Irish Books

For most, Charles Dickens is the only source we've encountered regarding the awful human misery of the early industrial revolution. However, Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx reported on it, too. Indeed, most of their criticisms were far more applicable to the raw capitalism of contemporary England than their native Germany.

Engels stayed in Manchester, the premier industrial city of the time, during the early 1840's to research his book. And he produced a devastating indictment of the truly miserable and life-threatening living conditions he found. Unlike Marx, Engels had a pronounced flair for writing; he makes it a fascinating, eye-opening journey back through time.

The topics he includes cover: struggling labor movements, the denigrating effects of immigration on domestic workers (due to competing subsistence-cost labor), the ignorance and crippling of child workers, the sexual exploitation of women workers, the displacement of male heads of household by lower-cost and more pliant women/children, the unbelievable filth and subhuman housing conditions workers endured, the dangerous and unhealthy working conditions of miners/factory workers, rampant substance abuse, doping of children by babysitters, the total lack of legal redress for the poor, the displacement of labor by machinery, and the role of unbridled competition in perpetrating economic distress.

While we all know communism has failed, its rise was due to these very real and serious problems, some of which remain with many Western workers today. And most of these conditions do very much persist in emerging economies right now. So, even though the book is well over 150 years old it is still highly valid!

The main fault of course with Marx/Engels' communist philosophy is that ALL humans are greedy and lazy - it's just that the clever ones (whether they originate from 'bourgeous' or 'working' classes) will always exploit the others. And it doesn't matter whether the system is capitalist or communist - those at the top will always exploit those below for personal advantage. Probably the best response has been the progressive social reform in Western nations over the last 100 years. (Revolutions and dictatorships usually only lead to mass murder.)

This chilling book is the real-life Oliver Twist exposed.I think Fredrick Engels wrote this book,in part to clear his conscious.And largely, to shed light on the fetid ,wretched underbelly of the 19th century industrial-age society.The nameless toilers working ten to twelve hour shifts,in a factory operation they had no vote or control over.Marx and Engels had many valid arguments for improving the workers lives.Did their end-results justify their means of social revolution? Engels would be amazed at the former textile towns,like Manchester,absorbing the large influx of Asians,Moslims and Africans today.It is still being debated,whether history has proven Engels & Marx right.This book is still a historical classic,thats presumptive findings give the modern reader,reason to pause. So,look all around you. -A Great Book !

Fabuous book. Engels wrote this when he was only 24- and what a tour de force.

The work is detailed, beautifully observed and elegantly written. Despite the depressing nature of the subject matter, the tone is always possible about a better world beyond the evils of capitalism.

Unfortunately 150 years after this masterpiece was written things dont seen to have gotten better under capitalism. Rather, the old evils of poverty, infectious diseases, starvation have been replaced by the modern evils of capitalism: obesity, alienation, mass materialism, depression, plunging fertility and marriage rates and so on...

Engels was the engine behind Karl Marx, one that gave him all the support he could, so to permit Marx to dedicate himself almost completely to the completion of his works. Judging himself many degrees bellow Marx in terms of intelect, Engels nonetheless is capable of writting a book such as this which describes all the impoverishment of the working class in the beginning of the industrialization in England, being helped by some well porputed factories labor fiscalization agents who allowed Engels to flip trough their reports. Strong terms like "the dark satanic mills" describe fully what were the working conditions of the time in a so rich country as England. An historical document lest no one forget what can happen again if the free hand of capitalism is allowed to run free of any barriers.

Friedrich Engels' classic "The Condition of the Working Class in England" was written when he was only twenty-four, and had but recently abandoned his Calvinist upbringing for a more critical, socialist, point of view. Yet this book reads as if it were written by an experienced political commentator or a radical sociologist, without actually at any point becoming melodramatic or dense.

Engels' main purpose is to confront the bourgeoisie with the reality of their mode of production and to contrast this with the rhetoric of "free choice" and "civil liberties", as well as the capitalist apologia of the political economists of his day, in particular Andrew Ure. With great insight into both the causes and effects of the capitalist system, Engels catalogues the endless want, filth, despair and misery experienced by millions of labourers every day in 19th century England. He pays attention to housing, to factory safety, to unionism, to the physical condition of the workers, to alcoholism, the state of the Irish underclass, to prostitution and disease; in short, all the ills attendant on industrialization.

