United Kingdom Books

As a closet British/Norman amateur medieval scholar, the Norman and Angevin rulers are endlessly fascinating to me. This is one of the best books I've ever read on the subject. It places virtually every individual and significant event into context, some of which even biographies devoted to a particular individual haven't discussed. It blends the events, personalities, economics, religious aspects and power struggles into a comprehensive, highly readable narrative. My only caution -- the author assumes the reader has a general knowledge of the time period from the Norman Conquest of England through the Angevin dynasty.
Even though I have over 75 text books and biographies on the period, this is already one of my favorites I know I'll turn to time and again.

This book is an outstanding work of history, going for the most part into incredible depth on this critical period of British history, from the initial Norman conquest of England in 1066 to the final English conquest of Wales in 1284 (and also to the first English conquest of Scotland a few years later). Most importantly, it shows how this period formed the foundations of what would become Britain, covering everything from how the Norman overlords and their English subjects eventually assimilated each other to become one people, how the Scots were successful in forming a viable kingdom out of many disparate groups while the Welsh, who had seemingly greater advantages, ultimately failed due to their endless internecine feuds. The kings of the period, Norman and Angevin, come into sharp relief, their personal strengths and weaknesses shown often to be the biggest factor in the successes or failures of their reigns. The book also covers in great detail how Magna Carta came to be the foundation for the rule of law, how the institution of parliament evolved, how the concept of common law evolved and the unifying effect that this had on the nation, and how none of these things occurred without a great deal of struggle - military, political and social - between the various parties involved. It really is impossible to convey the depth of detail the book goes into on everything from how laws were enforced (at one point traveling courts called 'eyres' would hear cases in a given shire about once every two years), how creative taxation could be (widows were sometimes required to pay a fee for the right to choose if and whom they wished to remarry) and how the document-driven bureaucracy evolved (King Henry II employed four clerks in his chancery. His great-grandson Edward I employed over two hundred). About the only areas where I felt the author could have gone into more detail was in the eventual conquests of Wales and Scotland at the end of the period. But otherwise, I found this book extremely informative on many levels. It's a somewhat dense read due to the amount of detail, but you come away with a very firm understanding of what happened in the period and why it was all so critical to Britain's evolution.

Excellent and highly recommended: the best I've read in the recent Penguin history of Britain (v. 4 is poor, v. 5 is very good). Carpenter offers a very intelligent, comprehensive, balanced, and authoritative account of the social, economic, political, and religious aspects of a very rich period that witnessed the early formation of institutions that have lasted to the present. Best of all, Carpenter has written a masterful narrative in a clear, perspicuous, and fluid style that seamlessly weaves many complex themes in an orderly pattern, mixing illuminating detail with judicious observation. This volume is also much longer than the others I've seen in the series, and all the better for that. The index's organization is a bit peculiar (see all entries for "England"), but once you get used to it you'll find it accurate and reliable. (With all due respect to the previous reviewer, with whom I otherwise completely agree, I think the educated lay reader new to the period will do fine with this book. It's true, on occasion my eyes glazed at the detail on battles or finances, but one can easily skip a paragraph or two, or even several pages, without losing the thread, such is author's organizational skill.)

A very moving book. Brings back the sixties, I must say! An evocation of an era lost forever. One can only say that things really where better in the good old days.
It's wonderful to see them come all come (back) alive: Piers himself, but also Jochen Rindt, Frank Williams (the way he was, before he became an ***hole...)and so many household names of the time when I was young.
Wonderful book. Very well written. Excellent photography.

a beautiful book, well worth the wait...arrived safe and sound and not damaged. my partner loved it..very informative, lovely photo,s

For those of you who followed Grand Prix and sports car racing in the 1960s this is a great tale. Drivers, team owners, hangers-on were all basically children at this time. Now the Knighted Brits who are the masters of the GP universe ($$$$) probably would not tell you that they bought a case of cokes to sell by the bottle in the pits to make a bit of money (very true). Alexander Hesketh was a teenager who loaned his helicopter to a team to beat the traffic at Sliverstone(this was very '90s in the '60s!).

This is a marvelous biography of Mr. Courage and many of his friends and the times themselves, and not a burdensome pile of race reports. I did not want it to finish. I will reread it a number of times!

