Irish Books

In 1926 a strike by coal miners in Britain in desperate conditions led to such a wave of solidarity that a general strike resulted. That general strike shut the whole country down and put the workers and farmers in striking distance ( no pun intended) of grabbing the brass ring : taking the whole power over, out of the hands of the Big Boss class ( who are the warlovers-warmakers as well by the way ), and establishing a workers and farmers government , so they could join the world struggle for socialism. They were betrayed by their top bureaucrat union leaders, whose hands trembled at the thought of taking governmental power, and they were betrayed by the party of the most militant , self-sacrificing, solidarity-in-action workers of the U.K. : the Communist Party, or rather its leadership ,obeying the dictates of the soon- to -be -dictator and mass murderer of communists, Joseph Stalin ( who was playing footsie with the union misleaders mentioned above at the expense of the fighting ranks ). In this book by Leon Trotsky, co-leader with V.I. Lenin of the Russian Revolution, you can learn what happened and what could have happened in this almost-revolution. What does this have to do with workers here and now? We who do not yet lead our own unions ? We who need to start seriously resist the effects of the Second Great Depression coming in front of our eyes.? We whose own same-type union tops support Bush and the Democrats' wars- (more coming after Iraq ) for Big Oil and Big Business ? We who have no choice but to start building a working class movement to take the power out of the hands of the "civilized hyenas" ( the superrich ) ? Well, the author of this book would say to ask these questions is to answer them. It has to do with taking back control of our unions to make them fighting instruments, and all of us starting to act like the longshore workers of the West Coast; to act like the coal miners, laundry, garment, and meatpacking workers fighting to get the union in or defend the union they have; following the lead of the most recent example-- the NYC transit workers...

It also has to do with understanding that it is Stalinism, shown in this book to be the opposite of communism, that is dead. Not socialism.

When "Where is Britain Going," the central component of this collection was published in 1926, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that this book contained detailed instructions on how to overthrow capitalism in Britain and the US. This book is still pretty good for that.

Trotsky takes apart the bourgeois liberal, imperialist, and "democratic" illusions about Britain, and shows how in a time of crisis, more and more like the economic and political crisis faced in the US, Britain, and other imperialist countries today, only a revolutionary working class solution is correct. I found his criticism of the philosophy of political gradualism offered by British social democrats and Conservative politicians particularly pointed at both reformist and conservative labor bureaucrats today.

The current editions contains contemporary responses this book by British reformist labor party leaders H. N. Brailsford, Ramsey McDonald, and George Lansbury and philosopher Bertrand Russell as well as Trotsky's responses to their criticism. It also contains 20 pages of reviews of Where is Britain going from bourgeois, reformist, and communist newspapers and magazines from Britain, the US, and Germany.
Just as rich, is "After the General Strike," Trotsky's analysis of the great British General strike of 1926 and its betrayal by Britain's trade union and labor party bureaucrats?

This collection of writings by Leon Trotsky, a central leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution, provides a vivid and incisive analysis of big events in British politics in the turbulent years 1925-28. This was a time when millions of workers grappled with the lessons of the Russian Revolution, while the deep conflicts in the world capitalist economy left unresolved by World War I were pointing toward the renewed slaughter of World War II. I find these are not just interesting historical questions, but remain at the heart of politics in the 21st century with its new economic crisis and resulting drive towards war.
Trotsky's explanation of the decline of the British Empire and the shifting balance of power among the imperialist powers, especially with the rise of the United States, is a model for analyzing the world today.
So are his writings on working class political strategy. Bosses attacks against workers in Britain provoked a near-revolutionary general strike in 1926. However, the course followed by the new Communist Party in Britain, directed by the conservative Stalinist bureaucracy rising in the Soviet Union, failed to advance the struggle towards a workers seizure of power. Trotsky's writings criticizing the Stalinist course in Britain were an early part of his fight against the degeneration of the Russian Revolution-- and full of rich lessons for today.
Check out other writings by Trotsky such as Leon Trotsky on France, The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany, Leon Trotsky on the Spanish Revolution, and The Revolution Betrayed. And for current analysis of the world and working class politics, I'd recommend: Capitalism's World Disorder, Their Trotsky and Ours, and Cuba and the Coming American Revolution, all by U.S. revolutionary Jack Barnes.

It was an absolute pleasure to experience this collection of poetry. Donovan is an outstanding author who knows his trade well. After learning under him at college, I threw away almost all my old poems and vowed to start as a better poet when I am ready. The man and his work are both wonderful.

Donovan is a master at his craft. The Lighthouse Poem's are hauntingly beautiful.

Not to be missed. Donovan explores poetry on a level that few contemporary writers penetrate-this collection spends hardly any time on my bookshelf-it engages me more and more every time I pick it up. Essential for lovers of craft and metaphor.

