2 comments about An Autobiography: The Story of the Lord's Dealings with Mrs. Amanda Smith the Color Evangelist (Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women).

1. I just finished reading the biography of Amanda Smith. I found this book to be a faith building testimony of God's faithfulness and sufficiency, to all who will only trust Him both for spiritual and temporal provision. In today's complicated secular society and even in the organized church, Amanda Smith's testimony rises up in a refreshing way to glorify the Lord and teaches us that God's ways are still pure and simple, easy for anyone to understand and full of goodness and mercy, if only we would humble ourselves to hear what the Lord is saying to us, in His Word, the Bible. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a closer walk with Jesus.



2. Amanda Smith began her life as a slave. She later became a very successful evangelist, preaching to both black and white audiences all over the United States, as well as in England, Liberia and Africa. Fame on that scale in that field would, of course, be rare for an African-American woman even in today's society. In the face of the social obstacles she faced in the late 19th century it was surely nothing short of miraculous.

   Her autobiography is, of course a real autobiography. They didn't often have "ghostwriters" in those days. Her style of writing is easy to read but intelligent, articulate and piercingly insightful.

   She writes about encounters with racism, sexism and class distinctions among African-Americans with a rare combination of uncompromising integrity, wisdom, humor, tact and graciousness. She writes about holiness and theological issues within the context of her own personal experience with God in a way that is compelling and inspirational.

   The autobiography of Amanda Smith is a remarkable telling of a remarkable life. She is an undiscovered American treasure. Her book ought to be a perennial bestseller.

4 comments about The Apprentice Mage, 1865-1914 ( Yeats: A Life, Vol. 1).

1. R.F. Foster's two-volume biography (second volume to come in 2000) is a model of articulate and knowledgable scholarship, arguably comparable to the great biographies of Joyce and Wilde written by Richard Ellman. Foster's work leaves nothing to be desired. It easily excels previous Yeats biographies written by Cootes, Jeffares, etc.



2. This is loaded with surprise after surprise. Foster's insights into the poetry, through historical and social readings, are often revelatory. My only complaint is that many of the tales he tells tend to have the same emotional architecture due to a descirptive repetition: this makes it a little monotonous at times. But this is a quibble. This book is great. When is Vol. 2 going to be published?



3. For the first 100 pages or so, this book had me completely. Roy Foster writes with elegant brio and has a historian's eye for the wider events and contexts that shaped Yeats's early years. Where previous biographers like Ellman take a sort of lighthouse approach to their subject, treating the passions and conflicts of Yeats's day as fuel for the poetry that was destined to outshine them, Foster is more like an anteater, eagerly snuffling up the everyday bits of information that give the flavor of Yeats's multifaceted life as he actually lived it, before his later fame and incessant revisions smoothed it into a pattern.

   After a while though, the book tends to bury Yeats in a mass of trivia that include everything from the menu at one of his literary dinners to the prices he charged for his lectures. This level of detail could be enlightening if Foster stopped for breath more often to tell us why these things are important. Too often though he keeps his head firmly down with the ants, cataloging the day-to-day intrigues of a very complicated life without linking them to any kind of larger interpretation of Yeats's personality or development. Instead, Foster spends his 500+ pages introducing new names at the rate of one or so per page, most of them disappearing by the end of the chapter never to be heard from again. We get the intrigues of various Irish nationalist factions, potted bios of minor figures on the Dublin and London art scenes, humorous sketches of Yeats's fellow-travellers in his sundry mystical societies. It was hard to see Yeats after a while with all these minor figures crowding the stage.

   If Foster does have an interpretation of his own, as far as I can tell it's a revisionist one. Where Ellman or Jeffaries saw Yeats's life as a drama of painful self-creation, Foster sends to see an ambitious man on the make, an aggressive networker who wasn't beyond bending the truth if it helped his own advancement. Even his life-long passion for Maud Gonne, one of the key sources of his poetry, was, according to Foster, in part a self-conscious realization that a great poet needed a great passion to write about. In trying to bring Yeats back down to earth, I think Foster overcompensates by making him more canny and worldly than the sexual naivete, table rapping, faery talk and aesthetic posturing of these years suggest. Worst of all, Foster shows almost no interest in Yeats's poetry, the reason we're reading the biography in the first place. I put down the book admiring Foster's energy and mastery of such a huge anthill of facts, but I couldn't shake the feeling that a lot less would have told us a lot more.




4. William Butler Yeats offers a life of contradictions. Born in Dublin to a middle-class Protestant family, Yeats went on to become one of the premier poets of the twentieth century. As a writer and member of the Irish literary community, he also helped to forge Irish national identity through his words and his deeds. In this biography, the first of two volumes, Roy Foster offers an account of Yeats' development into one of the leading figures of the Irish literary scene.
   
