Irish Books

I was most touched by Queen Elizabeth, seeing that all her life she has had to put country and duty first. I felt heart broken for her with her treatment from her husband and his bad behavior, but at the same time could understand that it was most difficult for him as well, having to give up all his hopes and dreams. I also learned how Diana threatened the monarch with her behavoir, something I never understood until now and I felt differently about the whole thing, and understood both sides. I learned a lot about how royals raise their children and was shocked, but understood that it is how they are raised, and they know no other way. I also learned what the Queen does in official business and just how influential she is. She has earned my deepest respect and I have watched her intereact and must say that when she smiles it is truly captivating because it radiates from her heart. Great book! I highly recommend it.

Sufani Garza
Author

A great book about the Queen. Lots of information, but not too over the top with details and hard-to-understand writing.

Three years ago, I added this book to my too-large collection of books about the Royal Family. I started re-reading it this week when looking up something about her disinterest in clothes while reading the reports of her visit to Australia. Whoever is doing her hats now should be drawn and quartered!

This is an enjoyable book and I can only feel a bit sorry for the Queen. For all of her worldly possessions, she leads a rather dreadful life. Smiling, looking interested, holding flowers, etc. must almost drive her out of her mind! She does a good job of it, though, and for that I give her credit. It's a good show. I've been watching it for over 40 years!

One of the best books on the British Royal Family and on Queen Elizabeth in particular.

Reading this book one can see that Mr. Davies is quite knowledgeable and has done his homework where researching the subject is concerned.

Queen Elizabeth may not be easily amused - and she has every right not to be - but I certainly was highly amused and entertained.

Ever since I can remember I have been fascinated by the British Royal family; watching the weddings of both the Waleses and the Yorks, reading Majesty magazine each month, etc. I bought this book to find out more about the Queen and Prince Phillip. I finished this book within two days and still find myself drawn to it. The depth that the author reaches, describing the Queen's marriage, family, responsibilities, daily life - it is all covered with a thoroughness that makes the reader feel as though they knew Her Majesty personally. Undoubtedly there are other books available that detail Queen Elizabeth II's life, but this one will stand out due to it's ability to draw the reader into the world of this remarkable monarch.

An excellent and amusing description of an english woman's attempt at having a restful vacation on an island off the coast of Scotland.she is so entertained by the place that she returns in her second book 'THE HILLS IS LONELY' to have her own place there.

I've just finished the paperback of"The Sea for Breakfast" and was enchanted by it's gentle humour.This isn't a tale which has you going into great guffaws,but rather,keeps a smile on your face right through the book. Anyone who enjoys rustic humour and quiet wit, will thoroughly enjoy this charming,gentle look at life in the Hebrides.

Anyone who has ever spent time on any of the coastal islands around Britain, and particularly off the west coast of Scotland, will enjoy this tale very much. Lillian Beckwith's real strength lies in being able to recreate the atmosphere of those unique island environments on paper. Like an artist working away with a fairly stiff brush, she paints the people, architecture and wildlife of this Scottish island (to which, she claims, she was only going for a holiday), with firmness and purpose. One wonders how long the holiday really lasted and one suspects a lifetime. These are indeed places to fall in love with: cut off from mainland life to the extent that, even today, forty years after the publication of "The Sea for Breakfast," one can still find a world that is not subjected to the strains and odours of our industrial society. Anyone heading to Scotland should definitely find a copy - it's an amiable text from a competent pen.

The Sea for Breakfast is Beckwith's third book in this series about life on a small Scottish island in the 1950's. Her first and second books, The Hills Is Lonely and The Loud Halo, chronicle her arrival on the island for a summer sabbatical and her subsequent encounters with the local "characters". In this book she buys a cottage and becomes a resident of Bruach. Back are all the lovable and humorous characters of previous books along with several new ones. This book is filled with homely descriptions of the challenges of establishing a home on this wild and isolated island, told with Beckwith's unique flair for finding subtle humor in everyday events. Her growing love for this beautiful island and her grudging respect for the rural wit and wisdom of its inhabitants is expressed with rare articulation. Her descriptions of rustic neighbors and the often hilarious events of their daily lives make this book hard to put down.

The enchantment continues as Ms. "Peckwith" moves into her own cottage by the sea on the island of Bruach. The charm of the villagers is matched only by the vivid descriptions. While she learns the Philosophy of Peats, she brings to the village of dour Calvinists the joy and celebration of Christmas. This is my favorite of the three Bruach books (a book well worth owning!), the author has painstakingly and with an abundance of kindness, portrayed the foibles of the island folks - the lisping Romeo named Hector, the antics of the old men, the gypsies, and cows. A poignant and picturesque escape.

The Sealed Letter is another one of those books I just couldn't put down--and then felt bereft when I finally finished it. Set in London in 1864, the novel is loosely based on a scandalous divorce case, and features facts stranger than fiction: a stained dress (sound familiar?), fabricated evidence, and scandal more scandalous than the sensationalist novels of the period. It's a novel in which supposed friends turn against one another, in which servants even turn against those they serve.

Helen Codrington is a wife and mother, born and bred abroad, who craves some excitement in her life. Never thinking of what might happen, she embarks on an affair with Captain David Anderson. Late in the summer of 1864, Helen runs into her old friend Emily "Fido" Faithfull, a crusader for women's rights, who's surprisingly... conventional, all things considered. When Harry Codrington finds out about Helen's affair, however, the lives of these three characters change drastically. The novel's point of view vacillates between Helen, Fido, and Harry.

It's a stunning, well-written book, which explores the way in which lies affect the lives of each of these characters. It's also a fair representation of mid-Victorian mores; although it's tough for us today to understand, divorce was much, much more scandalous and socially crippling in an era that placed a focus on the family and the woman's role in that family. It's strange, too, to a modern reader, the laws that governed divorce in 19th century England (for example, the two primaries were prohibited from testifying). Each of the characters is well-written, and Donoghue gets into the minds of each of the main characters with ease. She never tries to infuse this book with a modern sensibility. It's a compelling book that I couldn't stop thinking about between sittings and after I'd finished.

