Bishop Books

As a layman who likes to study history, I enthusiastically give this book a rating of five stars. Many history books give broad descriptions and interpretations of trends and events. Others attempt to popularize or modernize history by interpreting old events from the perspective of the late 20th century. "The Bishop's Tale" does none of this. Instead, it virtually transports the reader back to Flanders in the late 1500s and early 1600s, treating him to a small but rich slice of history in a small but fascinating corner of Europe. The authors -- who were fortunate enough to have found one volume of an extensive journal kept by the Archbishop of Mechelen during this period -- provide us with a series of wonderfully detailed pictures of religious life in what was then known as the Spanish Netherlands. Each chapter forms a separate window through time that provides the reader with a close-up view of the goings-on surrounding a specific issue, event, or person. The common thread running through all sixteen chapters is the archbishop and his efforts to build a stable Catholic community in a turbulent time and place. The authors don't try to overly interpret events or force them to fit into some sort of grand theoretical framework, as do many academic historians. Instead, it seems that Craig Harline and Eddy Put want to directly expose the reader to history in a way that enables him to develop a good "feel" for what it must have been like to be Catholic and Flemish around 1600. I found myself wanting to read the book slowly, so that I could savor every page.

In the reviews I've read, this book has received nothing but praise. In many ways, this is an excellent work of academic research. The authors show sensitivity and a deep understanding of the institutional framework within which archbishop Hovius could operate. Most emphasis is put on the human and local particularities controlling the relations between an archbishop and the man and women manning the diverse strata of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The preponderance on the human side of archbishop's dealings with the people surrounding him lead to excellent small stories which are impressively placed in the wider context of the political and religious strife of early 17th century Europe. Moreover, the book is very well written. It was an easy read.

Yet, despite all the book's cleverness, I grew increasingly uncomfortable while reading. Harline and Put have written a book on religious life in late 16th/early 17th century Europe. Still, I have not read much about religion. In fact, in this book, religion comes out as a very mechanical thing. We read about cardinals, nuncios, priests, rituals, processions, pilgrimages etc. But we do not get a glimpse of what it could have meant to *be* a Christian in this particular time in history. We do not read how Hovius (could have) *lived* his religion. We get no sense at all of a religious feeling which - unlike today - must have been overly present everywhere. Instead, the narrative is littered with much misplaced irony on the nature of christianity or even religion. Harline and Put consider the Catholic Church as nothing more than a big bureaucracy. Hovius, travelling around his bishopric, is portrayed as the 16/17th century version of a district area manager of Coca Cola, trying to reach his production quota for next year, and fighting to protect his market share against competitors. The book is a product of the 21st century. It might easily be used as a leadership guideline, to be read by management consultants and managers.

First, the Apocryphile Press are to be given a hearty, "THANK YOU" for reprinting (in both hard and soft covers) this long out of print book. Second, for those of us who are seriously, or even casually, interested in alternative religions and the lives of people involved in them, and, more specifically, the independent, sacramental, Catholic churches that make up a part of those alternative religions, this book is like no other. Anson did an astounding job of compiling information to write this book. The book is not an encyclopedia. Rather, it is more of a biography of the churches and their founders. I found the author's writing style to be at once, engaging, witty, and where appropriate, humorously sarcastic. It is a sheer joy to read. He does not write without bias (a typical example of this can be seen in the otherwise excellent section on Joseph Renee Vilatte (may his memory be eternal), but I did not find that so distracting as to diminish the value of the book. It is massive and exhaustive in content though, sadly, very dated at this point...it was first published in 1964. A lot of water has gone under the Indendent Sacramental bridge since then. An updating of the book is desparately needed. Other than that, this book is a delight. A must have for your library!

This reprint of Anson's classic history of the episcopi vagantes is a really fascinating read, with far more detail than Brandreth's book on the subject. But like Brandreth, Anson is quite biased. The last couple of pages highlight this bias more than any other part of the book: he questions whether these churches could have any value at all because they all had problems early in their lives (ignoring all the dissension described in Paul's Epistles, occuring in the early church!). He wonders whether the churches have done any good works along the lines of feeding to poor and helping the marginalized, but he doesn't tell us from his own research whether they did or not. We're invited to decide about their worth based on a number of criteria Anson gives no attention to in over 500 pages. It's worth reading for anyone seriously interested in the history of the independent sacramental movement, but it must be read very carefully and should be supplemented with a lot of experience with these churches' descendants, which are doing many of the good works Anson asks about.

