Phillips Books

This beautiful volume represents a high point in the history of the study of Neotropical Nymphalidae, but it is mostly of historical interest today. To identify the included butterflies, a host of newer books and monographs is necessary. To the true affecionado, however, this is a volume to possess.

Pulling from many different disciplines and media (town records, letters, published literature, etc.), Phil Round examines the many different discourses that were swirling around New England when our American mindset started to coalesce. He finds that Puritanism, while a large part of our heritage, was not the only way of thinking present in the 17th century--we were much more varied and secular than is genererally represented in history.

Phil Round is an exceptional lecturer--funny and engaging as well as critically sound. His book very much mirrors his fine lectures.

Highly recommended. Would pair nicely with Philip Fisher's Still the New World for an American lit and culture syllabus.

This one was first published in 1978 and was selected as a Junior Literary Guild selection, for older readers. The book is not just of interest for junior readers though. It is loaded with much interesting (if not overly technical) information and the black and white illustrations and photographs alone make the book worth owning. The books is well written and quite readable. If you can find a copy and if this is an area of interest, it is certainly one I would recommend for your collection.

As a lifelong and devoted student of Lewis -- and one who has read, re-read, written about, and lectured on Mere Christianity -- I was startled and deeply gratified to learn that the master conceived his touchstone idea, composed the masterpiece that conveys it, and perfected his popular, lean, direct apologetic style under what can only be regarded as the tutelage of the BBC. The late Justin Phillips (who died before completing his book: the manuscript was edited and brought to publication by his daughter Laura Treneer) first provides a genuinely riveting war-time context as only a lifelong BBC-man could. He then captures, with ample narrative skill and astonishingly adroit quotations from correspondence, the "Beeb's" persistence and scalpel-like judgment, as well as CSL's reservations, vexations, achievement, and finally his overwhelming success. Along the way the reader gets a concrete feel for Lewis's travel, work-habits, friendships and homelife which, though not entirely new, are utterly fresh (for example, the contributions of Jill Freud . . . ) And as a bonus we are treated to a chapter on Dorothy L. Sayers and the BBC: The corporation was sorely overmatched! From now on, Richard Baxter + CSL = Mere Christianity must become Baxter + Lewis X the BBC = Mere Christianity and a good deal of the master's pellucid style.

From back cover:

"Of all the remarkable people who first opened up the rest of the world to the Europeans - Columbus, Magellan, Vasco da Gama, Pizarro and Cortes - Afonso de Albuquerque, governor of Portuguese India form 1509 to 1515, was one of the most astonishing. He was a commander of bold strategic conceptions, a far-sighted administrator and in addition a talented writer, whose dispatches to King Manuel contain a wealth of spontaneous narrative, description and pungent comment.

'Caeser of the East' is a specially edited anthology, based on the original Portuguese texts, of selections from these dispatches, or 'Cartas', and from the 'Comentarios' (Commentaries) written by Albuquerque's son, also called Afonso, about his father's career, with new English translations of both. In the introduction Dr. Villiers evaluates the part that Albuquerque played in the foundation of the Portuguese empire in Asia, and Dr. Earle provides a literary analysis of the contrasting styles of the 'Cartas' and the 'Comentarios,' where the father's informality and spontaneity contrast fascinatingly with his son's carefully contrived and highly literary narrative. Historical and geographical notes help the reader to understand the text.
"

John Carroll and Virginia Rainy have done a marvelous job on the California the Beautiful Cookbook. The book is an excellent addition to anyone's coffee-table collection, as well as an inspiring work for the moderately experienced cook. John has spent years as a personal chef in California - his experience, excellent taste, and personal warmth are infused in this wonderful cookbook. His recipes are practical and incredibly delicious. My personal favorite is the crab-salad sandwich on sourdough, I've served it to many guests and always with rave reviews. This cookbook is divided into regions of California. In becoming acquainted with the book you are becoming acquainted with the culinary traditions of a myriad of cultures and flavors. This is a must-have cookbook for the serious collector - I can't believe it's out of print - do yourself a favor and find a used copy of California the Beautiful, a cookbook you will use and enjoy over and over again!

This evidently, CUP tells us, is available only as a two-volume set. It's improbable that a purchaser would be satisfied with only one half of this massive study anyway. Handsomely bound, in a blue that reminded me that this hue was anciently Ireland's traditional national color, and diligently researched and edited (I only caught two typographical errors while reading in these books for hours), this may be an investment rather than an impulse buy, but one that should reward the owner richly.

I provide at the end from the CUP site a list of contributors and their chapters to provide you with a better idea of the two books' range. The 20th c (and a bit of the 21st) gets its own volume, inevitably as the editors note but justifiably. The scope of these books is appropriately ambitious. O'Leary and Kelleher note in their introduction that while the Field Day Anthologies' five volumes now give us a short shelf of the texts, a correspondingly concise (yet extensive as much as can be contained between two sturdy covers) survey of the literary history and an overview of criticism has been long lacking.

