James Joyce by Richard Ellmann (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Ellmann) was published in 1959 (a revised edition was released in 1982). It is widely accepted as a masterpiece of literary biography. Anthony Burgess (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Burgess) was so impressed with the biographer’s work that he claimed it to be ‘the greatest literary biography of the century’. The levels of research that went into […]
The summary of this 2008 novel from Sebastian Barry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Barry) is as follows. In the beginning, Dr. William Grene’s interest in an almost impossibly old woman is merely professional, tinged perhaps with a hint of curiosity. Roseanne McNulty, one hundred years old, was one of the most beautiful girls in County Sligo in her youth. She has
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Bernard Crick’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Crick) biography puts the many forces that shaped Orwell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell and http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Author/AuthorPage/0,,1000012316,00.html and http://georgeorwellnovels.com/biography-of-george-orwell/) into perspective. More than anything else Orwell feared the state. As an outgrowth of this fear, Orwell dissected propaganda and exposed the many ways in which language can be made a tool of tyranny. While he is known mainly for 1984 and Animal
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A fine biography from 1952 of Stanley Baldwin (1867 – 1947 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Baldwin and http://www.biography.com/people/stanley-baldwin-9196751), the only British Prime Minister to serve under three monarchs (George V, Edward VIII and George VI). He was in office in new and difficult conditions: the onset of modern democratic politics, the rise of Labour, chronic economic depression, the General Strike, persistent newspaper
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is grey. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them
There are not many historical novels of which it can be said that they illuminate both the time that forms their subject matter and the time in which they are read: Doctor Copernicus is among the very best of them. The work of Nicholas Koppernigk, better known as Copernicus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernicus), shattered the medieval view of
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This is a recommended study of John Keble (25 April 1792 – 29 March 1866) an English churchman and poet, and one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Movement). Keble College, Oxford (below, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keble_College,_Oxford and http://www.keble.ox.ac.uk/) was named after him. He was the author of The Christian Year (1827, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Christian_Year and the full text at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4272/4272-0.txt), a
To rendezvous with her archeologist fiance in Jordan, Barbara Vaughn must first pass through the Mandelbaum Gate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbaum_Gate), which divides strife-torn Jerusalem. A half-jewish convert to Catholicism, an Englishwoman of strong and stubborn convictions, Barbara will not be dissuaded from her ill-timed pilgrimage despite a very real threat of bodily harm and the fearful admonishments
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Patrick Doyle is a 29-year-old teacher in an ordinary school. Frustrated and increasingly bitter at the system he is employed to maintain, Patrick begins his rebellion, fuelled by drink and his passionate, unrequited love for a fellow teacher. A Disaffection (1989) is the apparently straightforward story of one week in a man’s life in which he decides
