England Books

Having bought this book for research purposes alone, never would I have expected such an enjoyable reading experience. Not only was every line packed with more information than I could wrap my pencil around, but the material was intriguing, the anecdotes well-researched and very accessible, and the references relatable for even the least learned student of the Georgian and Victorian eras (both of which are covered in the book). The author succeeded well at a difficult task by educating his readers, and making a seemingly bland topic enticing - I had no idea hymns could be so political, controversial and liberating. Last week they were staid, measured and over-used songs I was forced to sing as a child in church; today, they are tales of conflict, humility, celebration and seeking, and even more, a complex, inspiring art-form of which I was not fully aware. Author Ian Bradley's own enthusiasm and intrigue for the topic are wonderfully contagious.

This book is thorough, scholarly, entertaining, and very readable. It reveals the immense significance of hymns to the Victorian world and should appeal to readers from diverse backgrounds.

Brilliantly written. Victorian hymns become an interesting,enthralling and amusing subject.My copy has been lent out to friends of diverse denominations and they couldn't put it down.Wonderful insight into Victorian social history.

I have a kayak and live on Cape Cod. this book is a great source to search out places to explore via kayak. Maps, directions, general information are all provided. anyone who likes to kayak, and in search of a places to explore on the Cape will love this book. Great price too !

Adventure Kayaking: Trips On Cape Cod is "user friendly" guide to enjoying safe and fun kayaking on Cap Cod. David Weintraub showcases twenty-five exciting trips from Falmouth to Provincetown with detailed route descriptions for each trip. Also included are USGS topographic maps (showing routes, parking areas, launch sites); travel directions; parking information, as well as nearby scenic and historical attractions. Adventure Kayaking is highly recommended reading for anyone seeking out Cape Cod's impressive landscape, bird sanctuaries, flora and fauna, all within the recreational framework of the kayaking experience.

Adventure Kayaking is "user friendly" guide to enjoying safe and fun kayaking on Cap Cod. David Weintraub showcases twenty-five exciting trips from Falmouth to Provincetown with detailed route descriptions for each trip. Also included are USGS topographic maps (showing routes, parking areas, launch sites); travel directions; parking information, as well as nearby scenic and historical attractions. Adventure Kayaking is highly recommended reading for anyone seeking out Cape Cod's impressive landscape, bird sanctuaries, flora and fauna, all within the recreational framework of the kayaking experience.

I believe that the Dancing Men is one of the best of Sherlock Holmes. It shows the deductive power of a detective to break a secret code with very little information.
Excellent book. Strongly recommended.

I have read the Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of the Dancing Men and Other Sherlock Holmes Stories and in all his stories he reveals that marvelous skill of deduction through keen observation. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is showing us through his writing how much information you can get about a person, place or thing just by observing it. I was amazed as to how he was able to discipher the code of the dancing men. Before he reveals the answer you should try to figure it out because it is possible.

In my 16 years of existence, I have read the complete Sherlock Holmes 4 times, yet they still continue to amaze me. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a genius, and it shows through his whole series. This book combines 4 of the many great mysteries that make the Holmes legend live on. Definitely worth much more than the 80 cents!

If you love the stories of Robin Hood then you'll love this book.It's some of the many stories of Robin Hood with Wishbone as your guide.It's good for young kids because Wishbone is right there explaining things like what is chain mail armor.I don't think I could give this book any thing but 5 stars.

I read a book called: WISHBONE THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD. It was really good.A funny part was when little John tricked the sheriff that he was bad.I liked it a lot. The author is Joan Mattern.The book had a lot of bow and arrow shooting and a lot of fighting so if you like books with kings and knights and outlaws you'll like this one!

This author is truly wonderful,because he/she uses action, horror, fantsy and suprise.

Sidonie Quince, a bright, pragmatic, and humorously sharp-tongued girl in Elizabethan England, prefers the "reassuring certainties" of Euclid and mathematics to the misty world of alchemy and fortune telling.

Yet she has inherited the talent of scrying (crystal gazing) from her late mother. For good reason, Sidonie views the gift as a curse rather than a blessing even though her alchemist father Simon wants her to use her skills to earn money for the family and win favor at court.

Simon has spent a lifetime laboring in his laboratory in search of the philosopher's stone and believes he is close to success in the Great Work. Rashly, he promises the Queen he will soon be able to turn lead into the gold the nation desperately requires to prepare for the looming threat of attack by the Spanish Armada.