What gives this book such power is that Engels on the one hand proceeds in an analytical manner, making use above all of sources from the bourgeoisie itself and from Parliamentary reports, in explaining the functioning of the capitalist system and the competition between capitalists and between labourers. On the other hand, he writes in a particularly readable manner and at no point bores the reader with the mere summing-up of statistics. On the contrary, every analytical truth is accompanied by a vivid description, taken from Engels' excursions into working-class neighbourhoods, of the terrible state of humanity that the economic laws of capitalism cause for a great number of people.

For those interested in political economy, it may come as a surprise to see how much of the functioning of capitalism Engels already understood at such an early point in the development of theory. This gives the lie to the many theorists who would later claim that it was Marx only who worked on economics and that Engels was a mere epigone; this book should be a vindication of Engels. His later sketches of the political economy and of the historical development of capitalism would lay the foundation for both the Communist Manifesto and Marx' economic works. But the core insights that would create the modern theory of socialism are for the first time fully expressed here, and in a most appealing and shockingly effective manner.

In other words, an absolute must read for every person of intelligence.

Before there was Tolkein, there were William Morris, E.R. Eddison and Lord Dunsany. Dunsany's richly poetic style is delicious but a bit like a box of chocolates--best savored in small doses; too much and you might get a tummy ache. These are not so much tales as fragments, dreams, wisps of imaginings. Plot takes a backseat; these pieces read more like prose-poems, and are all about setting and language. They work well together since most are about dead or forgotten (imagined) cities or lands. An air of sadness wafts off the pages. Recommended for those who wish to voyage to exotic kingdoms that don't exist and those who enjoy reading ornate, beautiful prose evocative of Swinburne and Tennyson.

Lord Dunsany has a rare imagination and unqiue gift for writing. If you enjoy imaginative and visionary tales or if you are a fan of fictional mythologies, you will like Dunsany. While the stories are often compact, the vision is almost always expansive. He adopts language and prose approrpriate to his subject matter; often dreamy and languid it is a step away from the norm. Dunsany's tales dwell in places seldom visited by modern authors. Highly recommended.

_A Dreamer's Tales_ consists of 16 short stories (I've sorted them by title rather than order of appearance); it's in print as I write this, as part of the Fantasy Masterworks edition of _Time and the Gods_.

"The Beggars" - The cloaked strangers, begging gracefully, as gods beg for souls, had a gift for seeing past the dreary surface of life in the city.

"Bethmoora" - a story of the desolation of Bethmoora, a city at the desert's edge.

"Blagdaross" - As twilight falls upon a rubbish heap, all the castoff things therein find voices to remember where they have been. Among them is the rocking-horse Blagdaross.

"Carcassonne" - It was prophesied to Camorak at Arn that he should never come to Carcassonne, but he decided to defy Fate.

"The Day of the Poll" - Since everyone in the town had gone raving mad on election day, the lonely poet set out to trap and save an intelligence for company.

"The Field" - Why is it the field of king-cups, and not the hideous ugliness of the town, that is covered with an ominous feeling of foreboding?

"The Hashish Man" - Another visitor to Bethmoora picks up the tale.

"The Idle City" - The city's custom was that anyone who wished to enter must pay a toll of one story at the gate.

"Idle Days on the Yann" - the story of a journey on the ship _Bird of the River_ down the Yann, and of the cities along the Yann.

"The Madness of Andelsprutz" - The city of Andelsprutz had been conquered, and stolen from the land of Akla. What happens to the souls of conquered cities?

"Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean" - The Inner Lands are those three kingdoms which have no view of the sea, being bounded on the west by the mountain Poltarnees. But none who had ever climbed Poltarnees from the very earliest times had ever come back again...

"Poor Old Bill" - the Captain never talked to the ship's crew, except sometimes in the evening he would talk a bit to the me!n he had hanged at the yard-arm. But just when the crew thought life couldn't get any worse, the Captain learned how to use curses.

"The Sword and the Idol" - Which would have more weight - the family of the man who made the first iron sword, or of he who made the first idol?

"The Unhappy Body" - The body, afflicted with a poet's soul that would not let it rest, was advised to drink and smoke more, so that the soul would cease to trouble it.

"Where the Tides Ebb and Flow" - What happens to the souls of those who are cursed so that they cannot rest on either the earth or the ocean?

"In Zaccarath" - The prophets and singers have spoken of the iniquity of the King, and the onrush of the Zeedians, but the King and his queens and warriors are paying heed only to their feasting and celebration, or so it would seem...

How neat to be able to easily purchase this great book. Dunsany skillfully weaves his tales so the reader is brought into his world of imagination. His was a unique vision. Each tale still speaks to our world today a message of morality. His worlds are very real.