My only problem with this otherwise superb novel is the fact that the letters are all written in a cursive script that's hard to read. But that's only a technicality.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has read any of Emma Donoghue's earlier novels that The Sealed Letter is an astonishingly well written and compelling novel. Based on a notorious nineteenth century divorce case, The Sealed Letter explores ideas about friendship and feminism, marriage and motherhood, honor and dishonor with wit, compassion and eloquence. I will call The Sealed Letter a courtroom drama as long as you promise not to imagine for a moment that there is anything of the formulaic in Donoghue's sure hand. A book to read and reread, to savor for its language and its history, its compelling characters and heart-stopping plot. An altogether worthy successor to the extraordinary Slammerkin and the splendid Life Mask.

Based on a true story, this novel starts out a bit of a sleeper, but subtly grows into a tour de force, a remarkable expose of misplaced affections and romantic hubris. When Emily "Fido" Faithful is approached on the streets of England by long-estranged friend, Helen Codrington, and the two discover their falling out is due to a series of misunderstandings, the friendship is given another chance. Helen, 36, is married to a military man twenty years her senior. After their first years of marriage on their Malta post, the couple returns to the continent, Helen's bitterness and disappointment difficult to hide; Helen is squired around town by young military man, Colonel David Anderson. Nor has Fido been idle in the intervening seven years of the lost relationship, an independent new woman who proudly embraces her role as a leader in feminist causes. Learning that Helen has a problem with her attachment to Anderson, Fido determines to save Helen from her baser self: "A gentleman is always a gentleman unless a lady forgets to be a lady."

At this point the novel detours into the Victorian minutiae of women's successful projects for increasing their roles in society, Fido spearheading a definitive, if not lucrative newspaper to speak for relevant causes. She is surrounded by a bevy of like-minded souls, all caught up in the passion of their mission, none more so than Fido, who is a creature devoid of the experiences that so define Helen Codrington's daily life and pursuit of romantic entanglements. A strict moralist, Fido is easily seduced by Helen's insincere entreaties to help wean the married lady away from temptation. Fido takes this task seriously, only reluctantly realizing that Helen is remarkably duplicitous, trading on their former friendship to use Fido's home as a trysting place with her not-so-platonic lover. Her righteous outrage invoked at Helen's cynical abuse of their relationship, Fido is furious and conflicted.

The monstrously diabolic Helen is an iconic masterpiece in Donoghue's clever hands, an instinctive manipulator of those she wishes to control, to bring to her cause or destroy by whatever means necessary. Once hooked, Fido becomes the unwilling pawn in a sensational divorce trial, all she has worked for subject to derision and calumny: "She's plain Miss Faithful of the rectory again, wheezing with fright." An outraged husband has suffered his final humiliation, requesting the court's intervention, the public privy to the sordid details of the Codrington marriage. And the public's appetite is inexhaustible, nothing too specious to deter avid consumption. Faced with the loss of her daughters and her reputation, Helen is reduced to fighting back in the most demeaning circumstances, her husband favored by the law, "a blunt instrument".

The title is a tipping point in a courtroom drama that captures the imagination of citizens rich and poor, a grand gamble that yields a most shocking denouement. The result: truth is the victim of circumstance, a pitiful forum distorted by each side in a brutal battle that leaves everyone stained, society's moral anvil falling on the protagonists in Donoghue's excellent novel: "History moves by fits and starts; certain battles must be fought again and again." Luan Gaines/ 2008.

This summer seems to be a time of novels for me. There's been a particular abundance of riches where historical settings have become popular again, and I have been eagerly reading my way along. Today's choice was a vivid, insightful story built around a Victorian scandal -- the divorce.

Nowadays, a divorce hardly seems to cause a ripple in our society, but in the nineteenth century, a divorce was a very public, very messy, and unpleasant experience. In her new novel, The Sealed Letter, author Emma Donoghue explores the impact of such a decision on one middle class family, through the eyes of the husband and wife, and their friend, Emily Faithfull.

Nicknamed 'Fido' as much for her character as her last name, Fido meets up with an old friend suddenly in a London street. It's been more than seven years since she's seen Helen Codrington, and in all that time Fido hasn't seen any communications from her. It's more than a surprise for Fido, it's a shock to see her old friend.

Helen hasn't changed a bit. Away with her husband in Malta, Helen is still the gay, charming woman that she has always been. She claims that she never recieved any of the letters that Fido has sent, blaming it on the wretched postal system of that distant island. And she seems to be eager to resume her friendship with Fido. Despite her misgivings Fido is glad to resume that friendship as well.

For Fido is unusual among women in Victorian London. She has remained single, working in the Cause of equal rights and opportunities for women in both the home and workplace. She has set up her own printing business, The Victoria Press, and has even been granted the distinction of a royal warrant.

Finally, there is Helen's husband, Henry Codrington, an admiral in the British navy. He's served with distinction in the Fleet, and now has been rotated home to a desk job. While he's chafing at not being able to serve aboard a ship, he's trying to make the best of it.

Through the thoughts, actions and letters of these three, the reader gets to have an intimate view of a Victorian marriage, where husband and wife were restricted by social norms, intimacy was rare, and especially reputation was considered important. Women had few rights, and many seem to be content with their lot, spending their days in social calls, raising their children, and charitable work. For Helen, her days are frivolous, spending too much money, avoiding her husband, and making attempts to be a mother to her two daughters. She makes choices that are impulsive at best, and one is about to bring her comfortable world to an end.

I don't want to reveal much more. I have to say that Donoghue's writing is wonderfully evocative of the period, filled with details of life for the well-to-do, the customs of the time, and most of all, the minds of three people in a very complicated relationship. All three of them are given very distinct voices and motivations and I found their story to be both compelling and heartbreaking. The author does what very few can manage -- make you both sympathetic to the plight they are in, and at the same time make you cringe at what they do and say.

