that is no nonsense, straight way. Loved it.

This is a definitive work on the subject. The author surpasses credible to the level of genuine expert. I feel safe in trusting his research and speculations. Being a scholarly work, the book isn't for the faint of heart (it can be thick reading at times), but if your into Celtic studies, the history of Ireland, the history of the Druids, then this book is a must and should be read and referred to again and again. The author uses a wonderful blend of archaeology, literature, and mythology not only of Ireland, but also from a vast range of sources. He ties in accounts of the Continental Celts, the Indo-Europeans, the Greek and Roman sources, and even accounts from India (Vedic, rig Veda, etc). The author gives us a complete picture that is supported by a myriad of sources and language associations. The only thing that I felt could have enhanced the book would be an index. Very great work, well worth the money.

This is not just a book of immense intrinsic value. It's a book of real historical importance as one of two biographies of Salisbury published recently which entirely reassess his standing as one of the leading English statemen of the latter part of the nineteenth century, ranking alongside Gladstone and Disraeli.

It seems incredible in view of the plethora of studies on Gladstone and Disraeli that it's been half a century since any historian has made a full-scale re-evaluation of the life of Robert Cecil, third Marquess of Salisbury, three-times Prime Minister and architect of Queen Victoria's glittering Empire.

And yet he was a man arguably of greater intellect than either of these two other late Victorian "giants". Disraeli wrote rather affected, stylized novels; Gladstone turned out unreadable religious tracts. Salisbury, on the other hand, produced stimulating and pithy articles in the Saturday and Quarterly Reviews and delivered parliamentary speeches at least as memorable as those of the other two statesmen.

But few historians have really come to grips with Salisbury in recent times. One had to look into Barbara Tuchman's epic "The Proud Tower" to find a chapter that did justice to the colorful, quirky patrician figure who performed sometimes dangerous chemical experiments in his spare time, was one of the first to introduce electricity into his home, rode around on an enormous tricycle and who was always ready to chat to strangers, even lunatics.

Perhaps historians have been too ready to downgrade Salisbury's standing because of his inherent conservatism in the domestic field, his endeavors to preserve the status quo. And as to his being a main architect of Empire, this all-too-readily clashes with the modern, probably justified aversion to that theme.

This book was commissioned by the present Marquess of Salisbury. It says a lot about the open-mindedness of the Cecil family that historian Andrew Roberts was given the task. Anyone who has read his wonderfully debunking "Eminent Churchillians" knows Roberts as an historian of the utmost integrity, incapable of pulling punches. And he pulls none in his biography of Salisbury, whom he paints on a broad canvass, "warts and all". But Roberts's admiration and affection for his subject is never in doubt. The result is a big book about a very big statesman by a young, big, historian.

Victoria and Salibury; two true Titans who, the former, giving her name to the century, and the latter, who helped create the formidable empire which was both reviled and regaled. This book is in the great tradition of "Life and Times" biographies. Mr. Roberts is to be commended for the scope and structure of slowly but with anticipation revealing the aspects of a fascinating man. The chapters on the Boer War and the Realpolitik diplomacy of the African continent are just two elements that should be read for years to come. From a shy and bookish child to the political standard bearer of the Tory Party, this book shows a man with conviction, often callous to some but with foresight which comes through in the epigrammatical style of Salisbury's prose. Thank You Andrew Roberts for your wonderful book.

Andrew Roberts has produced a superbly written and wonderfully exciting biography of Lord Salisbury, three times Queen Victoria's Prime Minister. In his fifty-year career, Salisbury won over Disraeli, destroyed Lord Randolph Churchill, charmed Queen Victoria, wrecked Gladstone's hopes for Irish Home Rule, and saw off Bismarck. The book is based on Salisbury's archive at Hatfield House, and on the papers of more than 140 of his contemporaries.

Roberts records Salisbury's many contradictions. He supported "the right of a minority of Americans to secede from a Union, but not a majority of Irishmen." He opposed socialism as mere confiscation, but upheld the actions of his ancestor, the First Earl, who had confiscated much of Ulster's land between 1607 and 1609, then selling it to City and Scottish businessmen.