While some further elaboration on his theoretical background and how it is applied to his analysis would be welcome, I can't say I've found a better reading of this period in Occultism. The highlight is certainly the chapter on Aleister Crowley in the Desert which gives the reader the most succinct treatment of The Beast's career that one could ask for in 35 pages. Structurally, the book is divided well between chapters, enabling the scholar looking for a particular tidbit to access without having to read the other parts for context, although anyone interested in one of the chapters would be well rewarded to read all (if not simply for pleasure in Owen's excellent narrative and careful consideration of his subject).

Dave

This is a fair to good overview of the people & the period, although I think Owens makes over much of her "women's rights" notions. It is well researched & footnoted. Owens could have done much more on the influence of the GD at the turn of the century.

An exceptionally fine piece of work. Owen's use of sources is excellent - published and unpublished accounts of magickal workings and the documents of occult orders. Her understanding of magickal subjectivity and the reflexivity of modernism is very insightful. Her argument that occultism was central to the formation of modernity is brilliant - in opposition to the usual idea that modernism was opposed to spirituality.I'd reccommend reading Joy Dixon's fine "Divine Feminine", Judith Walkowitz' "City of Dreadful Delights" and Leon Surette's "Birth of Modernism" as well.

This book certainly teaches a lesson about politics and the newspapers in Britain. It is hard to believe what the people in the book went through and what might be behind the motives of such a story. I highly recommend this book.

This book by Jonathan Aitken is the most fascinating book I have read in the last year. And it is surely the most fascinating book I've ever read by a politician. It is a book about a arrogant politician who falls down and comes into prison. But while his reputation goes downhill, his spiritual health goes uphill. And as a journalist my cheeks colored red, both of tension and of shame about my own profession. I hope many other politicians will come to the same sort of renewing experience (apart from being hunted by the press...).

If you think that God is a concept for the inadequate, this book reveals how the reality of God took over the life of an exceptional politician. Attacked by the press but ruined by his own lies and arrogance a proud man found that rebuilding was only possible from a base of true humility. I found this book easy to read and inspirational. Jonathan's faith convinced me that he is not a man to be despised, as the press depicted him, but a man blessed, initially by good looks intelligence and power but who was stripped and humiliated until he saw a new road he had to take in the service of Jesus. To read of his unashamed confession that Jesus is Lord of his life and that true power, to recover, and live in it's truest sense, comes from that relationship alone. This book may make you review your opinion, about Jonathan, and God.

Just as James Agee (deceased) and Pauline Kael (alive, but retired) remain the best writers on the Art of Film, so Kenneth Tynan (again, deceased) is still the best writer on the Art of Theatre. Tynan wrote so beautifully and wittily and lovingly about the stage and the people who inhabit it and he was also responsible in a major way for the success of the National Theatre of Great Britain along with his friend and professional partner, Laurence Olivier. (an essay on Olivier is one of the high-points of this book.) It was Tynan who "discovered" Harold Pinter, who "made the career" of John Osbourne and was a major factor in reviving the career of Noel Coward, after years of neglect: as Literary Manager of the National, it was Tynan who urged a revival of Coward's classic "Hay Fever."

This collection of 50 essays is absolutely essential reading for anyone who has a love of theatre or simply of celebrity and star power. No one writing today writes as well as Tynan did nor consistently shows his affection for Show Business. If you regularly read today's so-called critics, you come away with the feeling that they become INSULTED that plays they dislike were actually produced!

I highly recommend this book. It is passionate, charming and, at times, really funny stuff. But, please, do yourself a favor and haunt every used book shop you know to find a copy of Tynan's out-of-print collected theatre reviews from the U.S. (he wrote for "The New Yorker") and England called CURTAINS. It is absolutely the best book of criticism you'll ever read.

Enormously entertaining and the writing is to die for. Epstein regards Tynan as a lightweight and in a way I guess he is, but a skilled lightweight is still a thing of beauty and Tynan IS skilled. I stared underlining favorite passages but had to stop because I was underlining almost everything.

Tynan was one of the century's great journalists, capable of capturing a performer in two paragraphs, yet equally adept at longer essays, several of which are collected here. The pieces on Stoppard and Louise Brooks are particularly fine. The reviewer below is right: the writing is to die for; but, compared to Epstein, Tynan is a super-hevyweight, with ten times the force and prose-potency.