   This is not an easy book. Foster recounts Yeats' life in what is sometimes excruciating detail, covering every movement and literary battle the poet undertakes. Moreover, as he does so he assumes the reader's familiarity with both the background of late nineteenth century Ireland and the members of the Irish literary community. People appear in his narrative with little introduction, creating a confusing jumble of names that limits the appreciation of their role in Yeats' life.
   
   Such problems aside, this is a first-rate biography. Foster does a great job examining Yeats' life, in a text that while long is never dense. His coverage of Yeats' occult interests is particularly good, as is that of the poet's involvement in nationalist causes - both integral aspects of his poetry. Foster's argument that Yeats' involvement in the mystical was a reaction to the declining position of Protestants in Ireland, an effort to cope with the sense of dislocation by asserting psychic control, is a compelling one that helps to fit more of his poetry into its contemporary context. Foster helps this process; while he asserts that his biography is about what Yeats did rather than what the poet wrote he does offer a perceptive commentary on aspects of Yeats' work, which helps us better appreciate the connection between the man and his writings. Thanks to this, we have a book that is essential for understanding such a complicated literary figure and the role he played in his times.

No comments about Disraeli.

No comments about The Letters of Charlotte Bronte: With a Selection of Letters by Family and Friends Volume I: 1829-1847 (Letters of Charlotte Bronte).

5 comments about Diana: A Tribute to the People's Princess.

1. This is an awsome book on Lady Diana. It has TONS of pictures. I enjoyed it ALOT!!



2. I have many books on Diana and was pleased to see this one come out. It has nice colourful pictures of her and some different poses. Highly recommend it.



3. I have a few books about Diana, but this one, A Tribute to the People's Princess, I found to be very excellent. It shows Diana in many pictures in her different roles in life:Princess of Wales, mother, wife and humanitarian. I recommend everyone who wants to learn more about Princess Diana, to read this book, you'll be glad you did.



4. Just when you think that you've read all there is about the late POW, along comes this well-written volume. It wasn't just the same old text with a few changes of words to make you think it was all new. I really found this book refreshing in content. One of the best coverages of the funeral I've read to date! Also pictures that I had not seen previously--and I have an embarrassingly large collection of them! However, while you're waiting for this book at Amazon.com to be released, I purchased mine at Waldenbooks on the clearance table for $2.99. I was shocked to see such a great book at such a steal, it's definatly worth the asking price here!



5. This book has been in my collection since its publication and has been read many times. It's still difficult to believe that this beautiful, young princess is no longer on her earthly sojourn but has moved on to a much better place.

   The forward is written by The Reverend Tony Lloyd who is The Executive Director of The Leprosy Mission. The following quote is taken from the foreward on page 11: "Leprosy may not be mentally and physically damaging, but it is often erroneously seen as a curse from the gods, and the 'victims' then become outcasts. Since Diana herself was the frequent victim of pain and anguish, she had a special empathy for those who suffered in the same way. It is not a coincidence that five of her six remaining charities are associated with stigma.

   "She was charismatic, witty, and, above all, a womain of extraordinary compassion. This was demonstrated both in the limelight and, more often, when there were no cameras or reporters present." So many times, one tends not to read the preface or the forward of a book and, often, valuable information can be gleaned from these. I, for one, feel that the last sentence of the above quote is crucial since there are still may people who think that Diana did everything in full view of cameras.

   If one collects books on Diana, this book is a must. There is not any new material, there are several pictures not seen before; however, as with all books, it is presented in a different format and style. One is taken through Diana's life as a toddler, as a small girl, as a teenager, as an adult, and lastly, through her funeral service and to her final resting place on the small oval island at Althrop - her ancestral home.

   Following are three quotations of Diana's: "I shall get married when I am sure that I am in love, so that we will never be divorced," said by Diana as a small girl - page 15. On page 30, "I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world when I looked at Charles through my veil. I had tremendous hope in my heart." On page 72, "I think the biggest disease this world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feeling unloved, and I know that I can give love for a minute, for half an hour; for a day, for a month, but I can give. I'm very happy to do that and I want to do that."

   This is a great, but sad tribute to the late Diana, Princess of Wales. This book contains many beautiful pictures in color and a few in black and white. This book is a must for anyone who collect books on Diana, Princess of Wales.

2 comments about Minotaur: Sir Arthur Evans and the Archaeology of the Minoan Myth.