While I love reading Christmas mysteries - especially cozies - during December, some just don't make it, even with the holiday season providing a real hook.

This book is one of those. I live by a rather simple rule when it comes to mysteries, even cozies: If no one's been murdered by the end of the fourth chapter, the book will probably be a boring bomb for me.

Ka-boom!

I got almost halfway through this book, and there still had not been a real murder. Lots of suspects, lots of ill feelings - but if this is a murder-mystery (and especially considering the title) - to paraphrase Clara Peller, "Where's the corpse?"

I couldn't finish it before leaving it for another more interesting Yuletide mystery - and then Christmas was over. Oh well, I might try again next year ... but I won't buy a book in this series again.

The Inn at Hemlock Falls in Upstate New York is owned by twosisters, Meg Quilliam who is a three star chef and Sara Quilliam-McBride runs the hotel. Since the opening of a nearby upscale resort, business has been bad and the siblings fear they may have to shut their hotel down. The bank is working with them by sending over an efficiency expert to find ways of improving service while reducing costs.

They also sign a deal with L'Apertif magazine who will feature their jams and jellies and televise a show they are producing four times a year. They will tape the cooking show Good Taste at the inn and it will last a month for each taping. Lydia Kingsfield is the star of the magazine and the show and her husband Zeke, who is even more obnoxious than his odious wife is a notorious larger than life business man who has cheated many people out of their money with his unethical ventures. His body is found at the Inn's ski run; it looks as if he was killed by negligence, but Quill believes otherwise. She sets out to prove murder occurred, but finds half the State had a motive to want Zeke dead.

A CAROL FOR A CORPSE is a charming cozy that puts readers in the holiday spirit due in large part to the vivid picturesque descriptions of Christmas décor, the mouthwatering food, the feeling of good will, but especially the Scrooge attitude of Quill. She is ruthless when it comes to keeping her cherished sister safe and is passionate about the inn. Thus she needs no more motives to investigate the death of Zeke than the possible harm to Meg or the loss of the inn, as she rejects the negligence ruling. Fans of the series will enjoy the freshness in the story line due to a couple of interesting surprises, making this a merry Yuletide amateur sleuth tale.

Harriet Klausner

This uthor always comes up with a plot that is believable & well written. Her characters are well drawn. I am looking forward to the next book

I hope that I will be forgiven for saying that as much as I enjoyed this volume of Bishop's prose, I still don't find it as robust as her poetry. While lovely, some of these entries were so slight I was afraid to breathe and break them.

The book is divided into two halves-- a series of memories and a series of stories. I liked the memories section the best: particularly "The Country Mouse" and her memoir of Marianne Moore. Of the stories, I liked "Gwendolyn" the best-- a story about a dying little girl (which is not nearly as saccharine as it sounds from that description.)

I enjoyed this book, I *think* I enjoyed it in its own right. But if I'm honest, I'm not sure how I would have felt about it had I not already loved Bishop's poems so much.

As in all of the writings by Elizabeth Bishop, The Collected Prose allows the reader to open the door into her masterfully brilliant and private world of thoughts. I took this book to the beach each night before the sun went down and read one or two of her poems ... Bishop's ability to connect our everyday actions with a deeper, higher meaning makes this book one of my all time favorites. She is truly a wonderful creator and writer!

The Compact NASA Atlas of the Solar System is a very good reference for those working with spacecraft. Spacecraft images don't come with names already on them and it is often difficult when looking at some MGS images which crater is which and what they are called. When it comes to most of the inner planets, and Saturnian, Uranian, and Neptunian moons, the coverage is quite good and very useful. However, I can't say the same for Venus and Jupiter's moons. While there is excellent coverage for Mars as far as number of sections, Venus is not covered as well even though we have similar scale maps. I agree with the authors that if the same scale was used for both, the Venus maps would take up a large number of pages. However, the same number of quadrants would have been nice. Secondly, the coverage of the Jovian moons is lacking. The maps are from the Voyager era and while that may not be as big of a problem for Ganymede or Callisto, it is a problem for Io and Europa. The coverage of Europa from Galileo has greatly improved over Voyager's coverage and an updated map would have been nice. Io's map is also from Voyager. The fact that much of the anti-jovian side has been covered in great detail by Galileo but it was not included in the atlas save a small image of that mosaic not incorporated into the map. in addition, surface changes in the 20 years between Voyager and Galileo have made the included map quite out of date.

Save those two flaws, it is a pretty good reference for those interested in the solar system.