Copies of this book are on sale in the gift shop at the Palace of Versailles. That's saying something for a book published, in English, in 1961. I figured there must be a reason and I was right. This fascinating page-turner is equal parts social history, shadowy mystery, and riveting tale of intrigue. The story is told primarily through masterfully translated excerpts from contemporary source materials--diaries, memoirs, autobiographies. In all honesty I rarely read books this long anymore, but this did not seem long at all. Finally, this title will expand your vocabulary--I guess readers were familiar with more words in 1961!

The Queen's Necklace is a remarkable book. As an avid reader of French Revolutionary history, I was initially daunted by its 500+ pages, but the style of writing with it's excerpts from period memoirs, made it eminently readable. I found myself unable to stop reading. The use of the memoirs, particularly when they contradict each other so strongly, presents the reader with the opportunity to weigh each version and use them to "read between the lines" to obtain the story - or in some cases, "a" story - by the memoirs' authors themselves.

It was a delightful read with virtually no connection to the movie of the same name. What a wasted opportunity that was! The real story is the stuff of movie making, had the writer and producer used this book, the film might have been a hit. Sophia Coppola, with her "Marie Antoinette" film could have benefitted from this book as it accurately presents Marie Antoinette at a time when her fate had already been decided in the minds of the public by libelous pamphleteers and the actions of such self-interested, self-involved charlatans as Madame La Motte-Valois, the central character in this story.

I was fortunate to be able to see the San Francisco Legion of Honor exhibit on Marie Antoinette and the Grand Trianon as I was reading this book. It served to reinforce what a great book this is.

In 1785 The Queen's Necklace scandal broke over France. Queen Marie Antoinette was alleged to have bought a diamond necklace worth over 1.6 million franks and refused to pay for it, and had Cardinal Prince Rohan, a long time courtier out of favour, arrested for it along with his accomplices the Countess de la Motte-Valois and the famous mystic Count Cagliostro.

This book is a series of fascinating first person accounts of how the necklace swindle occurred and the trial that followed it. Most of the people involved in the scandal wrote their memoirs and virtually all the court related documentation is still available in France in archives. This book is a compilation of these memoirs and legal statements made by all the parties involved in this crime which opened the monarchy and France to the fury of the revolution.

The author does not impose her own interpretation of the events on the reader, but does provide explanations to the backgrounds of the people involved and the social and political niceties of the time that explain why people acted as they did.

This book is a lively account of this important French scandal that, because of the first person accounts, reads like a novel. If the story wasn't true it would be hard to credit such a cast of interesting characters, with their extravagant and wildly different backgrounds, coming together like this to play a crucial role in the downfall of the French Monarchy. Its also very interesting to compare this book to what is portrayed in the movie of the same name. There are a number of very significant differences!

I found this book to be highly helpful for a new gardener. It not only shows combinations, but gives lots of year round tips. A friend brought it to me to browse, I was so impressed I had to buy the book for myself. I also told a few friends - that this is definitely the "1" book you want to have in your gardening library. I can't wait for mine to come, I'm sure my friend is anxious to have hers back.

This book is written for gardeners in England. For those of us in the Pacific Northwest the plants suggested are perfect. They are readily available and many do their best here. Every gardener in Seattle, Vancouver BC and Portland OR should buy this book. For gardeners in other parts of the USA it will not be pefect but still well worth reading.

The technique of layering the garden with plants that have interest in more than one season and the wonderful combinations can be applied to plants that will thrive in your climate zone. There are suggested combinations and vignettes throughout the book for all seasons. There are detailed sections on key plants throughout also. Clematis, Heather, Dwarf Conifers and many more get the spotlight.

This book is full of outstanding color photos. They are beautiful as well as instructional. Many of the plants are shown in more than one season so you can see not just what the blooms are like but the fall or winter color too.

This book makes it easy to have a garden that is just as interesting in December as it is in May.

i have hundreds of gardening books and this is one i love, love, love. i will pick it up every season of the year to get ideas.

This is the top design book I own.

The layout makes the most of the book's large (11" x 14") format. There are many full-page illustrations, and other illustrations are generously sized. Many are breathtaking. The book is just chock-full of large, brilliant illustrations.

The text in this book is easy to read - other reference books seem meant for academics. It is incredibly thorough and interesting.