"These are the Inner Lands..." Technically that describes the fictional cities in the first story of "A Dreamer's Tales," but it could easily have described Lord Dunsany's fantastical mind. Full of invented legends and exotic characters, Dunsany's short stories are a wonderful early fantasy read.

He writes about desert cities, where the sea is only a legend; of a rocking horse that revels in a little boy's fantasies; of cities that are "quite dead; of dreams and redemption, long-dead cities that were supposedly going to last forever, prophets and swords, desert curses and terrible, beautiful gods.

There are boats on the banks of the Yann river, the "everlasting" city of Zaccarath, a stone age tale of religion and sacrifice, and the hashish man. Most striking is "The Field," in which Dunsany experiences strange feelings while sitting in a field of flowers -- a field with a terrible secret.

Dunsany had a masterful flair for exotic-edged fantasy. Before anyone had ever heard of J.R.R. Tolkien or "The Hobbit," Dunsany was spinning his stories. And while Tolkien has been the most powerful influence on modern fantasy, Dunsany did his share too -- he can be seen in descriptions of beautiful temples and desert cities.

His writing style is typical of the late 19th/early 20th century, rather formal and ornate. But the imagination of the stories frees them up. "I dreamt that I had done a horrible thing, so that burial was to be denied me either in soil or sea, neither could there be any hell for me," Dunsany says ominously at the start of one story. And half the horror of that is wondering what the horrible thing is.

Dunsany is shown in his glory in "The Dreamer's Tales," a rich collection of beautiful fantasy stories. Funny, poignant, majestic, this is a keeper.

Great news for anyone interested in the traditional folk ballads known as the "Child Ballads" that Francis James Child's late 1800s compilation "The English and Scottish Pupular Ballads" is now republished in a fully corrected and revised edition with the traditional tunes reunited with the texts. The new edition by Loomis House Press (...) is now available in paperback and cloth editions - so far volumes 1, 2 and 3 (of 5) are issued. Amazon lists them but the three volumes are hard to find on the Amazon site. The earlier 1965 facsimile edition by Dover has also now been republished - but the Loomis House Press edition is greatly superior - and is available from Loomis in USA and Springthyme in UK as well as from Amazon.

Child's "English and Scottish Popular Ballads" is THE sourcebook for anyone interested in the traditional ballads of the British Isles, and also invaluable to all aficionados of European folklore and folksong in general. For those not up on their terminology, a ballad is a folksong with a plot, and Child's collection covers everything from foul murders to star-crossed lovers to Robin Hood, in five volumes.

I am extremely happy that someone has finally issued an edition incorporating the various addenda and corrections that Child made before his death. There is nothing here that Child did not write, so if you are looking for additional scholarship or commentary you will be disappointed; but the Loomis House edition vastly improves over the Dover facsimiles in completeness and convenience. Additional variants, comments and even some tunes (the one big omission in the original) are placed conveniently near the main text of each category rather than buried in appendices (most of which aren't included in the Dover editions at all). It's well worth the few extra dollars over the Dover books.

My one quibble is that they do not reproduce some of the typographical distinctions that Child occasionally used to indicate different features of a text, but this is overshadowed by all the good points of this edition.

Overall this is a wonderful and affordable edition; I fervently hope that all five volumes are issued as planned (it's been almost a year since Volume 3 came out...). I have no idea why Amazon makes these books so hard to find on their site: fix this, guys!

In summary: Buy this book. Now if someone would only reprint Bertrand Bronson's "The Singing Tradition of Child's Popular Ballads" as well....

I first heard of the Child ballads when I was about 13 years old and have been looking for a copy ever since. I was delighted to discover they have been brought back into print. This publication is particularly exciting since the editors have chosen to include musical notation collected by Child but not included in the original publication. Many of the ballads still sung today in Eastern Canada and the US were derived from these ballads, so these books are a facinating study of the earlier origins of these and many other ballads from the british iles.

The English and Scottish Popular Ballads are, as noted here, out of print in their Dover edition ... but fear not, they are being re-issued (in 5 volumes, 2 of which are actually done) by the folks at Loomis House Press. (I am not affiliated with Loomis in any way; do a Google search if you want to find 'em.) The books are authoritative and complete, and it's disappointing that Amazon doesn't list them.

Superb. For anyone interested in either the words or origins of English & Scottish folk music this is essential. You can settle those arguments (over a beer) as to who has the correct words or the origin.

The biblography needs some getting used to but when you understand it you will find this book a good companion.