Helen in particular is a very conflicted character, with behavior that infuriated me at times, and while I couldn't look away from the impeding doom, I did keep hoping that some sort of miracle would happen. As for Fido, she is an unusual heroine, very different than most subjects of historical fiction being not at all pretty, not looking for a life-partner, and having determination to find her own future -- on her terms.

There is one glaring error in this book, and as it is a technical one, not one in style or narrative, it's a minor one. The typeface used for the letters in the story is a very difficult one to read at first, rendered in a flowing, cursive font, with plenty of flourishes. Very pretty perhaps, and a nice conceit, but very hard to read at first.

For those readers who want to read something that focuses on a story that is revealing and entertaining, this is an excellent story. The author has an afterword that discloses a surprise, and one that I won't spoil -- you'll just have to find out for yourself.

There is no doubt that divorce is a blame game at the heart of it. Nor is there any doubt that there is a single person in this country who hasn't had experience with divorce in some way-either personal experience or from their own or their parent's divorcing or friends, family members or neighbors. Hey, we even get to participate vicariously in celebrity divorces these days. Since divorce was first legalized hundreds of years ago it has morphed from a rare and tragic event to just another method of mass entertainment and ultimately a way to feel superior to those who failed at what is culturally viewed as one of the most important inter-personal relationships.

It's not all that rare to read about divorce in historical fiction, especially because of the huge amount of fiction focused on the Tudors. But it is rare to get a truly complete description of the historical process, which obviously differs greatly from today's proceedings. And that is exactly what "The Sealed Letter" is. A complete description of the divorce process as it was in 1864. The novel is even arranged in legal terms that describe each one of the processes leading to the proceedings being initiated and the circus that followed them.

This book tells the story of an extremely notorious divorce in English history that captured the attention of the country. Containing multiple allegations of adultery, neglect, alienation of affection, sex in public, attempted rape of a drugged, innocent virgin, and even allusions to lesbianism and circumstances that bear remarkable similarity to the impeachment case against President Clinton. I have no doubts that were the case of Harry Codrington versus Helen Codrington happening today that it would generate just as much interests.

But it wasn't the actual divorce case that made this novel so interesting-especially to me. It was the characters and the time period. The book is divided up in third person narrative between the three main players in the divorce (in actuality the divorce has three or four parties to it but one of them never appears in the book and one never narrates) Harry, Helen and Emily "Fido" Faithfull. Seven years before our story begins these three lived under the same roof with Fido, as Helen's best friend, often mediating to keep the troubled and obviously miss-matched marriage together. But as Harry was a navy man the Codrington's were posted abroad and Helen and Fido lost touch.

Only to re-connect later on a London street, almost as if by magic. The two attribute their lack of communication to a poor postal system and pick up where they left off-with one major difference-Helen has a constant tagalong now, a handsome young man Colonel David Anderson. It soon becomes apparent to Fido that something is going on between them and her supposedly bosom friend is being less than honest about it.

But as Helen's true personality and secrets unfold all three are drawn into the strange divorce process the Victorians used. What follows is fascinating not only from a historical perspective about gender politics but as a measuring stick to how well you can ever truly know your friends, your spouse...and how fragile trust, bonds and vows really are.

Unlike Emma Donoghue's other historical novels Slammerkin and Life Mask, "The Sealed Letter" only implies sexuality and is in no way descriptive of lesbianism, sex or violence. But this newer demur writing style takes nothing away from the story (though I have to say I found "Life Mask" more interesting because of its larger scope) and this book will be joining the above mentioned and Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins on my bookshelf.

Four point five stars.

And if you want more about the historical divorce process then Stealing Athena: A Novel is a good place to find some more non-Tudor legal action-though it is far from the main focus of the book.

Marjorie Randell's recollection of her life growing up in a close-knit family on a Michigan farm, and her subsequent heartbreak of losing her brother and the search for meaning in his death is both sentimental and memorable. She captures the innocence of the mid-West that was torn apart as her brother, and other small town boys, were thrust into the horrors of war. The story shifts with her brothers letters - both from his service days, and then more harrowing,when he was a POW. Through his letters, we see a boy turn into a man, and at age 23, we see how his death aboard a Japanese war ship at the hands of American bombers brought agony and questions to a family back home. Sweet recollections of an innocent time lost, and the loyalty of a sister that looks for answers, even 60 years later.

I just finished reading Searching for Friday's Child for the second time. Each time I couldn't put it down until I finished.
Searching for Friday's Child is more than a portrait of an intelligent sensitive young man, it is a book about warm human relationships. Although Jack, a prisoner of war being transported from one Philippine Island to another or perhaps to Japan by the Japanese aboard the Shinyu Maru, died in his early twenties (a result of the torpedoing of the Shinyu Maru by an American submarine toward the end of Second World War), he lives in this book! It is clear from his letters to his family, his girlfriend and to his friends that we all lost a person who had much to offer to those he loved and cared about and to society.
Jack's words, through his letters, show us that he had a gift for writing and storytelling, as does the author, his younger sister. Searching for Friday's Child tells us of the author's emotional journey to find her brother, to discover things about him she hadn't known before, on an intimate level that I haven't found in any other memoir, autobiography or biography about the courageous soldiers of World War II. I highly recommend this book.
Nancy Sampson, Woodbridge, VA

Marjorie Randell's recollection of her life growing up in a close-knit family on a Michigan farm, and her subsequent heartbreak of losing her brother and the search for meaning in his death is both sentimental and memorable. She captures the innocence of the mid-West that was torn apart as her brother, and other small town boys, were thrust into the horrors of war. The story shifts with her brothers letters - both from his service days, and then more harrowing,when he was a POW. Through his letters, we see a boy turn into a man, and at age 23, we see how his death aboard a Japanese war ship at the hands of American bombers brought agony and questions to a family back home. Sweet recollections of an innocent time lost, and the loyalty of a sister that looks for answers, even 60 years later.