1. Sandy MacGillivray's in depth analysis of the life and times of pioneer Cretan archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans was a pure joy to read. The author's own experiences as a professional in the field on Crete add great weight to his arguments as he finds himself coping the Evans' legacy on a daily basis. I really got the sense that the author knew Evans, both the man and the scholar, through close attention to and extensive research on the amply available primary sources. This is a wonderfully scholarly, yet very readable and highly interesting book to both the professional archaeologist and interested armchair amateur.



2. Minotaur by Joseph MacGillivray
   
   This book presents itself as a readable biography of one the great Archaeologists, Sir Arthur Evans, instead of a thoughtful biography the book is really a prolonged attack on Evans (and 19th century archaeology) by an author of dubious credentials and makes for extremely painful reading.
   
   The book is tolerable journalism when its sticks to the factual events, but it is so filled with hostility towards Evans, that the reader is quickly bogged down in a long winded and poorly researched series of ad hominen attacks and innuendo of wrong doing that the thrill of Crete and Minos is completely buried.
   
   The central claim of this bad book is that Evans created Minoan archaeology and did not discover anything. The attacks are unrelenting. The author claims variously : Evans is unscientific and concerned only with objects, stole antquities, horded valuable linear B scripts, was a repressed homosexual, took too much credit for his finds and harmed nearly all of his colleagues, was shrewd and calculating to excess in his business dealings, was a racist because his disliked Turks and personally favored European and Greek religion and culture, was a spoiled wealthly aristocrat of no ability but gifted merely by birth and social standing- who also ate very well, etc etc etc
   
   That the author has issues with Evans is an understatement and parrying all of his attacks (most of which are the authors own unsubstantiated suspicions or irelevant details) is a waste of time.
   
   Evans- the gentlemen and scholar who devoted his 90 years of life to classics, beauty in art and history, who spent his fortune to dig Knossos and who developed new theories of myth and civilization: in short a person whose name will be recalled as long as history-minded Western man is revered- is not present in this book. This book is the product of a modern academic archaeology resentful of its romantic past, that prefers digging with toothbrushes, hates coin collectors, believes antiquities dealers are evil and wishes that British, Germans and French had left everything in the ground for them to sniff about with white gloves and a microscope.
   
   
   That the author is an academic feather-weight is evident in the opening pages, where he attempts to work out his own crude thesis: Evans was not an archaeologist but a myth maker motivated by sexual demons. His analysis is so bad, reading his turns of phrase are like chewing on sand: "Archaeologists are the progenitors as well as the midwives at the birthing process we call excavation." Ugly writing quickly leads to bad analysis such as this delphic prose: " ...we must start with Evans himself, the product of his genes and his life experiences." These experiences include the alleged homosexuality of Evans which the author tries to awkwardly weave into his book perhaps hoping to increase sales, but he cannot find much and we are left with a few sentences of inane writing worthy only of a freshman trying to impress a bored teaching assistant. He writes that he suspects Evans was driven to pursue his career because of the "repressed 'beastliness' of his homosexuality..." His efforts degenerate further a few hundred pages later with innuendo about a young man Evans adopted and his association with Baden Powell and the Boy Scout movement.
   
   The author has no wit and his style wears the reader down. He makes no effort in the biography to educate the reader about the civilization of Crete and takes the excitement of the past away completely. I know of no other book on archaeology that deadens its subject matter to such a degree. The author is all over the place with his own insipid thoughts and at times contradicts his own thin analysis.
   
   For example the author continually harps on the fact that Evan's sister titled her biography of him, "Time and Chance". The author writes "Nothing could be further from what I believe about how Evans discovered Knossos..."(p.6) In his effort to bring Evans down from his perch the author continually paints Evans as simply a digger with money. At the end of his book, the author returns to this theme: "Arthur Evans did not stumble upon Knossos by some happy circumstance. He set his mind on acquiring the rights to a well-documented site.... he secured the expertise he lacked in the person of a site foreman, architects, and conservators..." (p.308) Ok this attack may work in hindsight, but on page 175 the author himself writes: "they all faced the risk that within a few hours they might have removed only a thin layer of eroded soil and exposed a solid rock outcropping scattered with worthless pot shards... Evans might learn that he had chased off the other suitors only to find the bride barren of promise and her dowry worthless. These are the risks excavators take." Which is it? Did Evans simply walk in and dig up what everyone knew was there or did chance play a role and did he finally locate the fabled city of Knossos after three and a half millenium? Clearly this writer is a moron.
   
   A good graduate student should set things right and demolish MacGillivray's shoddy research on Evans, a student of history with a sense of the classical- not one inspired while waiting to use public tennis courts in Manhattan as MacGillivray says he was. Surely some inspiration can still be found in the stones of ruined cities, a brilliant gemstone or winds of the Mediterranean.
   