This book seems to be a wonderful portrayal of a Native American family and community and their culture and history. One point that I appreciate is that the author tried to stay true to the Choctaw cultural activities, arts and lifestyle in the beautiful drawings and text. The author did not meld several different tribal cultures together as a homogenous "Native American culture." The message of the book also helps young readers to respect the sacrifices and values of the tribe, as well as to question the way Euro-Americans treated them in the past. A treasured book.

(I got this book in Dublin, Ireland, recently.)

This is a truly delightful book. The drawings are lovingly created and the story is both touching and well written. What makes it even more compelling is that it is based on a wonderful true act of human generosity over 150 years ago, from one impoverished people to another, who, although worlds apart in both distance and cultures, had a common enemy, in hunger and oppression.

The author travelled to Oklahoma to research the book and has gone to great lengths to ensure the drawings are authentic as well as inspiring. I particularly like the drawings of the great-grandmother and indeed,the clever shadow of the American eagle when Choona raises his arms in the final drawing as well as the subtle, celtic symbols to be found in this same drawing. "The Long March" is a must for the millions of us with Irish-American heritage - every Irish American child should read this book!

In 1847 an impoverished displaced group of Choctaw Indians collected from their meager resources the sum of $170 to send toward food relief for the Irish Potato Famine.

Through the memories of Choona, now known as Tom, who is very, very old, we learn of how he, as a young man, at last learned of that part of his family's history about which no one would speak & yet everyone looked so wounded. The Long March, when his people were forced to walk from Florida to Mississippi all through one fearsome, killing winter.

The Long March is rich in American history & memory. The marvelous drawings create a magically real place. This is a must for anyone who loves looking at other ways to live in community; other ways of teaching the spirit to grow & learning about courage, wisdom & respecting the memories.

An amazing book - to be read & read again & again & the pictures to be studied & dreamed over. Beautifully evocative.

A humorous story published as part of a collection of stories by Wilde in 1891: Lord Arthur Saville's Crime and Other Stories .
At Lady Windermere's final reception before Easter, at Bentinck House, Lady Windermere's chiromantist, Mr. Podgers is quite a hit, telling people about themselves and their fortunes.

The chiromantist tells one Lord Arthur Saville that before he can marry his beloved, he must murder a distant relative. What follows is a hilarious account of Lord Saville's various failed attempts through poison , explosives etc to do the deed, before in despair , he rather murders Mr. Podgers himself.

A typically charming offbeat Wilde story with a twist in the tale.

This is a CBC dramatized interpretation of Wilde's short story. Taped in front of live audience, this is by far the best story- telling that has ever done to Wilde's work. Both music and sound effect are superb, and best of all, the narration and dialogues closely follow the original story. In this respect, CBC has outperformed BBC by a large degree.

Lord Saville one night listens to a chiromantist who tells him he has to commit a crime, whose victim is supposed to be a relative of some kind, before being able to marry his love. The tale is full of humor and shows how he fails, systematically, in his enterprise, because he believes the soothsayer. But the more humoristic the tale becomes, the more desperate Lord Saville grows. Till one night he kills the chiromantist. He has finally been able to rebel against the prediction and this rebellion proves the prediction is a fake. But a second dimension appears in the tale. The chiromantist had been introduced to Lord Saville by some woman who invites such oddities to her parties to amuse the audience. She behaves as if she believed in those ominous birds that she calls lions. And Lord Saville was naive enough to accept this prediction as true and unescapable because it had been introduced to him by this particular woman, in this particular situation. Men must not fall in the traps of social tricks that some women hire to give some life to their social evenings that would be very dull otherwise. Who is wiser? The woman who "animates" her social gatherings with such attractions? Or the man who falls in the trap of believing such predictions? The other tales of the collection are all just as funny by showing how some people are able to go beyond such appearances and reach another level of being that is some kind of game and it becomes a trap to the gullible ones.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan

An amazing and informative tale. My Grandmother was a McDonald and she used to tell me stories of our clan and I never understood why the McDonald clan was so amazing. Growing up in the US, I thought it was a place for happy meals and milk shakes. Not so. Mr. Williams does a complete job of explaining the past history and heritage of Somerled and his sons. Then each chapter after that is dedicated to the life of each Lord of the Isles until there fall due to greed and strife with the Stewart Kings. A must have for all Clansmen of the Clan Donald and a lesson in why the MacDonalds will continue to due great things. Get this book.

The full title of this book is THE LORDS OF THE ISLES: THE CLAN DONALD AND THE EARLY KINGDOM OF THE SCOTS. At first glance, it is far more than its title indicates. It covers a thousand years of history in the Hebrides and the adjoining parts of Western Scotland, first under the Celtic Kingdom of Dalriada beginning around 500 AD; secondly under Viking and mixed-blood Viking/Celtic kingships from around 800-1250 AD; finally under the Lordship of the Isles centered at Loch Finlaggan in Islay until the forfeiture of the Lordship around 1500 AD.