Howard "Jack" Irish was born to Michigan farm life. His family was close, his friends were true. He was a 4H lad, strong and faithful. He went to college, joined the ROTC and was drafted after he graduated in May of 1941. He was commissioned a lieutenant after training and sent to the Philippines. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December and all of a sudden Jack's sweet duty in the tropics evaporated like steam on hot pavement.

Jack saw action on Corrigador before he was captured by the Japanese. He endured life as a POW as well as anybody could, but sadly he lost his life in September of 1944, while being transported along with 749 other prisoners of war on the Japanese freighter Shinyo Maru. The Shinyo Maru was torpedoed by the USS Paddle. The sub's commander had no way of knowing the POWs were on board.

It all happened so long ago, but Marjorie makes it seem like only yesterday, so timeless is her writing. Jack was her brother and she lovingly tells this story through the numerous letters written by Jack to his family and friends before the war, the all to brief correspondence between Jack and his family after his family discovers he has been taken prisoner and the volume of letters between Jack's mother and different officials as she relentlessly sought to find out what happened to her son.

This book is so well crafted that at times it seemed as if I was reading a novel as I read the night away. I should have read the book long ago and I'm ashamed to say that that I did not, for you see, Marjorie's Uncle Ray was my grandfather. So many of the characters in her book have passed away, as has my father, Jack's cousin, who fortunately survived the war. Soon all the people from that time will have passed this mortal coil, but thanks to people like Marjorie Randall, who can tell a story without making it seem like dry history, there will be those of us left behind who remember.

Reviewed by Vesta Irene

I read this book in the past few days, only days after the beginning of America's 3/03 war with Iraq, which may be a partial explanation of why I found "Searching for Friday's Child" such a compelling read.

The book begins with the author's recollection of growing up on a Michigan farm, with her parents, and her brother, "Jack", four years her senior. We are then provided with copies of her brother's letters to home, and to his girlfriend, while he attends Michigan State College, when he is called into the Army Air Corps, from bootcamp, then when he is sent to the Philippines only months prior to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 and Japan's simultaneous attack on the Philippines.

As of 12/7/41, the letters from Jack stop, and we are treated with reply letters to Jack's family from U.S. military, the Red Cross, etc., as the family is desparately trying to find out what's happened to Jack, with the advent of the US/Japanese war. Subsequently, the family learns Jack is a POW in the Philippines, but they cannot find out how he is, whether he is alive, healthy, or been a victim of the myriad of attrocities committed by the Japanese solders in the Philippines upon our servicemen, as well as the Filipinos.

Jack's family is advised of the POW camp within which Jack is held, and advised they should continue to write Jack as he may receive their letters. They do continue to write, but have no way of ascertaining if Jack is receiving any of their letters. After several months, they receive the first of about four "postcards" from Jack, from the POW camp, but these tell little of Jack, as little can be said due to censorship by his captors.

Ultimately, the family is informed that Jack was aboard a Japanese ship, one of 750 POWs being transported in September 1944 by the Japanese to another island, or perhaps Japan, that on September 7, 1944, that ship is torpedoed by the US during which 83 POW's swim to shore and are rescued by Filipinos, and ultimately returned to the US. Unfortunately, Jack was not one of the lucky ones. Thereafter, he is listed as Missing In Action(MIA), and again the family has no way of knowing if Jack is alive or dead, whether he drowned, was shot by the Japanese, who were murdering all visible POWs after the torpedo struck, or whether he somehow survived.

We are then treated to many letters from several surviving POWs, some who knew Jack, were his friends at the POW camp.

This is a wonderful historical account of a family's desparate, yet compassionate, attempts to try to find out about Jack's well-being, his life during those years, anything to fill the gaps. It begins primarily with the efforts of Jack's mother, but is continued with those of the author, his younger sister, efforts which continued all the way up the late 1990's, over fifty years after WWII.

We are treated to the insights of several POW's, their own accounts of life in a Japanese POW camp, their accounts of life with Jack, Jack's excellent accomplishments in the Army Air Corps, his unique skills with operating anti-aircraft artillery, his command's success is shooting down 15 Japanese aircraft, which as I recall, was a record during the war.

By the time one completes Searching for Friday's Child, one feels one knows Jack Irish, his mother, father, and certainly his sister, the author, she who joined the U.S. Marines Reserves during WWII. One is certainly treated to a wonderful account of a close-knit family's quest during unimaginable times of the tragedies of war.

This is a wonderful read. I highly recommend it.

Regards,

Frank Rankin
Sacramento, CA

I picked this up from my library one day to read over the summer, and I'm so glad I did. It didn't take me that long to read, because I really got into it. It is the story of a girl who's family are Travelers, like gypsies. They don't have real jobs, and they don't have permanent homes. They basically make their money by ripping people off and taking their money while doing odd jobs for them or selling items to them.

The main character Bridget starts o question whether the life of a Traveler is the one for her. She has always wondered what it would be like to live in a real house and get an important job, and have a normal family. She wouldn't have to constantly be on the run, and she could go to the same school for more than a year and make real friends. The main character also feels a bit guilty sometimes about living this dishonest life of ripping people off.

Meanwhile, Bridget is engaged to her older brother's friend Patrick, which was arranged by the parents of both families. Patrick is nice enough, and he's really hot, but Bridget wants to make her own choices about who she marries.

Then, later in the book when Bridget finds out that her family has kept a secret from her, Bridget has to make an important decision about what kind of life she wants for herself.

The ending was good on one hand, but on the other hand, I was upset with it. However, this is a great book that I recommend checking out from the library. It was interesting to learn how the "Travelers" lived.

"See you Down the Road" is an interesting story about a girl named Bridget who lives as a "traveler" or person who lives in a trailer and lives on the road. This book is filled with plot twists and turns, as well as heartbreak and hope, as Bridget questions whether the traveler lifestyle is right for her. She wonders who the mysterious woman her mother is always talking on the phone with could be. Bridget also questions her families values as they shoplift and steal from various stores and people, in order to bring in their income. She also wonders if her boyfriend Patrick is the right guy for her or not. As Bridget struggles with these questions about her life, the story moves along at a very fast-paced speed and keeps the reader intrigued throughout the whole journey. I reccommend this book for readers ages 13 and up, for it has some mature themes, but is still targeted for teenagers and young adults.