I have decided to write this review despite the fact that I have only just ordered the book, and have not yet read it. I did however, just celebrate Chinese New Year (The Year of the Dog)with Barbara (the author) and Jim (her scrappy Irish hubby). I had never met them before last evening and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting and speaking to them. I already know that this is going to be a 5 star book!!! Nice meeting you Barbara and Jim (and Jack and Grandpa)

A fast and fun read that captures the little nuances of the classic love-hate romance. It may also be one of the best fictitious renderings of a newsroom I've ever read. Ms. Fischkin is a great comedic writer, with impeccable timing and a wonderful literary voice.

As a Pulitzer Prize winning winning journalist, I'll tell you that this is the funniest newspaper book since Scoop

An excellent start in her first fiction novel. Fischkin takes us from Long Island to Ireland and gives a wonderful look into the world of journalism. Her characters are funny and endearing. As I know the "Real Mulvaney" and am familiar with some of he other real-life characters, it was fun for me to try to figure out what was true and what was untrue. Her sharp wit and obvious love for her husband, the egotistical but loveable Jim Mulvaney and his escapades, keep you turning the pages. I couldn't put it down and can't wait for the sequel.

Have you ever been crazy about someone who drives you crazy? Someone you think is wonderful even though they use all the wrong strategies to try to convince you that they are wonderful? Barbara Fischkin has captured this nutty dynamic in a romantic comedy about two self-absorbed but lovable journalists, their Irish-Jewish culture clash, and their misadventures chasing down stories about IRA and ETA terrorists. You will laugh very, very hard. I promise.

I waited almost 20 years to track down this book. My advice to you, Reader, is don't wait a single minute. "Footsteps" is delightful from multiple vantage points. Holmes is a fine, empathic writer who reveals the inner workings of the process of biography. He is also an insightful travel writer with a strong sense of place. While I greatly enjoyed his chapter on Robert Louis Stevenson, I was fascinated by his treatment of Gerard de Nerval. This is one literary byway that should not be missed.

Richard Holmes is a man profoundly obsessed with other people's lives. This book reflects the process of how the author struggled to come to terms with the mysterious past which is flitting away from us. It is also a book which tries to answer the question "Why should it matter?"

Whether hunting for the Shelleys in Italy or pursuing Stevenson in the Cevennes, Holmes manages to convey the feeling that it does matter, that these people had their share in shaping European culture and literature.

However, there is a price to be paid if one aims to bring ghosts back to life. The author is ever balancing on the fine edge of cutting himself off from the present, of falling into the abyss of the past and never wake up again, and he is painfully aware of this.

Holmes seems to conceive of biography as a temporary annihilation of his own self in order to grasp the world that his subjects moved in. The literary outcome is a great and full picture. On a personal level, it is trauma.

This book will (if it is not already) be a classic for anyone remotely interested in reading or writing biography.

This is the kind of book at which Holmes, in my view, excels. I'm not that particularly fond of his painstaking mammoth biographies of Shelley and Coleridge because, well, they're too run-of-the-mill and not all that much fun to read.-In other words, just the opposite of books like this one. This type of book, where the relationship between Holmes and the author he is writing about is constantly in play add a mystery and a haunted quality inherent in the time elapsed between Holmes' time and the author's that keeps the readers attention constantly transfixed (or, at least, this reader's). As Holmes himself puts it, "The material surfaces of life are continually breaking down, sloughing off, changing, almost as fast as human skin." Examples: The passage on Shelley's view of the double, the "ghost of the living person" the view of which signified the shadow world invading this one; Shelley's view that this is what was happening to him just before he drowned himself is the most affecting passage I've read on Shelley's end, and together with the photograph of the Casa Magni, which I'd never actually seen, and whose setting Mary Shelley said caused them to be in touch with the unreal sent shivers up my spine. It's not to be missed.-The section on Nerval was also interesting, as were the others. Curiously, the same sort of thing seems to have affected Nerval "...Here began for me what I shall call the overflowing of dreams into real life." Both sections are excellent and Holmes' speculation that "Nerval's whole work was a form of suicide note" seems right on the mark. The other sections are intriguing as well, but these two haunted me the most. In a moment of brave self-exposure where Holmes is following Shelley's footsteps in Rome, he recounts a dinner where they toasted Shelley as a fellow-exile and his name "rang to the roof." Holmes writes, "I sat there looking at my plate dangerously close to tears. I...determined to write a book for people like them too, who would never read it, people who have lost most things except hope."-You've succeeded Mr Holmes.