For one who, like me, is enthralled by Scottish history, this is a page-turner of the first order. I first became interested in the Lords of the Isles from reading Nigel Tranter's historical novels; then, I visited the Isles myself in 1999. Now, after having read this book, I feel energized enough to return to Scotland and become even more informed thanks to this excellent history on a subject about which little is known.

One particularly excellent aspect of Williams's book is its detailed coverage of parallel events in Ireland, Norway, and England which affected the Isles. We see such heroic figures as St Columba of Iona, Aedan the Fair-Haired of Dalriada, Brian Boru, Somerled MacGillibride, Angus Og (friend and chief support of Robert the Bruce), and warlord Donald Balloch.

This reprint edition is published by House of Lochar located on the Isle of Colonsay in the Hebrides. It's worth taking some pains to lay hands on this book.

Ronald William's magnum opus is a refreshing example of attention given to a long denied and ignored subject.

The grip of total Anglocentric versions of history is weaking, and this was an early stride into understanding this particular story in a more objective way. I congradulate Ronald Williams on such an outstanding and informative book.

An award-winning director, producer, and screenwriter, John Ryan (Chip) Duncan wrote "The Magic Never Ends" as a companion book to his PBS documentary by the same name (www.duncanentertainment.com). It's the first full-length documentary on C.S. Lewis ever produced in the U.S. and features narration by Sir Ben Kingsley as well as interviews with the various people quoted in this beautiful volume. Duncan has the unique gift of allowing the people he interviews to speak for themselves and then finding the themes or threads that emerge. The book reflects this commitment. It also contains rare photographs of Lewis and his family, as well as more in-depth discussion of the major themes the film explores. A great read and a beautiful coffee-table gift for Lewis fans.

This book, along with Kilby's "C.S. Lewis: Images of His World" and Hooper's "Through joy and Beyond", is essential for those Lewis fans who like to see the actual photos of where is used ot lecture, walk, talk, etc, along with the other key places in his life. With high quality paper and binding, the text is made up in large part by interviews of those who knew Lewis. This is the best book on Lewis to come out in years. Well worth the purchase! Enjoy!

This book is magical. I have been reading C.S. Lewis for quite a few years now. The authors have captured something of why Lewis' books have never gone out of print. The chapter title "The True Myth" alone is more than worth the price of the book.

I love this book. Dryden finds the way to write about really complicated topics in a way that is very clear (and clever).

The blurb's claim that this edition includes all of Dryden's major original poems is not quite true. "The Hind and the Panther", the long and very important poem which marked Dryden's conversion to Catholicism, has unaccountably been left out. This omission would have made this edition worthless if there were any other affordable editions of Dryden.

An irritating feature of the editing is the relentless modernisation, which obscures the metre by dropping elision markers, and spoils the rhyme by respelling "wrack" as "wreck" etc. It is doubtful whether Dryden needs modernisation at all, but it seems unlikely that spelling out "Int'rest" as "interest" or "th'offence" as "the offence" is likely to help any reader.

As for the poetry. Dryden is an exceptionally readable and entertaining poet; his very natural style makes him much more accessible than Milton or Pope. Like Pope, he is a great verse satirist who writes in couplets, but the two poets are otherwise not very similar. Dryden's couplets are less close-packed or self-contained than Pope's, but they move more swiftly and are more energetic. Dryden, unlike Pope, uses the triplet quite often as an amplifying device, and many of his best lines are in triplets:

"I am as free as Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran."

"Thy generous fruits, though gather'd ere their prime
Still show'd a quickness; and maturing time
But mellows what we write to the dull sweets of rhyme."

"A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pygmy-body to decay,
And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay."

This type of verse is fairly typical of Dryden: the statement is direct, unambiguous and forceful; in T.S. Eliot's words, "Dryden states immensely". Dryden's satire is much more like caricature than Pope's; his characters are monstrous and misshapen giants, while Pope's are amazingly realistic dwarves. This is the Dryden note:

With all this bulk there's nothing lost in Og,
For ev'ry inch that is not fool is rogue:
A monstrous mass of foul corrupted matter,
As all the devils had spew'd to make the batter.

The difference is one of genre. Pope's poetry is an idealisation of the letter; Dryden's of the speech or sermon. Therefore, Pope is intimate and delicate, while Dryden is energetic and sonorous. Of course, this is a generalisation; my point is just that they are very different in their methods, and that to expect Dryden to be like Pope (or the other way around) is probably a bad way to start.