I really, really loved this book. I learned a lot about another culture even while reading about characters who seemed like very real, typical teenagers. The book asks a lot of difficult and intriguing questions, and it's never predictable. There are lots of surprises throughout the book. I hope to read more by this author!

Bridget and her family are Travelers. They're a little-known group of people in America who travel around the country, making money in usually illegal ways, and keep to themselves, with their own traditions and way of life. People who aren't Travelers are called Country, and Travelers usually isolate themselves from these people. They don't trust them, and only interact with them to scam money off of them. Travelers only go to Country schools for a few years, just long enough to know what they need to.

Bridget is a little different from many Travelers in that way. She works Country jobs, as a cashier, and she's been going to Country schools years longer than most other Traveler teenagers. Still, though, she keeps to the Traveler way most of the time. She and her friend, Ann, make their money by ripping off the local K-mart in whatever town they're in. Her parents have arranged a marriage for her, with Ann's brother, Patrick. Her brother, Jimmy, has grown up helping their father fix driveways and roofs with watered-down sealant to make a better profit by scamming Country people.

Bridget doesn't always like her life as a Traveler. She isn't sure she wants to marry Patrick, even though he's a nice guy and she does like him, but she's never see any way out of it. Then her uncle, Big Jim, takes Bridget, Jimmy, and Patrick with him all the way to Arizona, where they'll pull off the biggest scam that Bridget's ever been involved in. They'll sell condos that don't meet the building codes, and then run off with the money. The beauty of it is, the contractor won't dare tell on them, as he's the one who hired them to sell condos that don't meet building codes.

In Arizona, Bridget has some time to think about a lot of things, and maybe even figure out what she wants. But then she makes a discovery about her family, one that could change everything for Bridget...The choice is hers, but what will she decide?

Before reading SEE YOU DOWN THE ROAD, I had never heard of Travelers. I don't think many people have, but they're real people, and reading about them was very interesting. Their way of life is very different from the way most of us live, and this is an eye-opening book. Many of us don't realize how differently some people live from us, not just in far away places but right here in the United States.

On top of that, SEE YOU DOWN THE ROAD is full of amazing characters, and is very well written. All of the characters are well drawn, realistic, and three-dimensional; even the very minor characters seem alive. The ending is not what we might expect from this sort of book, but it fits well, and is one that I really liked. It wasn't predictable, and it was still a happy ending. Whitney's ending, I felt, stayed true to the characters and flowed with the rest of the story wonderfully.

Reviewed by: Jocelyn Pearce

I picked up Kim Ablon Whitney's See You Down the Road on a Friday evening and didn't want to put it down until I finished it! Not really knowing anything about the Travelers lifestyle before reading the book, I was intrigued to learn about it and to witness Bridget's angst as she struggled with the choices she had to make about staying loyal to her family versus forging a different kind of life for herself. Bridget's character was so believable and I must say I was very pleased by the book's ending! I found myself hoping that there will be a sequel because I really liked these characters so much!
I found the writing to be so descriptive and realistic- I could really envision and feel each of the scenes, which made it a really fun read! I would (and did!) recommend this book to friends!

In his day Byron was the rage of Europe. He was the romantic hero, wild, impulsive, able to indulge his lusts and loves to the end, revolutionary, tormented and tormenting, confined to no law but that of his own impulse and nature. And also a tremendously powerful and skilled writer in many different forms. His fluency and strength enabled him to produce the novel-like longer poems, "Don Juan" and "The Prisoner of Chillon" which outside the academic world are not much read today. Perhaps what readers today most know are some of the beautiful shorter lyrics in this anthology, "She walks in Beauty like the night" being the most famous of them.



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I am not a fan of the English Romantics but I will make a big exception for Lord Byron. He's wild! "Don Juan," parts of which are included in this book, is bawdy and hilarious. Keep in mind that the poem was not considered fit for young ladies to read when it came out...are you tempted yet?

The Dover Thrift Editions are surprisingly well-constructed - they'll outlast, say, your Oxford World Classics paperbacks - and the poems are usually well-chosen. And they're....cheap!

This is a great collection of thirty of Byron's short poems, arranged in chronological order. Everyone should own at least one collection of Byron's work, and at this price, why not make this the one?

Handsome, rich, titled, adventuresome, free-spirited, and even scandalous, Lord Byron was also the most prolific and versatile of the romantic poets. In this collection I was continually surprised as Byron excelled in one genre after another. I give a few examples:

I Would I Were A Careless Child recalls an idyllic life of childhood in Scotland. I wondered whether Lord Byron was truly sincere in his request to 'take back this name of splendid sound'.

Contrastingly, in the short poem Damaetas we encounter an untrustworthy, manipulative child 'versed in hypocrisy' who is soon 'old in the world though scarcely broke from school'.

Stanzas To A Lady On Leaving England tells of an enduring love: 'have loved so long, and loved but one'. Nonetheless, soon thereafter Byron playfully describes The Girl of Cadiz, a beautiful Spanish maiden. We also meet Maid of Athens, Ere We Part and the innocent She Walks in Beauty.

To my surprise, the love poem When We Two Parted devolves into betrayal, broken vows, and deceit.

The Prisoner of Chillon is a chilling fable, a narrative of three brothers, chained to dungeon pillars, and dying slowly. The horrific poem Darkness is imaginative terror worthy of Edgar Allan Poe. And don't be misled by the apparently peaceful beginning to the macabre When the Moon is on the Wave (from Act 1, Scene 1, of Manfred).

The long narrative Beppo is totally different, a playful and amusing story that is enjoyable to read again and again. Dear Doctor, I Have Read Your Play is a humorous, rambling rejection note from a publisher, addressed to John William Polidori, Byron's friend and fellow poet.