Beginning with a journey tracing Stevenson's walking tour in France, Holmes shows himself to be both a remarkable adventurer and writer. The thing that comes out clearly when he discovers the ruins of a bridge crossed by Stevenson is that the past is the past. And while it has an impact on the world today, it is gone. If you only read it for the first essay, it is well worth the money. The other essays explore other themes that affect biographers. A superb book that should be read by anyone interested in the mysrerious relationship between biographer and subject.

I read this the spring it came out, the spring I learned that once again there would be no summer vacation, no breaking free of the time zone. As much as a book can stand in for actual experience, this did, and I got a rollicking review of Romantic figures in the bargain. Holmes obviously conducts meticulous research, but he writes it up in a style that has the sweep of a fine novel. He is a master at marrying study and action.

Very helpful and thorough. Regardless of one's personal views on Jungian theories, this is a major contribution to the understanding of the Grail. A fair amount of German-language material is aptly brought back to the heart of the debate and one or two solid points are made about mediaeval Christianity and Imago Christi; Gnosis often looms in the (rather near) distance but the quality of thought makes it palatable...

"The Grail Legend" by Emma Jung [and M. L. von Franz] I found to be very thoughtful and detailed. Likely the Holy Grail was a main concern for most of Emma Jung's life. One can readily see why Carl Jung viewed that subject matter as his "wife's turf". "Animus and Anima", also by Emma Jung, is an excellent little summary of Jungian Psychology with a focus on Animus and Anima. In contrast "The Grail Legend" is so deep and detailed I found myself having to review several Jungian works to "keep up". Namely "Animus and Anima", "The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious" and "Aion". The last two works being by Carl Jung. Very interesting and even inspiring for those interested in Jung, Grail, Merlin, Arthur, Celtic and Celtic Christian subjects from the "Dark Ages" until the "Present".

Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz have produced a very comprehensive analysis of the legend of the Holy Grail legend. Jung spent over 20 years collecting the background information. Von Franz spent 15 years pulling together the final manuscript which was published after Emma Jung's death.

The book explores the historic origin of the legend in both Welsh/Celtic and Christian legend. The legend appears to integrate 3 influences: the legends of the early Welsh/Celtic people who were driven into the hills by the Saxon invaders, the Christian legend of the grail and the stone covering the grave of Christ, and the major shift in Western consciousness regarding the role of women around the reign of Henry II and Eleanor of Acquitaine.

The story is about the heroic actions and adventures of the fool knight, Perceval, that are needed to heal the wounded Fisher King and revive his famine plagued kingdom. Much of the book explores all the images and multiple variations around this myth.

The legend would imply that in all men a wounded Self(Fisher King) limits and shuts off the powers and creativity of the archetypes and other unconscious forces. The healed Fisher King is a strong Self, the king of the unconscious, who can navigate and attract unconscious forces and influences. The beautiful woman, the Anima, acts as a messenger between the ego consciousness and the unconscious. The Grail is the site where the opposites are united, the personality becomes whole,the internal struggles against opposing forces within the self stops, and thus the healing of the King (Self) is at hand. Each of the psychological constructs: ego, consciousness, unconscious, archtype, shadow, anima, animus, Self, etc. are shown in the characters and various props/objects within the legend.

Students of the legends of King Arthur and the Round Table will find this to be a very scholarly study of the particular tale of Perceval and his search of the Holy Grail. The Round Table is connected to the two preceeding tables - the table where Christ held the Last Supper with his disciples and the table that becomes the Altar for the Holy Communion.

Students of pre-Saxon Britian will find this work to identify multiple primitive Celtic and Welsh myths and legends.

Students of Jung will find this legend actually is able to encompass almost all the major constructs of Jungian theory into one comprehensive legend. Jung identifies the Self as the part of the personality through whom God speaks. This makes sense if we see the Self as the king of the unconscious, a land of symbol and archetype. If the Self is wounded, the land of archetype and symbol is barren and thus the voice of God is not heard. But when the Self is healed, God is able to speak through the language of image, myth, archetype, and symbol. The heroic knight is able to heal the wounded King by asking whom the Grail serves. The Grail is the site where opposing forces are united and integrated and thus tension and internal conflict is reduced or eliminated. Jung and von Franz also point out that the Grail, the stone over the grave of Christ, the philosopher's stone, and the legendary figure of Merlin all are capable of playing the role of the site where the opposites come together to bring about wholeness. When wholeness occurs, the Fisher King is healed. When the Fisher King (the Self) is healed, the land is no longer barren but bursts with growth of instincts, symbols, myths, images, archetypes, allowing God to come fully into the personality. This is called salvation in Christian culture and enlightenment in other cultures. Carl Jung offers an amazingly rich theoretically constructed human personality with such internal consistency that he was able to explain most all human ocnditions from mental illness to religious salvation using his constructs.