He wrote eloquently against intervention in other countries' domestic affairs. "The Assemblies that meet at Westminster have no jurisdiction over the affairs of other nations. Neither they nor the Executive, except in plain defiance of international law, can interfere with the brigandage of Italy, or the persecutions in Spain, or the teachings of the schools in Schleswig-Holstein. What is said in either House about them is simply impertinence ... It is not a dignified position for a Great Power to occupy, to be pointed out as the busybody of Christendom." And, "there is no practice which the experience of nations more uniformly condemns, and none which governments more consistently pursue."

Indeed, his Governments annually waged colonial wars in Asia and Africa, adding 2.5 million square miles and 44 million people to the Empire. His war against the Boers was particularly shameful: he claimed that Britain had sovereignty over the Transvaal, although the British Government had ceded this in the 1884 Pretoria Convention. (Roberts grants that Salisbury was `on exceedingly tricky ground legally'.) As Salisbury admitted, "If our ancestors had cared for the rights of other peoples, the British Empire would never have been made."

I picked up Scotland's Story because I loved Marshall's Our Island Story (about Britain) so much. Like that history, Scotland's Story is a personality-centric history: Each chapter tells the unfolding tale of Scotland through an episode (real or legendary; Marshall always indicates when something is not precisely factual) in the life of a famous Scot. There is just enough fact to educate and just enough fantasy to entice a young mind.

One important caveat: The story of Scotland--and every other nation, no doubt--is rarely one of sweetness and light. This is a story of one battle and war and imprisonment after another. Nevertheless, Marshall never forgets her audience, the upper elementary-aged child (although my 4-year-old has thoroughly enjoyed both Our Island Story and Scotland's Story, with occasional on-the-fly editing from Mommy). Another top pick: Naxos Audiobooks' unabridged Our Island Story on audio CD, surprisingly one of my daughter's favorite listens.

Scotland's Story is simply wonderful! It's an old classic that's finally available again at a reasonable price. Marshall writes for children, and my K- and 2nd grader have loved these stories, but I've been equally enthralled. She begins with legends of the earliest Scots, and becomes more authoritative as she gains the ground of documented events. Read about Macbeth and Macduff, Malcolm Canmore, the beloved William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, all the Jameses, Mary-Queen of Scots, and on up through their Union to England, the last of the Stewarts (a line birthed with a wonderful tale in the early part of the book), and into the 19th century a bit. The chapters are not especially long, but even so are broken up into short sections for quick, easy read-alouds. We're ordering this book, as renewing it from the library is getting tiresome....and it's one we want to add to our library!

This delightful book recounts the history of Scotland in language simple enough for a child to understand and appreciate, yet colourful and detailed enough to provide an accurate and comprehensive treatment of this vast subject. It transports the reader to another world, of mighty rulers, daring knights and heroic princes. It is so riveting that I read it three times in a row when I was seven, and remember it fondly to this day...

The annual Otter Calendar by Georgienne Bradley and Jay Ireland puts you right "where the action is". I have dove in Northern California with sea otters in the oast and these images bring back all those memories of the playful otters. The photography, of course, is awesome. This calendar graces my wall every year. And it depicts just one of the many offerings the oceans have in store for us. You are missing a lot if you don;t have these cute creatures greeting you "Good morning" every day!

This is a wonderful calendar and shows the little critters to their best advantages.

Never could understand why coalas are considered the cutest animals around. Obviously, those who said so never saw sea otters. Another otter's advantage is that their IQ (compared to that of a coala) is about 200+.
Great photos, funny and cute animals - every page makes you smile when you look at it and want to know more about those wonderful creatures.
I had a sea otter calendare several years ago and was glad when I found this one so I could put them on the wall again.