I especially liked the two short, sentimental poems So We'll Go No More A Roving and My Boat Is on the Shore.

The Vision of Judgment is a lengthy, humorous satire that is still fun to read today, even though some references to topical events and political personalities are now unfamiliar. (It was probably less amusing to those individuals targeted by Byron.). In contrast, the short poem, Who Killed John Keats?, is sharp satire, not at all amusing.

The thirty-one poems in this 100 page Dover Thrift Edition are quite enjoyable. After reading this short collection, apparently only a small fraction of Lord Byron's creative work, I suspect that you will have little choice but to become better acquainted with Byron's poetry.

This is a great collection of mostly short poems by one of the greatest poets in memory. beginning with "Damaetas" and ending with "On this Day I complete my Thirty-sixth year" these 30 poems, in chronological order, represent a great portion of Byron's work, including portions of Childe Herold's Pilgramage, hebrew melodies, don juan, and manfred. great as an introduction to byron.

This is a wonderful book: at once gracefully summarizing what is known and adding importantly to that store of knowledge, Kastan's book, gracefully and often wittily written, compellingly tells the story of how the plays we love to read reached print -- from their own time even to our own computor age. This is a book that will delight lovers of Shakespeare and also reassure those who are worrying that the age of the book is quickly passing. The beauty of this book alone itself insures this will not be so. Bravo!!

I loved this book. It is beautiful written, even funny in places, is a clear and always interesting account of how Shakespeare made it into print (and what print has done to him since). Anyone interested in Shakespeare and in books will enjoy this and learn from it.

This is just plain fun--or not so plain, but amazingly enjoyable for something so filled with new and surprising information. Kastan writes well, seemingly knows everything that has been written on this vast topic, and makes it accessible and exciting.

this is informative, wittily written, and filled with surprises about how Shakespeare became "Shakespeare"; it is also a beautifully produced book, as one would expect from Cambridge.
The paperback makes a great gift for anyone interested in Shakespeare or in the history of the book, even as that history moves into the digital era. A great buy and a must for any college or good high school library.

Shakespeare as we read him! This is wonderful! hard to believe so much information could be made so available and fun to read. Well written and a good looking book--and the price is right!

I thought Shakespeare of London by Marchette Chute was an excellent biography for several reasons. She wrote in a very readable, engaging style which was easy to follow and understand. Prior to reading this book, I had read a lot of information about Shakespeare. Initially, when I started reading this book I was a little put off by the "just-the-facts-mam" style, but the more I read the more I appreciated the biographer telling the facts she knew without overindulging in assumptions based on these facts, as other more recent biographers have done. I also really appreciated how she fully grounded Shakespeare in his time and place and vocation. As a lit student in college, all I ever heard about was Shakespeare's literary genius as a playwright; the fact that he remained a prominant actor in his company during the entire time he was writing plays was completely glossed over. This book, which never disregards Shakespeare as an actor, was something of a revelation to me. At times I felt her potrayal of Shakespeare as a person may have been a bit naive because she never attributed any remotely bad characteristic to him, but overall, I thought the biography was exceptionally well done. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants solid, unbiased information about the Shakespeare of London.

We know very little about William Shakespeare. He wrote in a time after the invention of the printing press, but before the invention of newspapers and magazines, so the sort of journalism which we rely on today to tell us more than we want to know about the inner lives of show-business figures did not exist during his lifetime.

Anyone who wants to write a full-length biography of this man, one of the greatest writers of our planet, has two choices. She can either make up stuff along the way, as countless Shakespeare biographers have done since the 1600s, or she can stick to the fragmentary facts and fit them into a picture of the social structure and life that Shakespeare lived in. This is what Chute does in her now out-of-print classic, and as readers of this review can see, I think she did a superb job.

Chute's book is superb not only because she is a vivid writer, not only because she tells us why certain things were the way they were, but because she respects the people she is writing about. When she tells us why Elizabethan "players" and their property managers liked tawny-orange dye for their costumes, she not only tells us why they liked it (it was a "color-fast" dye which would not fade) but conveys to us some of the combination of freedom and limits which made up Elizabethan society. The men and women of London were people who, on the one hand, could not buy the color-stable, wash-and-wear clothes we wear without a thought today, but on the other hand, if they could find a good dye or could afford to wear a bright color, they could gaudy themselves up in a way which grownups are too shy to do nowadays. As always, something has been lost and something has been gained, and Chute knows this and doesn't write history on the basis of "look at how many mistakes those poor little people made" or "look at all those great heroes of the past." They are men and women and children who could have learned from us, and we can learn from them. All of them, Shakespeare first among them but not the only one.

Shakespeare of London not only has the most plain old-fashioned charm of any Shakespeare bio I've ever read, it helps make sense of the man and his work using details of the world he lived in and the people he knew in a way that more popular books of the bard just do not. He not only comes alive - he lives up to expectations!

Chute has written a terrific account of a difficult life. Biographies of Shakespeare are difficult in that there is so little known of his life. This is unusual -- and somewhat ironic, given the subject matter -- when one takes into account the Elizabethan's propensity for journaling. But Chute is able to place Shakespeare firmly within his time, making few assumptions, but presenting the known facts of Shakespeare's life in a lively and fascinating manner. She strongly establishes the assumption that Shakespeare was considered one of London's finest actors and also places context around the performance of the plays. What is most fascinating is how Chute gives a glimpse into the contemporary response to Shakespeare's writings. While Shakespeare's "competitors" -- that is, his contemporary playwrights -- may have appreciated the breadth and scale of his writing, to a certain extent, they looked down upon the popularity of his plays. Just like today, the so-called elite of our society tend to overlook those writings or performances that are appreciated by a mass audience.
Where Chute falls down somewhat is that, like so many biographers, she over-apologizes for her subject. In Chute's vivid description, Shakespeare, seemingly, could do no wrong. Time and again, Chute refutes the contemporary criticisms that were made of Shakespeare's writings. Fault can be found in geniuses, as well as hacks.
Her book ends perhaps one chapter too late. After Shakespeare was finished professionally, he retired to a quiet life in Stratford. The only extant writing that refers to Shakespeare's final years are lawsuits that appear with his name. While it does give a minimal sense of Shakespeare's activities, it does not make for very interesting reading and, in fact, places an overemphasis on perhaps meaningless records. But this minimal criticism aside, Chute's book overall gives a wonderful sense of a fascinating person living in a fascinating time.