I recommend this book highly, supplement your reading with other books by Carl Jung as you read, but your quest for your own Holy Grail is worth the effort.

I've used this book countless times for research, pondering and contemplation and teaching. I come back to it often, because some of the references are so obscure that it took years to run into the situation that related back to the story. But it's all good. Carl Jung specifically steered clear of the Grail Myth because it was understood that it was Emma's territory. By reading it you can tell that it's a lifetime collection. If you are looking for Cliff notes on the grail story, this is not your book. If you are looking for an in depth source for pursuing the meaning(s) behind the Grail then it's a must have.

Robert Johnson said it best, "We each have but to walk down the path and turn left to find the Grail Castle. It's simply being conscious enough to know when the time has come to enter the Grail Castle." I love the story of Perceival so very much. Not only because it mimics so much of my own personal spiritual quest but also because of the hope it gives Western man. We have only to ask the question to heal the Fisher King, not know the answer. The question, "Whom does the grail serve?" is enough.

Hilarious--Boylan has scored another comic triumph. The Great Pint-Pulling Olympiad keeps the reader reeling with dazzling displays of erudition, caustic commentary, and a constant barrage of laugh-out-loud episodes. But this is a farce with a heart; even at their most ridiculous, Boylan's characters are deftly drawn and fully human. If you think you'll finish this book without caring about the people within it, then the joke's on you.

More captivating than Boylan's Killoyle. The Olympiad has characters that are rich in their actions, preoccupations and obssessions. Boylan is witty and erudite, and his book is a treasure-trove of deliciously clever details and footnotes. There are some hysterically funny scenes you shouldn't miss. A book unlike any other. Buy it!

Very highly recommended reading, The Great Pint-Pulling Olympiad: A Mostly Irish Farce is a rollicking roller coaster of a novel by Roger Boylan and set in the days leading up to the Pint-Pulling Olympiad in the town of Killoyle, Ireland. A cross-dressing church sexton, a drunk who loses his job as a car tester and sues for wrongful termination, unemployment seminar hosts who sell missiles to the IRA on the side, and other memorable characters populate the pages of this engaging and topsy turvy tale with surprises hiding around every corner.

I am not quite finished this book - it's taking a while because I keep putting it down to laugh. The footnotes are a great addition and an entertaining read in and of themselves. Boylan's language is as fast and intriguingly unpredictable as Mick McCree's test drive. Don't know what that means? RYou'll have to read the first several pages to find out.
If you have despaired of reading a book that is both hilarious and literary, despair no more. I also recommend that you drink a pint or two while reading.

I teach comic fiction, and this is one of the funniest novels I know. It has been years since I was so sorry to see a book end. It is, however, far more than a collection of laughs. Like the work of other Irish masters from Swift and Sterne to Beckett, Flann O'Brien, Patrick McCabe, and Martin McDonagh, Boylan's novel continually blends the comic with the dark, revealing profound connections. He provides, for example, access into the minds of terrorists, from Irish ultranationalists to Basque separatists, yielding insights you will find nowhere else. His characterizations are masterful, and, like Sterne, Joyce, and Beckett, he is also a great formal innovator. I will never again consider teaching my Irish Comic Writers course without this marvelously rich novel.

This was an excellent, intense account of a unique king's biography. I read this book to get more info on William the Conqueror, but now I'm obsessed with Harold II. A must-read for history buffs.

In terms of English history,not much is ever really said about Harold. Those who are looking for an informative and surprisingly entertaining work on the Monarch should look no further.

Ian Walker has left no stone unturned in the telling of Harold Godwineson and his family. Starting from his grandfather and father and ending with his grandson becoming the prince of Kiev.
After reading the book, you come away with a sense of the time that he lived in and more importantly a sense of the man. Walker is also very good at surmising how certain decisions and choices that were made having an effect on the people at the time. Case in point the effect of how Harold's contemporaries veiwed his oath breaking to William. Few historians are able to do this.

The author does love his dates and locations, but he is very thorough when it comes to extended family. Also and most importantly, he writes with a point. Instead of going off on a half page tangent, Walker writes in brief and consise paragraphs. When a major player such as William, Tosti or Harald Hardrada comes along, he writes a full chapter.

I have been looking for a book on this king for long time and this has surpassed my expectations. A definite "must-have" for English Monarch and Anglo-Saxon enthusiasts.