My own interests meant that I wandered through these books searching for my own points of interest. Your grand tour may point you in different directions. The attention given Irish-language literature is rare and I hazard unprecedented in an English-language publication, and for this the enterprise deserves acclaim. The Field Day's first three volumes were less often perhaps bemoaned for their lack of Irish-language coverage than for their neglect of women contributors and content. But this fault is rectified by the efforts of the creators of CHIL.

I found Gearóid Denvir's entry particularly informative, as he labors to defeat the prejudice against prose in favor of poetry in so much later Irish-language criticism. Declan Kiberd, Fintan O'Toole, Máirín Níc Eoin, George O'Brien, Anthony Roche, Andrew Carpenter all may be familiar to students of Irish literature, and their entries all manage to keep up an agile expression of original thinking alongside their carefully plotted itinerary. I mention these essayists but certainly I found in the others not called by name no less exacting an approach to leave behind here scholarship that, invariably contentious or cautious in some of its claims, will last for decades as guidance for the next generation of scholars.

The willingness to take on academically embedded truisms shows most winningly in Donna Wong's enthusiastically iconoclastic take on folklore and the oral tradition. Fittingly serving as the transition ending volume one, it kicks aside facile chronology. Wong presents her arguments with a verve and wit that stands out from many of her more measured colleagues in these pages. For all that, given her topic stresses the teller and not merely the tale, her energy meets its perfect match in the unclassifiably and wonderfully polyphonic and diverse old and new narratives that she gathers for inspection.

Resistance to easy classification also distinguishes, among others, Bríona Nic Dhiarmada's chapter that addresses that of Máirín Níc Eoin earlier in the second volume. The former questions the notion even of an identifiably consistent and homogenous Irish-language culture, and both authors present their opinions on the literature they explore alongside the compilation of an extensive number of texts that probably only a handful of people in the world might know in such depth and breadth. Adding to the effectiveness of these entries is the fact that the authors were able to consult each other's drafts or proofs-- I deduce, although this cross-border cooperation is not directly stated by the editors. Thus a conversation among, along with a compilation by, scholars is documented for us to "listen" to as we read. This is what you pay for, I suppose, when obtaining these books, and at a cost considerably less than any enrollment in a university class or summer seminar taught by one of the prominent contributors.

The Field Day tendency, given its tumultuous dual engendering, to separate the male from female, the Irish from the English, or the oral from the written tradition is here, also, challenged effectively by Wong and Níc Dhiarmada. Culturally, Ireland is expanding its horizons and revising old verities; this freshness enters into these collected ruminations often and excitingly. Many of the contributors stay alert against too easy a tendency to slip back, in their investigations, into the ruts so often traversed by past (and some present...a few of whom are called out by name, as Kim McCone is by Wong!) travellers through Irish literary landscapes.

Philip O'Leary and Louis de Paor also characterize the care that the many authors of these volumes bring to their task. I kept thinking, as I read essays, of texts that the entry-maker seemed to have overlooked in making his or her own case. Invariably, I would read a page or two on to find that very text cited appropriately.

A couple of very minor points of difference. The front TOC contains only the brief list of chapters and authors, similar to that I append below. The more extensive "guide to major subject areas" with expanded topical chapter sub-headings appears at the back of each volume preceding the index. I see the logic in giving a this small index before the fuller one, but for readers looking to find discussions of areas more specifically categorized, the TOC would have seemed a more logical location; a topical list could have immediately followed the compressed and terse couple of standard TOC pages.

Speaking of indices, they are not complete. Spot-checking names, I found some that were included most of the time while another mention of the person in the text was left out of the index. Or, some people remarked upon in a chapter were not indexed at all. But these minor complaints mar only a little the achievement that CUP has sponsored. Solid and handsome, these two volumes represent the foremost scholars in their fields summarizing decades of their own research and thoughts on dauntingly extensive topics. They manage this with efficiency and expertise.

These two volumes are compact enough to hold and carry, but hefty in content and generous in value, for what they offer both in price and print. The CHIL is worth saving up for. At the cost of what a couple of bagfuls of paperbacks from the airport vendor would provide in mysteries or celebrity bios or diet manuals, the CHIL gives far more intellectually nourishing substance on its purchase. Its audience may be less than the latest bestseller, but the CHIL will outlast thousands of more ephemeral backlists.