   The author, in writing this extended effort to libel the dead, succeeds only in diminishing our native appreciation of history, and our myths. That is the end point of modernity.

4 comments about Shakespeare: For All Time (Oxford Shakespeare).

1. Ever wanted to read one book to know about the life of Shakespeare and the life of his plays? This is the only book you need. The world's preeminent Shakespearean scholar at long last presents his knowledgable views on Shakespeare's life and how the different ages, including ours, have appropriated Shakespeare for their own. The first 100 pages are straight-up biography, and a spot-on one at that, providing all of the facts that we know and wise, cautious speculation about what we don't. The following 300 pages illustrate how Shakespeare wrote what he did, and how each age has seen and transformed Shakespeare. Most impressive is that each chapter explores theatrical developments alongside textual and editorial innovations. Not ignored is Shakespeare's representations in visual art, music, and opera. A most impressive volume that is written in an easy to understand style. Any person could pick up this book and understand the history of Shakespeare for all time. Highly recommended as a companion volume is Prof. Wells's earlier exploration -Shakespeare: The Poet and his Plays. That volume discusses each individual play and the poems on an interpretative level, and a highly insightful level at that.



2. Shakespeare For All Time by Stanley Wells (Emeritus Professor of Shakespeare Studies, University of Birmingham, and General Editor of the Oxford Shakespeare series) is an inherently fascinating and extensively informative biography and analysis of the life and work William Shakespeare, piecing together all that is known and much that is speculated about one of the greatest playwrights who ever lived. Illustrated with both black-and-white and color plates, and written in down-to-earth terms for all students and enthusiasts of Shakespeare's work (regardless of their level of familiarity with the plays themselves), Shakespeare For All Time is an excellent read and an especially recommended addition for personal, academic, and community library systems for offering informed and invaluable insights into the man and his plays.



3. This is a physically beautiful volume. It's an oversize book printed on thick, glossy paper. It's filled with illustrations, both works of art and photographs, from Shakespeare's time to our own.

   It's also packed with solid information that's easy to digest. Wells tells everything that's known about Shakespeare's life and speculates on additional possibilities. All that could have made a book by itself, but it's only about a third of this volume.

   He also goes on to tell about the writing of the plays and their staging through the centuries. Something I've not seen elsewhere in one volume is a discussion of the many famous actors who've played the major Shakespearean roles.

   Above all, this book goes down easily. It's perfectly easy to understand. There is no deep and esoteric Freudian, feminist, postmodern whatever discussion of individual plays or characters.




4. Stanley Wells' latest book combines two genres: Biography (Shakespeare), and History of Theatre (Shakespeare). It is a history of Shakespeare from his time to ours, including Shakespeare's life and subsequent theatrical performance, but excluding critical analysis and interpretation of the plays.
   
   The first 100 pages present a minimalist biography of the great playwright - "minimalist" in the sense that Wells sticks close to the (relatively few) facts that are known, or can be judiciously inferred, about Shakespeare's life, avoiding any temptation to pad out or speculate where the facts will not stretch. I found this approach to be refreshing and useful; it clarified for me what is actually known about Shakespeare's life, versus what has been inferred (or imagined) in other biographies.

   The remainder of the book deals with the history of Shakespeare in performance, from the playright's time down to the present day, both in England and (in less detail) abroad. The history of the original texts of the plays, their theatrical revisions (or mutilations), the theatres, producers, actors, and critical and popular responses (including Hollywood) are discussed. Given the potentially unlimited scope of this topic, Wells' treatment is brief, selective, and to the point (for example, Joseph Papp's seminal New York "Shakespeare in the Park" is given one sentence in the book.)

   To summarize, Wells has, a bit unusually, combined a brief but thoughtful biography of Shakespeare, with an introductory history of Shakespeare in performance. It's a fluently written and engaging overview, and as such, I think that many Shakespeare aficionados, as well as students of the history of theatre, will want to have it.

1 comments about William Temple: Church, State and Society in Britain, 1880-1950 (British Lives).

1. Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple was the son of Archbishop of Canterbury Frederick Temple. Although he grew up in bishop's residences, he never lost his affinity for issues of social justice. He was a major proponent of the modern ecumenical movement and was one of the guiding lights behind the creation of the World Council of Churches. Although he passed away after about two years as Archbishop of Canterbury, he had had a long career in the Church. This book is a more succinct treatment of Archbishop Temple's life than the biography by Iremonger, although once you have read this book, you will want to read that work as well. Temple was a dedicated servant of God whose impact is still resonating today.

No comments about The Greville Memoirs. A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852: Volume 1.

No comments about King George II and Queen Caroline.