Everyone who takes English history probably remembers 1066, William of Normandy, the Battle of Hastings, and King Harold; essentially the date, the location and the leaders of the combatant armies. Some may remember that the fight was over the right of succession to the throne of England after the heirless death of King Edward the Confessor. A few may even remember that Edmond Halley's famous comet made an appearance just beforehand, creating great consternation that was immortalized in the Bayeux tapestry. For most, Harold's reign seems almost a foot note, hardly more than an intermission before the main event of the Norman conquest. With William and his successors come castle building, classic knighthood, feudal society, all the "romance" of the middle ages. Harold is so often treated as a cipher to all of this that the true drama of this transitional age is often lost on the student. Harold is just "the loser."

Ian Walker's book brings this period more into focus. He approaches his subject by examining, not only Harold's own life and career, but that of his grandfather and father, creating a sense of the venue for the events of the Conquest. Harold is no longer just "the loser." He is a powerful and intelligent warrior, dealing as often in diplomacy as in bloodshed, able to play the chess game of power politics in a very turbulent time. He was in fact "the last Anglo Saxon king," and his time, like the withdrawal of the elves from Tolkien's Middle Earth, is the end of an era. His predecessor Edward was the last of the line of Alfred the Great, the king who had wielded the tiny Anglo Saxon kingdoms into the one kingdom of England. William and his successors would turn the island into a developing nation state striving for a place in a world among other rising nation states.

I found particularly interesting the author's approach to the period as one of a family biography. Harold was not just a famous figure in history, he was a member of an ambitious extended family. Like the Borgias in a later time and place, Harold's father and his grandfather played major roles in English political life during the years preceding the Conquest, as did he and his brothers in their own time. Walker follows these careers, because it is the net created by their liaisons that defined the period. Pull out any of these lynch pins, and the history of the era would have been vastly different. Interesting too were the careers of Harold's children, who went on to carry the family into succeeding generations of international leaders. I have often wondered what the fates of descendants of famous people have been. What did happen to Cleopatra's surviving children for instance? At least in this instance, more is documented about Harold's children which gives a sense of closure to Walker's book.

Thoroughly enjoyable and informative study.

This book has enough detail and judicious use of sources to be of great use to the academic historian, while the author's lucid writing style and the sensible structure of the book will no doubt make it accesible to the interested layperson. Well done!

This is a great book for anyone interested in the mysterious and obscure events of England in the year 1066. Walker does a great job, trying to bring Harold Godwinson to life.

I was recently in London to hear Dr. Diamond speak and was astonished at the literary intelligence of the English. They really loved this book! I think it's such an important work, and wish that every student of literature could look at the classics in the way Dr. Diamond looks at them- for their life energy raising properties.

Blake is always beautiful, and more profoundly so in the style Diamond has laid his words out.

I have always loves Blake - in particular the facsimile editions with Blake's watercolor designs bordering the beautiful copper-plate text, but nowhere have I been struck by the power of his writing to the extent that I have by this volume. The layout that Dr. Diamond has chosen adds immeasurably to the force of Blake's words. The imagery in these passages leaps off the page, and the reader is given a compelling sense of the creative visions that must have inspired Blake to write.

This is a wonderful collection of Blake's later poems is specifically edited to enhance their therapeutic power and comprehensibility. This anthology, more than any other I have come across, helps to make these obscure works accessible; and the layout and punctuation has deepened my experience of them.

What a wonderful book! I highly recommend it as an introduction to Blake. I had read his "Songs of Innocence and Experience," but I did not know his prophetic writings were so powerful. I also enjoyed the humor found in extracts from Blake's letters and other writings. Phrases from the poems come back during my quiet moments, inspiring me with their beauty, imagination and fire. Dr. John Diamond has done a beautiful job in selecting and laying out the passages. His introduction is also stimulating and insightful. In addition, the book is well produced -- it is put together with friendliness and care. (And the cover is exquisite -- worth the price by itself!)

I love this book. I keep it by my armchair and open it when there's a quiet moment. And when I do, the power of Blake comes to me and helps me throughout my day. Only Blake speaks with such passion and strength, and his poetry is presented here unadulterated by titles, footnotes or page the poetry in landscape format so that Blake's long lines need not be broken. Whatever your previous experience of poetry, this book will enhance your life in a way that only such a distillation of Blake could achieve

Yet again, J Ridley takes the reader on a remarkable journey, guiding you through the maze of factual background without ever letting your hand go. His mastery of the English language and notable training as a barrister make him the best narrator of the century.