Dryden is notable for much more than his satires. His religious poems are very fine; so are his translations, especially of Lucretius, Juvenal, Horace (Ode 3.29), Boccaccio and Virgil. (His version of the Aeneid is probably the best we have in English.) So are his two St. Cecilia's Day songs and the Ode on Killigrew, and especially the splendid elegy "To the Memory of Mr Oldham". And his critical essays, from the "Essay on Dramatic Poesy" to the preface to "Fables", apart from being the first great literary criticism in English, is often very acute and is always written engagingly.

John Dryden is one of those poets who everyone respects and nobody reads. His public poetry often seems out of place to modern readers as he bashes his now obscure enemies and recalls long since forgotten political events. Yet Dryden was the leading figure in British literature for a number of decades. There's a reason for this. He was the master of the heroic couplet and few figures were more influential in taking literature to the common readers.

The Oxford World's Classics edition is excellent. Most of the major poems are there though "The Hind and the Panther" is excluded. This is the most personal of Dryden's poems and you simply can not understand the poet's conversion to Catholicism without it. It is as if the editors prefered to reinforce the common perception that Dryden is the least personal of poets. The introduction needs to be fleshed out and the endnotes are not accesable (they really should have included footnotes). Even worse, Dryden's plays are neglected. Still, one has to concede this is the most accesable version of Dryden out there and this redeems a great deal of its flaws.

The transaction was great. Everything was as it was supposed to be.

One of Blake's fantastic works, with all of the artwork right there with it. This is the first copy of a William Blake book I ever owned and I still love it to death, as small as it is, and read it again and again.

It's great to read Blake is his own typeset. And the book is essential Blake.

David Loades wrote a biography of Queen Mary Tudor fifteen years ago. His earlier work has been revised and looked at afresh in this biography written for National Archives in the UK. His biography has been based primarily on original documents about Mary in the archives - and many of these have been reproduced in this publication as well. Its something that serious historical authors used to do in earlier centuries and its actually welcome to see the practice return as a way of preserving this information if the original is ever lost (and that happened quite a bit).

Loades has come to some unusal conclusions about Mary with a fresh look at her life - but I would also say that this is a very balanced assement of this woman who lived though a bitter divorce and the overthrow of all she loved in her youth. If you have an interest in Mary Tudor this book is one you should pick up.

Bloody Mary

There have been many biographies of Mary Tudor, the British contender against Elizabeth I for the throne of England. History being largely written by the winners, Mary Tudor became notorious for her lethal persecution of the Protestants, her unceasing efforts to deliver Britain to the Catholics, the loss of Calais to the fledgling British empire, and her decades long struggle to gain control of Britain that was to result in years of confinement by Queen Elizabeth and her eventual death at the headsman's axe at an advanced age. In "Mary Tudor: The Tragical History of The First Queen Of England", historian David Loades (Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Wales and an Associate of the Centre for Early Modern History at the University of Oxford) fully explores the dimensions of a complex life in a time of political volatility, religious wars, male domination of government, royal marriages for political advantages, personal devoutness, and a woman who was in many ways stronger than any of the men with whom she associated in her quest for royal power and Catholic supremacy. "Mary Tudor" is an articulate and very highly recommended work of impeccable scholarship that should be a part of every academic library British History & Royal Biography reference collection and supplemental reading list.

David Loades is an authority on Mary Tudor and a fine author. Just a point of clarification on the earlier review, however; the first reviewer confuses Mary Tudor and Mary Stuart, two very different rulers. Mary Tudor was the eldest daughter of Henry VIII and the only surviving child of Catherine of Aragon. She succeeded to the throne in 1553 after her brother Edward VI and died in 1558. She has indeed been criticized for what many consider her overzealous push to return England to Catholicism, but in her defense, she was doing what she thought was right.

On the other hand, Mary Stuart was the cousin of Elizabeth I (who was in turn the younger sister of Mary Tudor and daughter of Anne Boleyn) and was the one ultimately beheaded during Elizabeth I's reign in 1587. It should be noted that Elizabeth I herself was briefly imprisoned by Mary I (Mary Tudor) but was released unharmed.

This is a fascinating period of history and this book is a good starting point to learn more about Mary Tudor's brief and sad reign. Mary Stuart's life is also very interesting and Amazon carries several good biographies on her as well.

A delightful collection of her most beloved poems. A book that inspires as well as enlightens.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox's writings are timeless in their content and in their beauty. Her prose and poetry are lovely and uplifting. Maurine is a beautiful sentimental verse.

If you love poetry, you will love this book and it's author. I have had this book for almost 30 years now and never tire of reading it's poetry. Mrs. Wilcox's work has such a beautiful flow. Each poem instills a sense of goodness about the world around us. This book is also great for school poetry projects because just about every facet of life is portrayed.