Ireland Books

I haven't had time for more than a brief review of both volumes, but since our family from Derrylehan, Donegal, is descended from the O'Daughertaighs of Inshowen, this work is a treasure of infomation of which I have long known but now for the first time have had access to in an excellent translation. I have traced all references to the O'Dohertys in both volumes, but have not yet had time to trace the grandmother's McMahans of Fermanaugh. These books are a big help to anyone wanting to understand the culture of Ireland from the 11th to the 17th century.

A very impressive work, in 2 volumes, hardbound, with four color frontis and the almost forgotten original map of Irish Family locations. The fold out map is about 20 x 25 and is the best of the genre. The Annals by the Four Masters are perhaps the most noted source in Irish history and this was the first translation into English (1846). The formal text is complete from the 12th to the 17th century. In addition, the annotations cover Irish history from the earliest times. We have been waiting for this edition to be published ! (note that Connellans translation preceeded that of O'Donovan.) Helpful index to the old map has been added for the first time. These Annals are in the English language. A few pages have some age markings on them from the original, and it remains a magnificent set of books. All in all, this is one of a kind, with a distinctive color frontis, some celtic lettering, and a map that has been out of print for over 150 years . If you have been waiting for the Annals as we have,
this is a real treat. Connellan, was a leading gaelic scholar, and this first ever translation laid the groundwork for all that would follow in the field.

For the first time, a team of international researchers (one American and two Russians) brings together the story of the armored units of the White Russians in each battle theater. These are the first color depictions of White armored trains world wide. Tanks and armored cars are also examined as well as their impact on the Russian Civil War. Even here, the authors and artist break fresh ground, providing the first examples of tanks and armored cars not seen before, carefully constructed from period photographs and contemporary descriptions. Amazingly, not one of these armored pieces remains inside Russia today in pristine, or indeed, other form. Dr. Bullock has devoted years of collection toward this topic. Mr. Deryabin, son of a famous Soviet general, is literally the founder of studies involving the White Armies. Mr. Aksenov is Russia's most renowned illustrator of armored subjects. Highly recommended. Superb collection and resell value should this edition ever go out of print. Collectors' item!

There are just too few books on the Russian Civil War for my tastes. This book addresses armored forces in the service of the Whites (and if there are few books on the Civil War there are far fewer on the White cause) and the Allies. French and British models shipped in to Russia before Brest-Litovsk and used to fight the Bolsheviks and their bloody cause.

Though small this book is packed with information and uses lots of rare photos.

If architecture is, as they say, frozen music, this series of books should help thaw the ice. Author Sidra Stich, an art historian and curator, traveled extensively during the preparation of these works. Like all good ideas, this one is simple: assemble photos of an area's great architecture and art sites and put them in a small book suitable for travelers. Intelligent histories bring the subjects to life, particularly for those who appreciate art and architecture but aren't experts. Stich covers the territory comprehensively, finding interesting creations in unlikely places--like the M8 highway between Glasgow and Edinburgh, home to Patricia Leighton's organic sculpture Sawtooth Ramps, and a small herd of grazing sheep who keep the art mowed. The guide offers enough insight to help you immerse yourself in the artistic life of your destination. It details where you can find innovative works by new artists and guides you through more obvious destinations, such as London's new Tate Modern. The first two books in the series deal with Britain (plus Ireland) and France. Japan and Spain are next, and the publisher hopes to cover the globe.

In art-SITES: Britain & Ireland, Sidra Stich provides a compendium of galleries and exhibitions of contemporary art and architecture in a unique, "travel planning friendly" handbook format. Readers will learn all about contemporary trends and ongoing artistic activities, identification of places where one can see the most innovative work by leading and emerging international talents, plus in-depth and detailed commentaries on museums, galleries, exhibition spaces, architecture, film centers, public art, sculpture parks, bookstores and festivals in British and Irish cities ranging from London, Oxford, and Cambridge, to Glasgow, Dublin, and Belfast. If you appreciate modern art and contemporary architecture, don't leave home for a trip to the British isles without your personal copy of art-SITES: Britain & Ireland.

This recent collection of poems from Irish poet Mary O'Malley demonstrates the diversity of her talent. Both in style and subject she shows us her world in many different perspectives. The collection contains love poems, stories of experiences and dreams, reflections of the natural beauty of her country, witty criticisms of people, and more. Some poems are short and pithy, requiring the reader to peruse them several times to follow her train of thought. Other, longer works allow the reader to sink down and savor her use of language and rhythm, imagery and sound. Overall a very satisfying collection.

