United Kingdom Books

A few years ago, I bought the used paperback edition from Amazon marketplace (for under five dollars). It turns out that it is a young adult version of Stewart's novel "Nine Coaches Waiting". I would compare this version to a Reader's Digest condensed version of the "Nine Coaches Waiting" (with a somewhat simpler vocabulary). It looks like "Castle of Danger" was intended to be used in schools, since there are reading comprehension questions at the end of certain sections.

Linda Martin has been hired by Madame de Valmy to be the English governess to her nine year old nephew, Philippe de Valmy. Philippe is to be taught English by someone who has no knowledge of the French language. Linda, who lived in France when she was a child before her parents died and sees the job as a chance to go back to France and erase the unhappy memories of her life in an orphanage in England, lies about her ability to speak French to get the job.

Once she arrives at the Chateau Valmy where Philippe lives with his aunt and uncle Leon, she begins to see that not everything is as simple as it first seemed. Someone seems to want Philippe, who is the heir to the Chateau, dead. The main suspects are his uncle who will inherit if the boy dies or his handsome son, Raoul. However, Linda is falling in love with Raoul, and dare she even hope(?), he seems to be falling in love with her. Linda knows she needs to protect her shy young charge. But is Raoul trying to help Philippe or kill him?

I read it a year ago. I couldn't leave the alone after i've started reading the first line. The story is very fast pace. Everything's very exciting.

A very good book, Castles of Britain and Ireland: The Ultimate Reference Book contains exelent quality photographs, and contains information of almost every known castle on Britain and Ireland. It talks about their evolution through the years and about the people involved on their construction. I greatly recommend it to anyone interested on knowing more about british castles, its information is very clear and easy to understand. If you are a castle fan, this is a must-have book.

Castles of Britain and Ireland by Plantagenet Somerset Fry is the most important and most used book in my library. Not only is it a great read front to back but is invaluable as a reference when reading any history book about Britain and Ireland. It covers every aspect of Castles; The History, the people, the construction, the defenses, and even the art of attacking a castle, including seige engines. When I travel to Britain this book will be in my backpack.

The religion and lore of the Celts had a tremendous impact on the development of Western spiritual thought. Today, Celtic knots, animals, and other figures are experiencing a new popularity. "The Celtic Cross" is a lovely, well researched volume that describes the art carved upon the stone crosses scattered across northern Europe, especially the British Isles. The iconography and other symbolism, the development of the art form, and the spiritual meaning are all discussed in some depth. The photos are terrific, and a list of place to see crosses in situ or in museums is also included, should you wish to see a few in person.

A really lovely book to own with gorgeous photographs and a text that is as interesting as it is informative.

Highly recommended.

The Celts have had a long and complex journey, both through history and myth, and this entry in the excellent Very Short Introduction series is a great place to start tracing that journey. Some historians question whether 'Celtic' is even a meaningful or useful term. Is it a modern invention? Who were, or are, these people or peoples we call 'Celts'? Cunliffe warns at the outset that finding reliable answers will not be easy, then proceeds to make it as easy as possible.

He views the subject from various angles - linguistic, archeological, Classical (the Roman and Greek accounts), ethnological - and gradually builds a coherent picture. His bias reflects the current orthodoxy that cultural influence spread without the mass migrations that used to be assumed -- ideas and customs spread, not necessarily people. He encourages us to take a view from the Atlantic, and see the Celts as European peoples who traded along that seaboard. Some readers might wish for more detailed maps -- the author or publisher seems to assume that you will know which rivers are the Marne, Danube, etc.

This is an authoritative and accurate work, although I did spot one surprising blunder: On page 137, the ceremony of All Souls is described as taking place on October 31, preceding All Saints. In fact it follows All Saints, on November 2.

Cunliffe's prose is very readable, except that he has a fondness for litotes ("It is not unreasonable to suppose..." "It is not unlikely that..."). This can get not unirritating after a while.

A great deal of misinformation surrounds Celticism. It has become a tool for propagandists and nationalists. There is a certain amount of healthy debunking in this book, but the Celts emerge alive and well. Before I read it, I thought I was of Celtic descent on my mother's side. After reading it, I still do, but now I have some idea of what that means. If you want to know about the Celts, then you need to choose your sources with care, because - as Cunliffe hints - there are many 'lunatic fringe' publications out there. This is a safe place to start.

For someone who wants a quick and dirty introduction yet up to date book on the ancient Celts I cannot recommend a better book. Although it is quite a short book it is highly superior to books havigng the three times the number of pages this book contains.
Although one may sometimes shy away from short books on complex topics like the Celts take heart for by placing yourself in the hands of Barry Cunliffe you are putting yourself in the hands of a master.
A winner!
High recommended.