I ordered a used copy of this book, and it was still close to $200 - I think this is the most expensive book I own. But the cost was well worth it in terms of enjoyment and design ideas (for an amateur interested in design history).

All my congratulations to John Morley - he has provided an enormous volume - full of lush illustrations, good background information and a great browsing volume of Regency Design

Following what is popularly known as teh extended regency, or late Georgian period John Morley uses the period of 1790-1840 which covers the end of George III's reign (and the regency period of 1811-1820), the reign of King George IV, William IV and first few years of Victoria. This early part of the century is the start of the great industrial years, the increasing population in Britain, and increasing wealth.

What I loved best about this book is its easy reference. It is divded into four sections, Parks and Gardens, Exterior Architecture, interior decoration, and Furniture. Within each section looking at the formative incluences, styles, and how they manifested.

Each chapter has good explanatory commentary, and is well illustrated. The only other book I can really compare this to is one I have read by Steven Parrisen which also done excellent works on Regency architecture. This book covers a great deal more in one volume which I felt allowed a broader depth of understanding of the style. It would be really nice to include two other sections (I think) one of food, and one of clothing. I daresay to do that there would be a great deal more to have to add as well and this book would need to double in size.

Nice reference book, good for browsing through too.

John Morley's Regency Design offers a wealth of information for anyone seeking an indepth resource on the Regency Style. The organization of the information makes it easy for the reader to follow and locate specific areas of interests. Parks, Gardens, Exterior Architecture, Interior Design and Furniture are all included with generous amount of illustrations. Morley's Regency Style is now in my company's design library as the recommended sourch for Regency Style research. I highly recommend this book for design professionals, instructors and anyone interested in the study of classical styles.

I recently ran across Dr. Aric Sigman's book, Remotely Controlled: How Television Is Damaging Our Lives. I picked up a copy from Amazon and started reading. I was blown away! I found Dr. Sigman's book to be one of the best-researched and most-compelling books I've ever read!

Dr. Sigman exposes in detail the many dangers that television presents to human beings, not just to society in general, but also to individuals' health and well-being. He points to links between television and ADHD, depression, violence, apathy, obesity, sexual dysfunction, and many other woes. Dr. Sigman also explains how television stunts brain development and destroys cultural identity. And the adverse effects are not just from harmful programming either. Some of the damage actually comes from the medium itself (so there is no such thing as 'safe programming').

After reading Dr. Sigman's book, I cut television completely out of my daily life, and I radically curtailed the viewing habits of my toddler (it is impossible for me to completely eliminate his exposure, but I'm close).

I highly recommend this book to any person, and especially to parents of young children. Dr. Sigman not only points out the damage that TV is doing to us, but provides real-world alternatives to prevent and solutions to repair some of the damage. This is one of the most important books you will ever read.

Sigman answers those who say: "I grew up with TV and it's done me no harm" by showing that TV today is very different to the TV we grew up with. The techniques used to grab and hold viewers' attention, as they must in this very competitive arena, are very different today and can be harmful to a child's developing brain. The problem is not merely the content, or the fact that it engenders a sedentary lifestyle. He explains that when watching TV the brain's frontal lobes go into idle, which is very relaxing for an adult, and what makes TV so addictive. However, it reduces the time a child's developing brain has for using and strengthing these important links in that area of the brain which has to do with attention span and impulse control.

Very good book. Hopefully, what "Supersize Me" said to Americans regarding our unquestioning consumption of junk food, this book will speak to regarding our unquestioning adoption of TV and other new media.

So-called media experts have been constantly rewarded for trumpeting the latest in devices and the "gains" they bring. But they overlook the cumulative effect each new device brings. More alarmingly, the author points out negative effects showing up in our children's behavior that can be traced to TV. Causal relationships are starting to appear linking TV/games and ADD/ADHD, depression, cognitive development, and more. This issue alone should be cause for alarm. Experienced educators have long been able to pick between their students who are TV-saturated and those who aren't.

As Dr. Sigman points out, the next generation of technological elite will not be the children we see hyperfocusing on the latest celphones, PDAs, or video games. It will be the children whose parents have the skills to critically evaluate the devices they bring into their home. The "digital divide" isn't a gap between the rich and poor, but rather between the ones who truly understand how technology effects them, and those who don't.

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.

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.