Though Sidonie fears he will fail again, incurring the Queen's displeasure, she sets off on a mission with her good friend Kit to locate a missing ingredient for the alchemical recipe. In the process, she finds herself in a whirlwind of danger in which her life and the fate of the nation hinge on her ability to see the future.

In this richly detailed novel, we're handed a mysterious elixir created with a brightly written mix of Renaissance events, historic personages (including Queen Elizabeth, Lord Burleigh, Sir Philip Sidney, Francis Walsingham, William Shakespeare) and real and fictional intrigues well seasoned with magic.

Eileen Kernaghan, who received the Aurora Prize for "The Snow Queen," once again works her own brand of alchemy to transform vowels and consonants into a reading experience of pure gold.

Decades have past since I was a young adult and yet I found "The Alchemist's Daughter" just as suitable for an 'old' adult.

I read it in one sitting, revelling in the details of Elizabethan England and the world of alchemy. Kernaghan has captured the lively, bustling era with the spoken word of the times and descriptions that catapault the reader into London, Glastonbury, an aristocratic country house, and the royal court. Her research is impeccable; she carries the plot along at a good pace; and includes all the elements that are essential for a page turner.

Don't miss this latest book by Eileen Kernaghan.

THE ALCHEMIST'S DAUGHTER - A REVIEW

The striking cover of this young adult fantasy novel raises expectations about what's inside, and the content doesn't disappoint. True to form, Eileen Kernaghan's tale about an educated young Elizabethan woman caught up in a tide of court intrigue and political events is full of adventure and vivid detail.

When alchemist Simon Quince convinces the charismatic Queen Elizabeth I that he has the much-sought formula for making gold almost in hand, his dismayed daughter Sidonie journeys to historic Glastonbury in search of a substance which may help him realize his goal. Sidonie has earned the favour of the Queen through her talent for scrying; a means of seeing the future in a crystal. The Queen's interest and Simon Quince's rash claim make the trip a treacherous one for Sidonie and her companion, Kit. The two encounter a number of enemies and pitfalls during their quest, as well as happening upon the assistance and generosity of the powerful Lady Mary Herbert. Lady Mary's informed influence and closely guarded spiritual practices are a source of revelation to Sidonie, and help her resolve her father's dilemma. Drawn into yet a darker intrigue through her talents and her association with the Queen, Sidonie ultimately helps defeat an enemy of England and the Crown.

The extensive detail of the lives of everyday Elizabethans and nobility alike lends solid authenticity to both setting and plot, as does the careful crafting and inclusion of historic information and personalities pertinent to the time. The lush descriptions of the Royal Court and of Lady Mary's ancestral home deserve particular mention. This is an exciting novel for readers of any age, and Elizabethan enthusiasts especially should delight in the abundant detail and sumptuous settings found throughout the book.

This compilation of many of the stories of this master storyteller is superb in every way. I've met the man and one of the subjects of his experiences (in the story of the man with cattle). James Alf Wight (real name of author)was famous in the vicinity of Thirsk for his stories. One of his customers told me that as a kid he couldn't wait for the annual visits as "Herriot regailed him and his family with stories the whole time." The book is a retelling of some of his stories - and entertaining in every way. Super book!

James Harriott's ability t create characters, that we all recognize, rivals shakespeare's famous gift,. His description is such that I went to England just to see that part of the world. It is exactly as he describes it. A very good read and one that makes us anxious for the follow on books.

If you ever wanted to be a vet... "All Creatures Great and Small" will either inspire, or send you running off to be a lawyer. Heartwarming, funny, sad and highly educational, James Herriot's debut biography (he wrote five in all) give readers the whole messy, glorious picture of being a 1940s country veterinarian.

The book opens (after a brief chapter taking place several months later) with James arriving in Yorkshire, to be the assistant to the eccentric but kindly Siegfried Farnon (yes, that is his name). He becomes accustomed to Siegfried, Siegfried's mischievous younger brother Tristan (yes, that is his name), and the gruff, kindly farmers who eke out a living in the Yorkshire Dales.

Among the oddballs James encounters: Pampered pooches, savage pigs who chase Tristan around the farm, a nightmarishly strict secretary who drives Siegfried up the wall, James's brakeless car, cows running on three cylinders, a sadistic vet who makes James wear a rubber bodysuit, and an elderly, immensely wealthy widow who adopts a pig. And through this, James falls in love with the beautiful Helen Alderson and worms his way into the trust of the farmers.