For some reason I have been obtaining and reading biographies of William Shakespeare lately. This book, and the recent biography by Peter Levi, are the ones I have been most satisfied with.

The real strength of Professor Chute's book is her insistence on placing Shakespeare accurately as one of the most famous ACTORS of his day. On lists of the companies of players he often appears first or second. Now, as Prof. Chute makes clearer than anyone else, this tells us a lot about the man. Prominent actors not only had to be healthy and athletic, they had to be great fencers... the audience expected to see incredible swordplay, not fakery... wonderful dancers... the performance always ended with the cast doing elaborate ensemble dances as well as individual specialties... and expert instrumentalists or singers... the play began with a concert lasting about half an hour. All this in addition to being able to play well a variety of parts (including several parts in the same performance) on very short notice and with very short preparation.

Prof. Chute is sound and grounded about many aspects of Shakespeare's life that lead other biographers to wild surmises. I suspect she is about the only biographer to understand how Shakespeare's marriage worked. No matter how much you have read about Shakespeare, you will find many new insights and perspectives in this book.

On one level this is a carefully researched study of how Shakespeare's plays were translated, adapted, staged and critiqued on American Yiddish stages. For this alone Berkowitz's study is worthwhile, but his passion for his subject, and the wit and flair with which he expresses himself, turn his research into compelling reading. Berkowitz paints the picture of a world in which theater fed the souls not only of intellectuals, but of the working-class spectators who dominated Yiddish audiences. He writes about these audiences with sensitivity and respect, and vividly brings their world to life. I will not give away his conclusions here, but suffice it to say that they are thought-provoking. I highly recommend this beautifully written, passionately argued work of cultural history.

Although this study focuses on Yiddish productions of Shakespeare, it reaches beyond that specific topic to tell several stories at once. One is the story of the development of the professional Yiddish theater. Berkowitz gives a concise explanation of how this arose, both in Europe and in the United States, and vividly describes the Yiddish theater scene on the Lower East Side around the turn of the 20th century. A second story within that story is what he teaches us about Yiddish audiences; the book is filled with fascinating documentation of their responses to these productions. More broadly, he tells the story of the East European Jewish immigrants who came to America in huge numbers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, for their experiences were reflected in the plays they attended, and Yiddish playwrights used Shakespeare to address issues like generational conflict, assimilation, etc. This book should become an instant classic for anyone interested in any facet of Yiddish culture!

When a friend gave me this book, my first reaction was, "Great subject, handsome book--but too scholarly for my blood." Once I started leafing through it, though, I couldn't put it down. Berkowitz writes with flair, and manages to entertain and instruct at the same time. He starts by bringing the reader into the world of late 19th century Yiddish theater in New York City. He vividly describes the theater buildings, the audiences, the actors and the playwrights who made the Lower East Side such a hotbed of activity. Then he takes us on a fascinating ride, organized around the Shakespeare plays that were most successful in Yiddish. This book should be a must on everybody's reading list this summer!

At last, a work of substantial scholarship that can not only enlighten, but actually entertain, the lay reader! For those of you intimidated by the Bard, don't despair; Berkowitz wears his considerable learning lightly, and demonstrates with style and wit how Yiddish playwrights turned to Shakespeare in an effort to "legitimize" the American Yiddish stage. "Shakespeare on the American Stage" benefits from the author's extensive work with contemporary scripts, newspapers, memoirs, and other sources. More importantly, it tells a compelling story of American Jewish immigrants through the prism of the theater--a real treat!

Mr. Berkowitz takes the reader back to the Lower East Side starting roughly 125 years ago to introduce us to the bustling, experimental world where Jewish immigrants controversially sought to achieve credibility for their beloved theater by adapting the works of the most renowned playwright. Audiences packed houses to see the thespianic greats outdo each other in Shakespeare's finest roles. Mr. Berkowitz invokes the aid of play advertisements and theater critics' first-hand accounts in a story about Shakespeare nearly as entertaining as a Shakespearean story.

Percy Bysshe Shelley is undoubtedly one of the double handful of master poets of the English language. He's something more to many of us, a figure of great charisma and daring who spent his life in relentless search of a better way to be than what we're perpetually settling for, politically, erotically, personally. This quest took him into several flavors of exile, and into darker places within; early on he abandoned belief and near the end, some say, abandoned hope. But he wrote what it was like all the way through, and what it should be like, and why writing what it should be like is crucial. He searched always for the road forward, refusing the easy lie of naming the ground beneath his feet that road. Not that he was what we would call an existentialist: his vision of what might prove possible in life marries all the little-but-infinite scenes of love, discovery, and sublimity he'd experienced and never forgotten, and was always at work recasting in stronger and surer words and images.

His most important writings are mid-length and longer pieces. This is something of a paradox as all agree he is anyone's equal as a lyric poet. I recommend his crazy, brilliant early poem "Alastor" as a beginning point. It sketches out the quest he never left off from and gives a heavy, tonic dose of poetry as he conceived it: a stripping off of fear, remorse and all other artificial limits, including those of our very senses, and a dive into the furious streaming colliding fires of the true world to find what's lost there. It's a bit like the visionary journey the astronaut takes near the end of the film 2001. Without the fetus.

This is a great selection, omitting little of importance. The first edition carried all the same poems, but a mostly different set of critical essays. A slightly fuller selection is in print in the Oxford World's Classics series, with less critical apparatus for those who like to go it alone. Shelley's works have a tangled textual history, so I'd advise going with these professional selections and no other (two editions of Shelley's complete works are finally in progress, I'm happy to say).