These days anyone interested knows what a shaman is, or do we really? In SHAMANS: SIBERIAN SPIRITUALITY AND THE WESTERN IMAGINATION the author, Ronald Hutton, traces how and what we know about the Siberian shamans. He looks at the scholars including the Russians under the Czar and the Soviet regime and the famous Mircea Eliade. What he found might surprise the readers - contradictory information and Western bias. Or maybe not. Yet the idea expounded by these scholars, especially Mircea Eliade, have entered the popular culture and inform the layperson's perceptions of what it is to be a shaman.
This slim little book of 220 pages is divided up into three parts with several chapters under each. Part One called Why We Think We Know About the Shamans contains chapter 1 - The Creation of Siberia, chapter 2 - The Creation of Siberians, chapter 3 - The Transformation of Siberians, and chapter 4 - The Records of Shamanism. Part Two called What We Think We Know About the Shamans includes chapter 5 - What Shamans Did, chapter 6 - Shamanic Cosmologies, chapter 7 - Shamanic Apprenticeship and Equipment, chapter 8 - Shamanic Performance, and chapter 9 - Knots and Loose Ends. Part Three entitled Siberia in the Shamanic World is probably the most important part of all, because it deals with the scholarly impact and neoshamanic impact on the post-Soviet Siberia. It includes chapter 10 - The Discovery of the Shamanic World, chapter 11 - The Discovery of the Shamanic Past, and chapter 12 - The Discovery of the Shamanic Future. The book also contains notes, bibliography and index.
This book will be of interest to those interested in alternate spirituality and shamanism in particular.

Ronald Hutton has a reputation among New Age adherents. A researcher of almost clinical severity, he demands clear and unequivocal evidence to back up any assertions. The subtitle offers warning to the reader that "Western Imagination" will be under scrutiny as well as historical accounts. His other books have laid bare the inadequacies of modern "paganism", "druidism" and the "wicca" movement. Over the past generation, "shamanism has become one of the most heavily worked [words] among scholars of anthropology and religious studies", he says. Widespread in use, particularly by US academics and others, "shamanism" has gained in area, if not in accuracy. Although most are aware of its Siberian roots, few understand the scholarly efforts to construct a proper setting for its use. He hopes this book will redress some of the lacks.

Siberia itself, he begins in the first of three parts, was a construction. The name itself stems from the Khanate of the Sibr being the first encountered by an expanding Czarist Russia. "Siberia", he stresses is a political, not a geographical description, and imposed from the outside. The lack of good identification of who lived where and engaged in which practices now dubbed "shamanism" erodes the foundation of ethnographic scholarship. Much of what we know of Siberian shamans was recorded by outsiders condemning its practices and seeking its destruction. Missionaries for Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and finally, communism recorded various rituals from a scornful stance in recommending its abolition. "Why We Think We Know About Shamans", then, is due to the observations of those who wished to extirpate it.

His second section is largely distilled from those hostile commentators. Even more significant, Hutton notes, is how recently those observers were among their subjects. The earliest recorded observation of Siberian shamans was by an Englishman, Richard Johnson, in 1557. Whatever practices preceded the era of recording shamans' activities are lost in the mists of time. There is certainly no neither truly consistent nor even coherent picture of what pre-literate Siberian culture was like, let alone how shamans fit into it. It's fairly clear that eastern Asian societies had many levels of magic, from the family through the community to encompassing entire regions. Shamans might be employed for a number of reasons; the hunt, healing or as magical foils in intercommunity or regional conflicts. Nor were shamanic practices limited to men. Women might be engaged as shamans if their powers were recognised. Women, however, seem to have generally operated at the family or village level as healers. From what he's able to derive from various sources is that shamanic practices can be reduced to three essentials: there must be identifying dress, such as a robe or animal skin; the shaman must use a supportive musical instrument, usually a drum; and the performance must be public. In healing rituals, for example, the family, if not the entire community, must be present to witness it.

Perhaps the most valuable section of the book is historiographic. The author notes that in most of Siberia, a shaman was a "kam", which only approximately translates. However, various Asian languages have equivalents to "shaman", even in Pali, the most commonly used language in early Buddhism. After a review of Soviet and Hungarian historians of Siberia's shamans, Hutton examines the work of several scholars. Most notably among these is Mircea Eliade, whose influence in instilling forms of shamanic practices in the West is perhaps beyond measure. It is here, of course, that Hutton's quiet vivisection of faulty scholarship is brought to bear. He is a gentle critic, but he's also thorough and unremitting. Eliade, a staunch anti-communist, notes how shamans were communicants or travellers with the spirit world, yet he finally settled on a pseudo-Christian adaptation with shamans engaging with a heavenly realm. Eliade's presentation, Hutton notes, proved exhilarating to a Western audience with little knowledge of Siberian conditions. Eliade appeared at a time of disaffection with traditional norms in Western culture, particularly in the US.