James Herriot (real name, James Wight) was truly a one-of-a-kind man. He let readers into his head throughout the book, where the cows kick him across the yard, farmers often treat him as an interloper or a nuisance, and his boss gives contradicting orders from one day to the next. But he never loses his drive or his love of animals. Okay, he hates some animals, but only as individuals.

He even lets the readers see him at his worst, when he's humiliated by some recalcitrant livestock, and one horrible scene where he and his date show up drunk and mud-smeared in front of the girl he adores. (Not to mention when Tristan got him to use very feminine-smelling bath salts) But don't think that all of these stories are funny or romantic -- quite a few are aggravating or outright sad. James didn't soften the blows at all.

There are a lot of details about surgery and animal care that will nauseate the squeamish, but at least you'll learn a lot of medical trivia. For example, what is a torsion? Herriot tells you early on, when he documents his nerve-wracking first case. But more than that, his love of animals is infectious -- it's easy to come out of this with a new appreciation for ordinary dogs, cows, cats, and so on.

The people around James are just as fantastic: Siegfried, his weird but genial boss who can kick Tristan out of the house and forget about it overnight; Tristan, the mischievous anti-scholar who usually manages to keep out of trouble; and Helen, who seems a little too saintly at times (which isn't surprising, since James married her).

It's sweet, sad, funny, romantic, dramatic, and full of the blood and sweat of vet work. "All Creatures Great And Small" is a truly unique and heartwarming biography.

Nineteenth century American travellers waxed enthusiastic or properly melancholic amidst the ruins of Europe. Writers such as Henry James often contrasted the youth and vigor (and innocence) of America with old, tired Europe. None of them could have imagined that less than a century later, the busy New England mills that turned out huge quantities of shoes, textiles, and useful products of all kinds would be silent, weed-strewn ruins. When I look around at cities like Salem, Lynn, Lowell, Lawrence, and Brockton, Mass., at Manchester and Nashua, New Hampshire, at a dozen small towns in Maine, I realize that I grew up during the fall of a whole civilization. I saw the tail end of it. Today so many of those thriving factories and mills have been razed to the ground, turned into condos or specialty shops, or even, into museums of industrial history.

AMOSKEAG is the story of one textile mill, once the largest in the world, along the banks of the Merrimack River in New Hampshire. The story is told through 37 interviews after an introduction of thirty-odd pages. The effect is most immediate: you feel as if you had lived the whole experience, grown up around these people. The reader is taken through the lives of management to the world of work---the varieties of tasks and social interactions to be found within the giant factory. Then we get an idea of family life, how the factory permeated every aspect of existence, and finally of the strikes, shutdowns and rising costs that eventually drove the mill out of existence (or rather, the whole textile industry to other states and countries). The text is punctuated by numerous black and white photographs which add to the atmosphere of "bygone days" that emanates from the whole book. If you are looking for a book on industrial history or early 20th century New England, you must read this one, it's unforgettable.

The story of Amoskeag is the story of a society...a story of a different time...a way of life that used to be. This book travels through the 1800's and the 1900's telling the tale of a factory, and the people who passed through it.
The highlights of the book occur when the factory workers are interviewed. The characters and stories they create are so funny and so real...you get such a feel for how their lives were. I laughed so many times.
The only parts I found boring were when the terms of factory making were being discussed. It was important to know to put what the workers were saying into context, but I found it boring.
Overall, the book was a gem. I am now very interested in a time period that before I thought was useless and boring. I would reccomend this book to anyone.

You'll enjoy this book even if you're not particularly interested in Manchester, NH, or mill towns, as long as you want to hear people talk about their lives.

This is a good window into life in a "factory-city" along the Merrimack River from its start in the early 1800s through the 1970s. Each chapter is an interview. You get the story through the words and memories of those who live it. Mill workers and their families talk about the founding of the town, their arrival as immigrants seeking good jobs, what their work lives were like, the strike, and the eventual shutdown of the mills. A good read.

First published in 1950, Weis improves with each new edition; they're now up to the 7th. "Bad" lines are excised completely each time, the lengthy text-notes are very useful, and extensive citations appear for almost every entry. There's hardly a noble family in Europe west of the Dnieper River that does not appear in this book. Dr. Weis died in 1966 and Walter Lee Sheppard, himself a renowned genealogist, undertook (successfully) to main-tain his high standards; the 4th and subsequent editions have been the result of his own editorial labors. A very inexpensive work, especially compared to many of the other titles on this subject; this one should be on every genealogist's bookshelf.