As an amateur astronomer, my interest tends more to deep-sky objects rather than planetary astronomy, but I spent some time looking at this atlas, and it really is a striking catalog of our current knowledge of the solar system. The atlas contains beautiful closeups of every planet except Pluto, although the coverage for Venus isn't that extensive, but then since Venus is mostly clouds, I don't know how much would be served by that, unlike the cloud-cover of Jupiter, which shows many stable bands and also the pink and red spots. There are also maps of a number of the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus, allowing you to see their heavily marred and cratered surfaces, which are very reminiscent of Mercury or our moon.

The atlas only contains maps for the large Galileian satellites of Jupiter and the same for the larger, closer moons of Saturn, but I don't know if this is because of limitations in the spacecraft that took the photos or the distances involved from the spacecraft to the moons. The maps of Mars are perhaps the most interesting in terms of surface details, and features like the enormous, 17-mile high and 400-mile across volcano, Nix Olympica, and the great gorge on Mars, really stand out. Another thing that was interesting was the discovery of the first asteroid with its own small planet. The atlas features over 150 maps, 214 color illustrations and a gazetteer. Overall, this is a stunning and beautifully done atlas of the solar system, which, despite its not being cheap, should still be of interest to amateurs and professionals alike.

For being so cheap, I was suprised at the quality in translation of this cornerstone of christian writtings. If you are looking for a good introduction to Augustine, or want to learn more on the development of christian thought through the ages, Confessions is a good buy and a great read.

I am sure that it was just as described. I saw it. But gave it as a gift. it did come very fast

The corporation sole is indeed a useful legal entity, and has been used for many years by the Roman Catholic Church. Several other hierarchical churches have used it as well.

Unfortunately, the corporation sole has also, in recent months, been hyped on the internet for non-church purposes as a way of protecting personal and business assets and avoiding taxes. Corporations sole hawkers are using the term "church" as a cloak for just about anything imaginable, including profitable businesses, and then claiming that it's a church and, therefore, not subject to taxation. There's not much of anything on the net explaining exactly why these legal theories are bogus, but one useful site I've found is http://hushmoney.org

there are many reasons why this books is recommendably true and good to many readers. first it is descriptive so that every reader has an idea of what this corporation sole is all about. It is historical. It presents a historical feature of the corporation sole from one place to another and primarily in the Chicago diocese. It is interestingly inviting to those who have never been told to or have never been familiar regarding the church's inherent right to alienate, acquire and possess goods for the church herself. As a separate entity or a visible organization hierarchically structured with laws and norms, it is able to handle its temporal goods which is necessary in the propagation of the faith and the maintenance of the church property and mission. Nevertheless, it is significant to students of both civil law and canon law since it would allow them to take a glimpse of this particular provision - that is - corporation sole - to which the church is in a way benefitting in its relation with the state. Although there is such a principle of the separation of the Church and State, this book identifies the situations in which both can actively participate and join together in these concerns.

Judge Dredd and his fellow cadets enter the Cursed Earth only to meet with a variety of ominous creatures and must battle a psychic nemesis to prevent him from destroying Mega-City One.Based on the 2000 A.D. comics series. It's worth the money!

As a post-script, this appears to be the US take on the original 'Necropolis' (for which see amazon.co.uk).

This is a highly interesting book, although it presents the President as a guy that just goes from swimming to sitting in bed all the time. It's probably not entirely accurate, but is still a good one.

I read this book when I was in Junior High. I still remember it after all this time. I think I must have read it at least five times. It is my most favorite of all Kennedy books because it is about his life on a day to day basis as a real person. I highly recommend this. It would be great to do one of these on President GW Bush.

This is a fabulous book for children doing research about the work of paleontology at Manhattan New School. We used the book in our first grade class to help answer the children's many questions. We actually replicated what Cathy and the other paleontologists did in Madagascar - we dug up bones (chicken, cow, pig), wrapped bones, and even pretended to return them to Madagascar when we finished our research. The team actually opened schools and clinics for the people of Madagascar - what an inspiration for our students.

A great book for any young person who is interested in dinosaurs and their fossils.The book tells the story of paleontologist Cathy Forster and her colleagues as they undertake a fossil hunting expedition to the island of Madagascar off the coast of Africa.The "bird dinosaurs" they hope to find will help prove the relationship between modern day birds and dinosaurs.The book details all the steps involved in finding and recovering the fossils,but never gets too technical so young readers will have no trouble following the story.There is also some background info about Madagascar and its people.Many interesting photos illustrate the book.