Ridley is brilliant as ever. In his masterly style, he portrays both historic detail and periodic insight in such manner that the reader is captivated from the first page onwards. The ongoing battle with Lady Antonia Frazer's biography is a delight (especially when historical inaccuracies in her biography are condemned to footnotes). A book one cannot put down for a single moment.

Ridley paints a picture of a King who is as ruthless a tyrant as any 20th Century dictator. Henry VIII is shown as a ruler who forced his ministers to do his bidding and then executed them to satisfy public opinion, once his policies began to loose popular support. He would stop at nothing to get what he wanted, including breaking with the Pope in Rome and reforming the Church in England with him as the head, when the Pope refused to grant him an annulment from his wife, who could not give him a male heir. Thereafter, Henry played Protestant and Catholic factions against each other, so that he could remain in complete control as an arbiter; alternatively burning influential Protestants as heretics and Catholics who refused to recognize him as Supreme head of the Church of England as traitors. Ridley's picture shows us a king who would stop at absolutely nothing to get what he wanted, including turning society and 1000 years of religion completely upside down! A fascinating look at the Stalin of the 1500s!

Sometimes appearances can be deceiving. When I first received this book and saw how HUGE it was (and in small print, yet), I thought I was in for a long, tedious and boring read. In other words, the kind of book that you start but it becomes harder and harder to keep reading until you finally give up way before the ending.

To my surprise, this book engrossed my attention from day one and became impossible to put down. Jasper Ridley has done a masterful job of giving us a very detailed biography of one of the most memorable kings in history. Unlike so many other books about Henry, Ridley refuses to monopolize the subject matter with sensationalistic details revolving around Henry's wives. Instead, he concentrates on the much more important religious, political and social aspects of his reign.

I think this book captures the true essence of Henry VIII--a tyrant, selfish, arrogant, and demanding. A person who in almost every instance was able to manipulate people into doing his dirty work for him. An individual who could play tennis with a subject he considered a "friend", such as Thomas More, and then easily have this bosom companion executed without nary a shred of remorse whenever it would serve Henry's advantage to do so. One of Henry's most popular practices was to sail the Thames surrounded by women and fawning courtiers while a former close advisor, friend etc. was being executed. This king was a master of disguise, making it appear that he had little or nothing to do with distasteful events and absenting himself from the controversy at hand.

The author mentions early on that, in effect, while gazing at the famous Holbein portrait of Henry VIII in all his glory, people were mesmerized by the majesty as portrayed in the painting. What they did not notice were the hard, unfeeling and pig-like eyes that were barely visible in the already bloated face. If the eyes indeed are the "windows of the soul", Henry was a very cruel individual indeed.

Although his reign was extremely productive in many ways, such as his interest in solidifying England as a naval power, the most striking aspect is, of course, the religious break with Rome. Here too, Henry waffles back and forth as the winds blow. To say this was an achievement is merely subjective; it began a period of intense religious misunderstandings which resulted in the deaths of untold innocent people who refused to accept this or that form of religious belief and worship. As such, I cannot classify Henry's break with Rome as a positive issue. I am not religious, and therefore perhaps not qualified to judge this. But the results of this action are being felt well into modern times. It is a subjective issue as to whether this extreme action on his part set his country and Europe on the right course.

As initially stated, do not be put off by the size of this book. It will engage your attention and provide a picture of Henry (essentially minus the much touted wife leaping) that probably comes closest to what this famous monarch was actually like.

Jasper Ridley's bio of Henry VIII, if nothing else, suggests to me that executioners must have had a steady employment during early 16th-century England. In Ridley's biography, England's formative king is essentially a psychopath, and the country became Protestant, not because of any doctrinal attachment to the Reformation, but as a consequence of political machinations and goals on Henry's part. This, in fact, is one of the book's great strengths; Ridley is rare among biographers in his thorough attention to and excellent summary of the thicket of political events surrounding Tudor England, and this book does an excellent job of explaining these intricacies. Especially fascinating was the depiction of the conflict between Henry and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Henry would have probably gotten the papal annulment that he wanted to dissolve his marriage to Katharine of Aragon, if only Charles had not effectively controlled the pope and been such a bitter enemy of Henry's; then Henry would have found no need to break from the Catholic Church, and history would be entirely different! For a Renaissance monarch, Henry seems more to resemble one of the 20th century's bloodthirsty dictators in this book. While the depiction initially surprised me, Ridley backs up his claims with such excellent documentation and use of primary sources (which I was able to check), that he definitely has a point! A fascinating bio.