After Hutton's analysis of the vagaries of shamanic scholarship, it's almost surprising to discover his concluding chapter deals with "The Prospect of A Shamanic Future". Hutton, whatever his attitude toward misreading or misusing scholarship, is a realist. "Shamanic" practices, whatever the validity of their foundations, have taken a serious hold in some places. Ethnographic scholarship, particularly in North America, has applied the term to any magical rituals in many native cultures in the Western Hemisphere. Adapted by many as a form of counter-culture, "shamanic behaviour", as one scholar has deemed it, is unlikely threatened by extinction. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

A lot of stuff is said about shamanism both in academic and popular circles, with far too little critical thought about it even in academia. This is the best introduction I know to all of it.

The first problem is defining shamanism; and this is much worse than you might think. In order to qualify as a shaman, does one have to control spirits, or simply ascend to heaven in a vision? Is spirit posession essential to shamanism, or just a normal part of it, or a different phenomenon altogether? Is shamanism essentially public, or can one practice shamanism privately? Do shamans specialize in healing and divination, or are those incidental to the profession? No one agrees about all this, and the result is that one person sees shamanism where another doesn't. This of course is a huge problem when we start talking about shamanism outside of Siberia; I don't know of anyone who deals with this issue as succinctly or as perceptively as Hutton.

The second problem is understanding Siberian religion, and the role of shamanism within it. We know surprisingly less about Siberian religion, including shamanism, than you'd think, given how much people have to say about it. Of course Siberian religion is diverse; there are diverse peoples, speaking different languages, with different lifestyles; can we make any generalizations about them?

The third problem is the overwhelming influence of Mircea Eliade. I'm actually a fan of Eliade. I'm happy that he drew so much attention to shamanism, but I have to admit his critics have a lot of good points when it comes to shamanism. Unfortunately, Eliade's influence overpowers them.

There are a few minor problems, such as whether shamans used hallucinogenic drugs, how shamanism relates to transexuality and homosexuality, and so on.

All of this is well dealt with by Hutton, who tends toward skepticism rather than grand systematic theorizing. For this reason he annoys people who are in the business of theory or practice, but I just can't recommend his work highly enough. I especially appreciate Hutton's consideration of "shamanism" in European pre-Christian religion.

I strongly recommend this book, if for no other reason than because most it's raises serious questions about what you'll find in most books about shamanism. In fact, I recommend this as a first book about shamanism, even before Eliade's classic or the classics by I. M. Lewis.

The second book I recommend, actually, is Brian Morris' "Religion and Anthropology." After that, I would move on to Lewis and Eliade.

The simplicity and depth of these stories floored me. I have just started learning to speak Irish and I have found these stories to be both helpful and deeply moving.

Padraic Pearse was, foremost, headmaster of a boys' school in Dublin, but his summers were spent in his modest Connemara cottage writing stories about the Gaelic-speaking faction of that region.He always maintained that this place and its humble residents truly represented the real Ireland, that ancient, heroic ideal that existed in the tales of Cuchulainn and Finn Mac Cumhail. With his usual gentle touch, Pearse brings the joys, travails, and superstitions of the people of the Gaeltacht to vivid life, celebrating their simplicity without ever making them seem ordinary.All the stories are imaginative, but especially moving was "Iosagan," a tale of renewed faith and redemption.I absolutely recommend it, and any other work by the gifted Padraic Pearse.

This book, containing some of the short stories of Padraic Pearse, my current favorite writer, is essential. The story "Iosagan" takes my breath away, every single time I read it...and believe me, I've read it plenty! These stories are particularly good if you've just read or are planning to read his collected poems. This should be required reading for anyone interested in Ireland's political and/or literary history!