I was enchanted by O'Malley's earlier works, and she hasn't ceased to amaze me as she continues writing. This book isn't as focused as some of her earlier ones (e.g., "Where the Rocks Float"), but the writing is terrific. Her poetry ranges from wry humor (her comments on Connemara-wannabes) to profound reflections on the human condition. The poem on the death of her son's dog brought tears to my eyes (I don't ordinarily wax sentimental over either kids or dogs, but this is way beyond sentimental!), and, as always, her language is sharp and vivid. Although the West of Ireland is the subject of many of her poems, she's not just a "regional poet," and I'd like to see her become more widely known.

Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape has been chosen by the American Conference for Irish Studies as the best book in History/Social Sciences for 1998. Lucy McDiarmid, President, American Conference for Irish Studies

This book explains the Ireland that you are likely to see when you go there. It is a welcome change from the countless "magical/tragical/literary ireland", photography books that are full of pseudo poetic descriptions, photos of freckle faced redhead kids and nuns on bicycles. It demonstrates much of the development of the towns, villages and even the houses in an intelligent and clear manner that explained much even to me, and I lived there for nearly thirty years. It is beautifully illustrated in both maps and photos. If you want a book that is truly informative about the geography and history of the landscape that is also a beautiful to look at you should get this book.

it's a perfect way to get to know them and under stand how they came together. it also has great pics & stories about being on the road.

This book is awsome! It is fully colored and has exclusive pictures of the girls on tour and behind the scenes of some of there videos. It has a lot of information and a sign-up form to join the official fanclub. Everyone get out and buy it!

Justin Romine brings a generous heart and a brave song to Irish myth and history. And a love of family, a love of the people of Ireland and of America, and a love of life.```````````````````````````````````````````````````````Poetry to cheer you when the world grows too weary. Sing a song of freedom, open this fine volume and lift a glass of cheer to bold Justin and his verse. Long may this good bard sing!

"A Bard's Tale" is a very interesting look into the peace process in Ireland and worldwide. Some of the poems are very deep and thought-provoking. Some of the personal poems lean towards sentimentality towards his family, like "Silver-for my parents". Other poems are a look at some of the hero's of Ireland's troubled past, like "For Bobby", a comment on Bobby Sands and his 1981 hunger strike that ended in his death. This book of poetry, although a quick read, is very potent. A strong mix of reality and fantasy with a splash of hope and dreams. A must read for anyone.

I had to look for a long time for a copy of this novel when I wanted to read it last year; it's fantastic that it's been brought back into print in the US and abroad. The success of McG's recent novels Amongst Women and By the Lake/That They May Face the Rising Sun casts a soft light upon his earlier fiction from the 1960s, but this novel is no romantic landscape.

In the bogs of west-central Ireland, a policeman cycles about pretending to do his duty while his wife takes care of the children and waits to find out whether she has a terminal disease. Told in a powerful voice largely from within her consciousness, the narrative style shows amazing assurance for a then emerging writer. The last scene from her point-of-view ranks in my estimation with Joyce's closing of "The Dead."

I heard McG introduced at a reading as the greatest Irish author from the second half of the 20th (and 21st?) century. This is no hyperbole. While his reticence means he is not the showman that Seamus Heaney is, and while his oblique commentary acknowledges the trauma of the past Irish century rather than exploiting it like many of his lesser contemporaries, McG's dignity in the face of 1960s censorship (for subsequent work) commands respect and a renewal of interest in his entire body of work. Read this story and you'll find the ebb of rural Ireland charted precisely.

The late John McGahern wrote incredibly poetic and beautiful novels set in his native country. The Barracks is about a middle-aged woman named Elizabeth Reegan who marries a widowed man with three children. A frustrated police officer with dreams of buying his own farm, and fulfilling the legacy of the Reegans, her husband is a man all but oblivious to Elizabeth and her needs. Already a widower, when he learns Elizabeth has breast cancer he can hardly bring himself to face the reality. When his first wife died his only thought was what a horror it was seeing her in the morgue. Any feelings of love or support are simply beyond him, leaving Elizabeth to deal with mortality on her own.

As she worsens, declining into death, Elizabeth is able to observe the family as an outsider. Already all but a ghost, she watches them go about their daily tasks while inside she's screaming with frustration, hoping for any bit of attention or kindness she doesn't dare ask for.