Be SURE to buy the 8th edition listed on amazon.com Just cut to the chase. This book is in its 8th edition due to the devotion of Weis and his colleagues who carry on his life work. Do NOT spend hundreds of dollars buying research that the geneologist gathers from free online sources. FIRST, if you have ancestors from Massachusetts, New York, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Conneticutt and Virginia you very probably are descended from or cousin to many lines documented from about 350 A.D. Gallo Roman period right through to the Pilgrims, Puritans, etc. Why? Because as Nathaniel Philbrook states in his book, 'Mayflower,' 35 million AMericans are descended from the 52 survivors of the first winter in Plymouth. Why are they related to uddles of British and continental nobles? Because the some 2,000 Norman families who ruled England married the rest of Europes nobles and by 1600 they had grown to 20,000 and had more spare children than Davey Crooket has money. The spares took up Puritism and or wanted to flip properties in the new world. SECOND, load up a good family tree software program [...]. Spent spare time over 2 years entering over 700 individuals from this work.
I think it is very educational to learn who ones ancestors are and then learn about their character, sometimes view a likeness, and study their times. We all have good and bad sides to our characters. Maybe you will find some relatives who remind you of you. Maybe you are tough because one of your people survived the terror of King John who went around starving people to death and walling others up alive in their castle walls.
Be your own geneologist by searching all of the U.S. census; searching in familysearch.com, ancestory.com, joining historical societies in the counties you know people came from, and finally you will get back to the 1700s and then the 1600s. Over the decades I was very frustrated in linking known ancestors in 17th century Massachusetts to England. This book not only took me to all of Britian, but most all of Europe too. Its all waiting for you to discover, enjoy and share with your family and descendents.

Out of every author of genealogical records, none other's system works as well as Frederick Weis's. His in-depth research and organization make it nearly impossible to get lost. And still, he keeps up with an excellent bibliography as well as a great abbreviation page. The great thing about Weis, however, is that he doesn't like to speculate and just gets to the point with his writing. This is a must read for anyone connected to John of Gaunt or anyone else mentioned in the book.

This is one of the best resources for Anglo-Saxon Crafts on the market. There are numerous subjects and some outstanding photos of archelogocial finds. For anyone interested in Dark Age re-enactment this book is a 'must have'. It is well written, easy to read, and the photos are detailed and clear.

One of the appealing aspects of the A-S period to me is that a lot of the technology is simple enough that I can understand it, when it is clearly explained. Leahy's book does a good job of explaining (with diagrams as well as words) how a pole-lathe, for instance works. His description and depiction of a warp-weighted loom left me saying "I could operate one of those! I see how it works."

The bit about tablet weaving even inspired me to try it. Leahy's book is not a how-to primer in any of the crafts, but again I could see enough to understand the priciple. I found a web-site that give some simple instructions, made myself a set of "tablets" out of a Cheerios box, and got the thing to work!

Of most of the books purchased to aid in Dark Age re-enactment, this one has proven to be the most valuable, the most useful, and most reliable. Clear illustrations, a diverse range of topics and a transparent writing style has made this title probably the most thumbed reference in a stable of well over a dozen regularly used references. Even for those who do not partake in re-enactment, "Anglo-Saxon Crafts" is a fascinating glimpse into the society that provided the roots of modern western civilisation.

Sir Stenton has composed a masterpiece of a history text in his most famous book. A caveat, however, in that the text itself was written by someone who was a professional historian. As such, the text is as dry as you would expect. It is, perhaps, the most comprehensive text on the subject available to the open market, but while it is very name, date, and place intensive, there is little in the way of anecdotal information that might interest the merely casual reader. For someone who is interest in more an introduction than an indepth analysis, I would recommend The Anglo-Saxons, edited by James Campbell.

This book is the single best source of information about Anglo-Saxon England. I would only caution that this books is not for the novice historian. Unfamiliarity with the topic will leave you wondering what your reading and completely lost.

This book is filled with factual information, but because Sir Frank Stenton also lends his sagacious opinions the book is both enjoyable and easy to understand. This book is several hundred pages long with tiny print, and so packed with information, that you'll know everything possible about Anglo-Saxon history. Stenton always prefers the probable to the outrageous and does not seem to go with the popular opinions about kings, queens, or events. You must read this, but only if you're really, really interested in the subject. Otherwise, it'll go right over your head.