Table of Contents

Volume I: Chronology; Introduction; 1. The literature of medieval Ireland to c. 800: St Patrick to the Vikings, Tomás Ó Cathasaigh; 2. The literature of medieval Ireland, 800 1200: from the Vikings to the Normans, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh; 3. The literature of later medieval Ireland, 1200 1600: from the Normans to the Tudors A: Poetry, Marc Caball; B: Prose literature, Kaarina Hollo; 4. Literature in English, 1550 1690: from the Elizabethan settlement to the Battle of the Boyne, Anne Fogarty; 5. Literature in Irish, c.1550 1690: from the Elizabethan settlement to the Battle of the Boyne, Mícheál Mac Craith; 6. Prose in English, 1690 1800: from the Williamite wars to the Act of Union, Ian Campbell Ross; 7. Poetry in English, 1690 1800: from the Williamite wars to the Act of Union, Andrew Carpenter; 8. Literature in Irish, 1690 1800: from the Williamite wars to the Act of Union, Neil Buttimer; 9. Theatre in Ireland, 1690 1800: from the Williamite wars to the Act of Union, Christopher Morash; 10. Irish Romanticism: 1800 1830, Claire Connolly; 11. Prose writing and drama in English, 1830 1890: from Catholic emancipation to the fall of Parnell, Margaret Kelleher; 12. Poetry in English, 1830 1890: from Catholic emancipation to the fall of Parnell, Matthew Campbell; 13. Literature in Irish, 1800 1890: from the Act of Union to the Gaelic League, Gearóid Denvir; 14. Historical writings, 1690 1890 Clare O'Halloran; 15. Literature and the oral tradition, Donna Wong.

Volume II: Introduction, Margaret Kelleher and Philip O'Leary; 1. Literature and politics, Declan Kiberd; 2. The Irish Renaissance, 1890 1940: poetry in English, Patrick Crotty; 3. The Irish Renaissance, 1890 1940: prose in English John Wilson Foster; 4. The Irish Renaissance, 1890 1940: drama in English, Adrian Frazier; 5. The Irish Renaissance, 1890 1940: literature in Irish, Philip O'Leary; 6. Contemporary prose and drama in Irish: 1940 to 2000, Máirín Nic Eoin; 7. Contemporary poetry in Irish: 1940 2000, Louis de Paor; 8. Contemporary poetry in English: 1940 2000, Dillon Johnston and Guinn Batten; 9. Contemporary prose in English: 1940 2000, George O'Brien; 10. Contemporary drama in English: 1940 2000, Anthony Roche; 11. Cinema and Irish literature, Kevin Rockett; 12. Literary historiography, 1890 2000, Colin Graham; 13. Afterwords: A: Irish-language literature in the new millennium, Bríona Nic Dhiarmada; B: Irish literature in English in the new millennium, Fintan O'Toole.

Contributors

Tomás Ó Cathasaigh, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marc Caball, Kaarina Hollo, Anne Fogarty, Mícheál Mac Craith, Ian Campbell Ross, Andrew Carpenter, Neil Buttimer, Christopher Morash, Claire Connolly, Margaret Kelleher, Matthew Campbell, Gearóid Denvir, Clare O'Halloran, Donna Wong, Declan Kiberd, Patrick Crotty, John Wilson Foster, Adrian Frazier, Philip O'Leary, Máirín Nic Eoin, Louis de Paor, Dillon Johnston, Guinn Batten, George O'Brien, Anthony Roche, Kevin Rockett, Colin Graham, Bríona Nic Dhiarmada, Fintan O'Toole.

(This review will also appear in the on-line journal The Blanket)

What a fantastic resource and a pure delight in its designs, colours and techniques. One could prattle on forever.
Keeping it short & sweet, the book is fabulous. The author & photographer did the ultimate honour to Camille Faure, the known members of the studio and all the unknown artists. Obviously this art does truely honour the French saying "Be original & be different". Fantastic!

Cardinals is a novel that questions traditional notions of love, family, geneology, and family. Head hints at incest and breaks down the binaries of father-daughter, master-slave, man-woman. THe book is a quick read (under 2 hours). THe dialogue is bizarre, as are the characters and at moments, I felt an urge to scream from the insanity of it all. However, Head is a revolutionary, challenging the Immorality Acts of the 60s in apartheid South Africa, and questioning the existence of an entire colored population. The book is surprisingly moving, especially the essays at the end. A great read!

Looks like Amazon has a little typo here- the cover of the book actually says, "Castle". No plural.
I found it from its ISBN on Amazon as after purchasing the book at Toys R Us and loving it, I want to find more like it. It's a lift-the-flap book with fabulous drawings and tonnes of interesting information. For example- did you know that poor people had to pay to use the castle's oven? they weren't allowed to bake bread in their homes. I didn't know that. That's crazy-talk. Or how about, they'd eat eels and fish from the moat... that castle sewage flowed into. Eeeew. But cool! Now I can bring that up at the next hoity-toity dinner party I throw. And don't doubt I will. Oh, it's on.
Fancy dinner parties aside, this book is ideal for grade school kids or anyone who enjoys nice drawings and learning a couple things they didn't already know. It has great cutaways of the inner workings of the castle, what would happen at jousts, during sieges..., and fancy dinner parties!