The Barracks is a heartbreaking novel, and a masterful one. McGahern gets inside the head of Elizabeth, expressing her plight with such empathy it's staggering. The prose is poetic and lyrical. I would even say it's flawless, and as perfect a work of fiction as I've ever read.

What a loss to literature, and to humanity, when McGahern died earlier this year, leaving behind him an award-winning body of fiction. There simply aren't enough contemporary writers out there like McGahern, more's the pity, but that's what made him stand out like a shining light while he was alive. Better to have written like an angel and then been lost than never to have written like an angel at all.

Over the years many books have been written on the culture of fin-de-siecle Vienna, but no one had attempted a similar study of Basel, Switzerland, a city that blossomed as a cultural center during the Renaissance and then slowly faded over the centuries, as peace and prosperity teamed together to eliminate the tensions that make a city into a center of arts and literature. Vienna was done in by the war, Basel by peace.

Lionel Gossman has written an interesting and lively study of the city, choosing to focus on the four major thinkers that mark its last great period in intellectual history: Jacob Burckhardt, Johann Jacob Bachofen, Frans Overbeck, and Friedrich Nietzsche. and how their ideas were ultimately interwoven with the culture and tradition of Basel itself.

Recommended for anyone interested in the history of ideas and the question of not only whether liberty can co-exist with democracy, but can a culture keep alive in a setting that has escaped the tensions of its day, such as revolution, depression and war?

Lionel Gossman seems to be a student of human nature as well as a professional historian, and he is at his best when examining his main characters: the rather delirious Johann Jacob Bachofen (treated here at length); Friedrich Nietzsche (discussed much more briefly but to great effect); and the central figure of Jacob Burckhardt. For more than two decades, Gossman has been wrestling with the confrontation of these men and modernity in the historical theater of 19th-century Basel. This magnificent book is the result. Gossman writes about his characters with a certain wryness that may be born of familiarity, but his enthusiasm for them (particularly Burckhardt) has not been worn down by time or erudition. His style of intellectual history reminded me of that of Joseph Levenson in his trilogy on Confucian China: large-souled yet agile and ready to be delighted.

Burckhardt was a rebel, in his way; thus, in great part, the "Unseasonable Ideas" of the subtitle. As the previous reviewer noted, the issues being dealt with here are very serious ones for us today as they were in Burckhardt's time. There is a rebellious quality to Gossman's own thinking, when he invites us to re-examine some of our received ideas about democracy, culture, education and the well-lived life.

This book is lean and mean.Very little is devoted to the battle itself,because apparently there wasn't much to it,except in intensity.It seems the English didn't have much cavalry and not enough archers either,the Normans had plenty of well trained experts in both.In addition it seems that during this period Angleland was very politically unstable and had only recently repelled 2 invasions from Norway and the Danes as well.With all the chaos maybe the Normans were a positive addition to the English gene pool.This book also explains well the history of English territorial claims on the European continent.The claims of Henry the fifth were the reassertions of territorial rights in existence since the rule of William the Conqueror.There are some excellent interpretations of the Bayeux Tapestry as well.You'll be an expert without doing the original 3 volume 2000 page set and it will cost you about 3 or 4 hours and 3 or 4 cups of coffee(or tea?).The famous English Longbowman at Agincourt is an original French(Norman) invention.

The Battle of Hastings was a key turning point in the history of Northern Europe. Together with the Battles of Fulford and Stamford Bridge, this trilogy of battles enabled the great civilization that was coming into being in Western Europe penetrate into the British Isles, when at that time were culturally and economically part of Scandanavia. Bradbury's account is the best that I have read - it is clear, concise but detailed enough to satisfy anyone who wants to find out more about the climactic battle of 1066. I loved the way he used the Bayeux Tapestry right through as a reference document. Many accounts (and I would include Frank McLynn's recent '1066 - Year of Three Battles'), use the tapestry as a secondary source only, a sure sign of the tyranny of the written word! Yet the Tapestry was made within at least twenty years of the battle on the order of one of the major participants (Bishop Odo of Bayeux, the Conqueror's half-brother). It is therefore perhaps the prime source for the battle. It is also a significant document on the weapons and tactics used, besides being a prime work of art! You feel that Bradbury is judicious and discerning on the major puzzles - Did Harold swear an oath to William? Did Edward support William's succession? What use did the English make of horses? How did Harold die? Did the Normans win the battle with a 'feigned flight'? How did the Normans use their archers? Where were the English archers? Anyone with an interest in medieval politics and military history should have this book on their shelves.