Although there have been a seemingly infinite amount of books written on 17th century England, this one stands out from the rest. Although it is not exactly a thoroughly in depth study, it provides ample knowledge about all of the important people and events of the era. It is also helpful that each division of the era is looked at in several different fields of study, including the often overlooked area of economics.

The late eminent British Marxist historian Christopher Hill is better known for his pioneer work in the micro-history of the English Revolution and the influences of left-wing political forces such as the Levellers and Diggers and religious forces such the Quakers, Shakers, Ranters and Seekers on it. Here he has written an overview of the entire 17th century as part of this series of books on the history of England to modern times. Needless to say some of his work around the English Revolution seeps into this work as well, which makes that period the strongest section of the book.

Professor Hill traces the major social, political, economic and religious trends that culminated in the revolution back to the reign of James I (and some economic trends back to Elizabethan times). He covers such keys areas of conflict as the changes in land use and ownership, agricultural innovations including the highly controversial enclosure policy, governmental foreign policy which tended to have a distinctly Catholic, particularly pro-Spanish, orientation, the embryonic beginnings of the split between court and `country' as a result of Stuart arbitrary rule, the split between landed proprietors and city merchants; the city and the country, the established church and the numerous pro-Puritan (read Calvinist) sects that started to sprout up like wildfire and the rise of a secular democratic movement based in the cities that both the Army and the Levellers would draw upon in the Civil War period.

Special note should be taken of the decades between the beginning of the defensive parliamentary struggles against Charles I in 1640 and 1660 with the restoration of his son Charles II to the throne. At this point the tensions that were merely outlined by the prior policies of the Stuart governments came to the breaking point. Hill does more than merely narrate that story. He shows, based on his well-stocked body of knowledge about the period, the various stages that the revolution went through from vascillations of the first defensive struggles of the Parliamentarians to the definitive break with Charles and the establishment of the New Model Army which would usher in a period of military dominance of government and society and with it the rise and fall of the various secular and religious democratic movements. Hill also does a masterful job of showing how the various plebian democratic forces in society reacted to governmental policy (and how the government dealt with those forces) and how, as a result, these various fights sapped the revolutionary energy of the masses.

As more than one historian and sociologist has noted, as a general proposition the study of post-revolutionary periods tends to be rather anti-climatic. That is also the case here with the restoration of Charles II. England, however, exhibited that trend in revolutionary history that demonstrates that even when the revolution runs out of steam there is generally no regression back to the old ways of ruling. Despite the regression in governmental form with the reintroduction of the monarchy, parliamentary supremacy was essentially assured although not without various intrigues by Charles and his brother James against it and against England. As importantly, the capitalist industrial developmental trends that had been gathering force throughout the century kept expanding after the revolution. That trend would make England the number one power in the world in the next century. For an excellent overview of an important period in English history, which moreover is filled with helpful footnotes on sources for further research, this is your stop.

Hilaire Belloc is truly without peer as a historian. His works are beautiful and riveting. One has the feeling in reading Belloc of having a long and deep conversation with an old and extremely wise friend. The mood of the discourse is intoxicating, and we don't want the interlude to end. But end it does, the good news being we can always find more of this prolific and insightful author to peruse.

In Charles II, Belloc tells the story of the restoration of the Stuart monarchy after the Cromwellian "Commonwealth". We heartily recommend reading Belloc's "Cromwell" first and then this excellent work. Simply by reading the last chapter of each respective work, the reader will grasp firmly one of the great truths that Belloc imparts, what it is to die in an unrepentent state, that of Cromwell, and what it is to leave this Earth, being reconciled in the Eucharist, as Charles II finally was. The story of the good English Priest who both introduced Charles to the Catholic faith, once saved his life, and finally gave his last rites, is far more powerful than any dramatic fiction I have ever read. His brother James, later to be James II of England, perfectly sums up this scene in saying,

"The man who saved your life has come to save your soul."

This is wonderful. Read it. And be richly blessed.

I've read several biographies of Charles II, the best of them Antonia Fraser's, with Stephen Coote's more recent Royal Survivor much less so. Almost all treat their subject as intelligent, but lazy, at best, feckless and disloyal at worst. Belloc takes the unique view that Charles had a strong and well developed set of principles that were reasonably adapted to a free and just society, but which were irreconcilable with the nouveau riche elements of his economy. This treatment was quite reasonable and fairly convincing, but most of all made good reading. As with much of Belloc's work, there is a strong institutional Roman Catholic orientation. Belloc does downplay the licentiousness of the Restoration Court in general and its monarch in particular, but those details can be readily found elsewhere.