If you only buy one book of Shelley's works -- make it this one.

This edition contains all Shelley's major poetry, as well as three essays (see table of contents on this page).

The bonus is that, as this is a critical edition, it also contains 15 brief critical essays, which are among the best explications you'll find of Shelley's work. (Since it's a critical edition, the poems are also heavily footnoted, something you'll either love or hate.)

The only downside is that a number of Shelley's shorter and lighter poems are absent (e.g., "Love's Philosophy"), and only a small portion of "Laon and Cyntha" appears here -- but overall the selection is solid. And, like all the Norton critical editions, this is printed on decent paper, eye-straining, tissue-thin stock found in some other volumes.

Perfect for those new to Shelley as well as long-time devotees.

Shelley is the wild child of English poetry and his determined opposition to tyranny produced a huge variety of poetry, ranging from the rending lament of Keats in Adonais, to the defiant and taut sonnet Ozymandias. His single greatest work, however, is Prometheus Unbound, which a vast gothic ruin of neat poetry. One shot of it and you'll wonder why a) all the nice, obvious prosy bits seem to have been left out and b) why exactly you love it, and him, so much. Like a cross between a vision of God and a lobotomy.

It's strange, but he means it and the grand sweep of the poem and its rebirth of humanity (I did say this isn't kitchen sink drama) is as distinctive an experience as reading Milton for the first time or the first time you read a love letter in the bath. Holding an electric fire.

There are many other poems which should be headline news, such as Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, Mont Blanc, Mutability and Ode to the West Wind, but this edition also has the advantage of including the Defence of Poetry which is the most rhapsodic and emotive arguments you'll ever have the pleasure to be swept away by. For a second you want to believe the beautiful nonsense that 'poets are the unackowledged legislators of the world'. Shelley pulls no punches in prose because he hasn't pulled any in poetry. He believes in the prophetic importance of his role and is electric enough to almost make us belive him.

This is the best student edition of Shelley's works in print. Not according to me, but to a Professor in Romantic Poetry at Oxford University. Not a bad recommendation!

The essays in this volume are generally helpful and explain the structures of the poems where useful. They are also refreshingly short. Shelley is a poet who has run close to obscurity due to reams of bad criticism (by figures as famous as Matthew Arnold and FR Leavis) who have mistaken his extraordinary originality for weakness. An easy mistake, I'm sure. Shelley's poetry is all in the mind, and the lack of concreteness can be frustrating. A bit like flying can be so much more tiresome than walking.

This text is a great one, as are all of the Norton anthologies that I have bought over the years. The works it contains are as follows:

Poetry:
"Queen Mab"
"Alastor"
"Stanzas -- April, 1814"
"Mutability"
"To Wordsworth"
"Hymn to Intellectual Beauty"
"Mont Blanc"
Excerpts from "Laon and Cynthia"
"To Constantia"
"Ozymandias"
"Lines written among the Euganean Hills"
"Julian and Maddalo"
"Stanza written in Dejection"
"The Two Spirits -- an Allegory"
"The Cenci"
"Prometheus Unbound"
"The Sensitive-Plant"
"Ode to Heaven"
"Ode to the West Wind"
"The Cloud"
"To a Sky-Lark"
"Ode to Liberty"
"The Mask of Anarchy"
"England in 1819"
"Sonnet: To the Republic of Benevento"
"Sonnet ('Lift not the painted veil')"
"Sonnet ('Ye hasten to the grave!')"
"Letter to Maria Gisborne"
"Peter Bell the Third"
"The Witch of Atlas"
"Song of Apollo"
"Song of Pan"
"Epipsychidion"
"Adonais"
"Hellas"
"Written on Hearing the News of the Death of Napoleon"
"The Indian Girl's Song"
"Song ('Rarely, rarely comest thou')"
"The Flower that Smiles Today"
"Memory"
"To ------ ('Music, when soft voices die')"
"When Passion's Trance Is Overpast"
"To Jane. The Invitation"
"To Jane. The Recollection"
"One Word Is Too Often Profaned"
"The Serpent Is Shut Out from Paradise Lost"
"With a Guitar. To Jane."
"To Jane ('The keen stars were twinkling')"
"Lines written in the Bay of Lerici
"The Triumph of Life"

Prose:
"On Love"
"On Life"
"A Defence of Poetry"

As per Norton tradition, most of the major works and some of the lesser ones have an introduction before them in which historical context is given, major themes explained, and important images or ideas are revealed. This collection also contains twenty-two critical essays by scholars such as Harold Bloom, Michael O'Neill, and Susan J. Wolfson, on Shelley and his life and art, including eleven work-specific critical essays.
What a great collection!

Shelley is a figure of fire; whenever I read any of his works I sense a tremendous energy and vitality, and a great love of life in all its forms.

Shelley lived by the ideals he set out in his poetry and also his radical politics; complete freedom and the embracement of individual choice, and the rejection of all forms of authority which strangled creativity and the human spirit. At the level of his art, this led to Shelley becoming one of the finest poets of the Romantic era and of the English language for all time, but unfortunately in his personal life and his financial situations, disaster.

Always a restless spirit, Shelley was always on the move; he composed some of his finest poems while he lived for a time in Italy. His work covers a wide range from political pamphlets and criticism (such as his essay 'A defence of poetry') to plays and poems of various types and lengths. His most brilliant poems include an Ode to Keats, 'Prometheus Unbound', and 'Queen Mab', a scathing attack on conventional religious values and political tyranny.

One of Shelley's most attractive aspects is his deep love for and sensitivity to the beauty of nature. Shelley was well read in natural sciences and Astronomy and many of his finest poems (including one addressed to a thunderstorm) capture in vivid colour and detail the changes and endless activity of nature.

Unfortunately Shelley died at the tragically young age of 29 in a boating accident related to a storm, caused to a large degree by his own foolhardy nature. But perhaps there was no more fitting an end to such a fiery, unstable and poetically creative man as him.

This edition contains a good sample of his works as well as several critical essays on Shelley and his work.