I (or the powers that be) left out an "is" in the last sentence of my review. I would appreciate a correction.

Thanks!

Lucidly, entertainingly, and meticulously, Wallace dismantles popular notions of Chaucer and (more importantly for medievalists) of the traditional division between the medieval and the early modern worlds. By tracing Chaucer's interaction with "Trecento" authors, he charts the poet's interest in a society organized around "associational forms" (the model for this is Florence) versus one structured around a single and despotic ruler (the model for this is Milan). Although many chapters focus on specific tales, Wallace does a great job of reading across all of Chaucer's works to argue his point, and the book moves in a natural progression through various themes and dialectics. (I'm thinking here of two chapters in particular: "Powers of the Countryside" and "Absent City.")

In sum, for anyone who wants some good beach reading, you should buy this book and cancel your trip. Wallace's meditation on Chaucer serious and important; it should not be taken lightly.

It was such a relief to read this book, to know that other women have experienced and share in the frustration and outright discrimination I've experienced. I have never wanted, and do not want, children. As I get older (and as this mythical "clock" is supposed to start ticking), the idea of having children in my home seems less and less appealing.

Yet, despite the fact that my insurance covers sterilization, I have yet to find a doctor willing to do it because I don't have children and will supposedly change my mind. Let me get this straight: I could think about my future with enough surety to get a Ph.D., buy a car, manage not to go into debt by working through grad school, make life-or-death medical decisions for my father, and - if I wanted - could adopt a child from just about anywhere on earth, but I am somehow not capable of making a choice about my own sterilization? Yet, if I were merely 16 and showed up at a doctor's office wanting to have a baby, I doubt any doctor would tell me to have an abortion because I might not know my own mind and may want a different life in the future.

I cannot express how refreshing it was to read similar - and worse! - stories from other women. This is an excellent book; it is well researched and clear, and focuses not just on personal stories but on bias in medical treatment. It also debunks some myths about women who very much want to be sterilized - as in, they actually don't regret it. Terrific read. My copy is dog-eared, and has been borrowed by many friends of mine who have been in the same position, and had no idea such a book existed.

This book was written as a collection of the experiences of a group of women seeking sterilization services in the UK. One has to take into account that there may be some additional resistance to the sterilization of British women as a result of the national health service system of managed care. That said, in my experience the UK population seems to be more comfortable with the notion of voluntary nulliparity and sterilization than that of the US.

US guidelines for voluntary sterilization are based on the "rule of 120". This means that a woman's age is multiplied by a factor of 2 and then by the number of children she has. If that result equals 120 then the woman is considered an acceptable candidate for sterilization. This means that a 30 year old with 2 kids would meet less resistance to a request to be sterilized while a person with no children would never be eligible during her childbearing years.

This book was an important part of the creation of my personal statement in the defense of my decision to follow the lead of the women in this book. In fact, in the end I was required to follow the lead of the women in this book literally. At 29 I successfully visited London's Marie Stopes Clinic and encountered [very gratefully] none of the resistance or disrespect that so often surrounds this process. Such experiences are detailed in the outrage expressed by many of those who tell their stories here. "Childfree and Sterilized" was a central resource in my understanding and planning for the issues surrounding this choice.

This is collection of ELCA perspectives on the difficult doctrine of church and state. Especially this is so for the Lutheran who sees this as a tension, even paradoxical relationship. Thus, here is this tension viewed through the differing tangents of: legal, confessional and social ministry.

What I share with these authors is the difficulty of transposing the past history of church and state to differing government environment. Not sure if we agree exactly on the word "gospel", due to knowledge that most official ELCA positions on this differs from my own confessional stance.

This is very articulate, challenging and stimulating discussion of the church/state relationship as seen by Lutherans.

Collaboratively compiled by John R. Stumme (Director of Studies for the Division for Church in Society, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) and Robert W. Tuttle (Associate Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School), Church & State: Lutheran Perspectives collects the investigations, commentaries and analysis of seven experts concerning the meaning of religion in public life in a world with growing religious pluralism and secularism. Legal contexts of church-state interaction; the role of Lutheran social ministry in promoting general welfare; issues of land use regulation; and much, much more comprise the balanced and in-depth discussions that are presented in this very highly recommended contribution to Church/State Studies reading lists and reference collections.

Book arrived in a timely fashion and was in aboslutely pristine condition.

Very sweet. I wish churches in the US all had cats.