3 comments about Letters of Henry Viii, 1526--29: Extracts from the Calendar of State Papers of Henry VIII (Uncovered Editions).

1. While I wouldn't recommend this book for the casual reader who wants to know more about King Henry VIII, for scholars, it's wonderful to be able to see the original source documents that are so often briefly quoted in biographies.



2. These are letters from those years when Henry was breaking with the Catholic Church in order to marry Anne Boleyn (and, not incidentally, eliminate its influence on English matters of state). It is part of the Uncovered Editions series, which publishes historic official papers not previously available in popular form.
   
   I'm a great believer in going to original source material, and this book shows that it's well worth the effort.
   
   The machinations and manœuverings are fascinating, as Henry and the Emperor each seeks to engage the Pope in his own interests. When a rumor spreads that the Pope has died, letters are sent calling for threats and bribery to install a Pope favorable to the King's cause. But he's not dead, after all.
   
   The Papacy and the Church are clearly shown as weak and vacillating, ( not to mention corrupt, as the Pope rewards those who contribute to his wars with cardinal's robes). The King doesn't exactly come off well, either, as one has a hard time believing that he really believed the dispensation invalid. His behavior towards Wolsey, whose strenuous efforts in his monarch's behalf were a failure, was, to put it mildly, ungrateful.
   
   Two quibbles (resulting in a "4" rather than a "5"). The title is a tad misleading as it implies that the letters were written by Henry, and although some are, the majority are from other players in the Divorce. Also, the notes could have been more expansive.
   
   Despite that, it's a most interesting collection.



3. If you havent read the actual state papers it may be confusing. Most of them are extracts or abstracts of the original document, so quite a bit is missing as it is. I havent read this book, but my universities library had the whole collect of Calendars of Letters and state papers, Domestic series which has all of the documents from Henry's reign. If you liked that book, you may try and read those, although I am not sure you will be able to buy them, at least a low cost.

5 comments about Business the Richard Branson Way: 10 Secrets of the World's Greatest Brand-Builder.

1. I suggested that we choose Virgin as a company to research as an MBA Project. Our group used this book as research material. We found it wonderful, and uplifting, exactly what what was necessary for this project. I would highly recommend it to others as well as the book "Losing My Virginity". Virgin is a company that should be studied by US business'executives, its shows you can create an empire - differently!



2. I believe that Richard Branson is a unique character and that information about his life and business philosophies would make an interesting read. Thus I chose to read this book.

   However I was somewhat disappointed. Although I did learn a few things and there were some interesting passages, a great deal of the book consisted of quotes obtained from OTHER biographers and journalists attempting to document Branson's life.

   Each chapter concluded with a summary (read: repetition) of the information in that chapter, and dozens of other sections/quotes/anecdotes were obviously repeated in various chapters. Perhaps because of this, it only took me an hour to read the entire book (admittedly I am a reasonably fast reader).

   One thing that I can say in its favor is that the book was structured well; there were 10 main sections, each devoted to a different "Branson philosophy" (for example, "pick on someone bigger than you").

   In short, although I did get some interest out of this book I am looking for another Branson biography to read because this one fell short of expectations.




3. This book is a handy compilation of observations, hypotheses and speculations on the subject of Richard Branson. Author Des Dearlove freely and frankly admits his debt to several other writers who have probed the Branson story in depth and breadth. There is little if anything original to be found, aside perhaps from the author's style of presentation, which tries hard to be light and deft. Although the book carries you along, its biggest punch resides in the author's list of "10 secrets" of Branson's success. Readers who would like to know in the most general terms what Branson has done and how he has done it, and who are willing to swallow a few clichés in lieu of explanations, will seize upon this book.we think you will enjoy it and, after all, enjoying your work is one of Branson's great secrets.



4. And that's pretty much all this book does. And truly I'd be okay with that if it were at all well written or offered ANY real insight into his method. Y'know how reality shows always spend like one-third of their air time repeating stuff they already told you? This book is like that.
   
   The King of Virgin is clearly a marketing genius. Surely there's another book that does him justice.



5. Des has done a good job into explaining how Richard Branson does business.
   A fun read full of practical ideas!

2 comments about Exiled: The Story of John Lathrop.

1. This book is the story of John Lathrop, an early English non-conformist, and his fight for religious freedom.

   Accounts of people like William Tyndale, John Wycliff and other similar champions of Christianity and freedom are hard to come by these days. Foxe's Book of Martyrs and other similar works contain thumbnail sketches of these champions of religious liberty that had so much to do with the establishment of America. There are extensive scholarly works on some of these figures. But it is difficult to find a popular work that has sufficient depth to really understand the struggles that these people went through to establish religious liberty as a tenet of Western Civilization.

   This book fills in this gap. It is the story of an English Minister who is forced into exile because his conscience will not allow him to agree completely with his church.

   It is historical and derived from primary sources, but is told in a conversational style much like that of Alan Eckert in his early American historical works. This form of writing flows smoother and is more appealing to someone looking for a good story in addition to learning more information on historical figures and periods.

   As an American, I found it particularly interesting as it documented the history of a representative figure who fled the Old World for the New to find religious liberty.

   I recommend it for adolescents and adults who would appreciate learning more of this early American immigrant and the causes that led to so many similar immigrants coming to America. The genealogy list of descendants of John Lathrop notes that over half of the 43 Presidents of the United States were (and are since GWB is also related) related to this man.




2. Very well researched and written. Done in a novel format, but kept to accurate historical information.

3 comments about My Just Desire: The Life of Bess Raleigh, Wife to Sir Walter.

1. Anna Beer's biography of Bess Ralegh follows a current trend amongst English literary historians who are intent on re-examining the supporting cast of English Tudor and Stuart history. In the same vein as Weir, Gristwood and Somerset, she has produced an in depth look at a single aristocratic female set against a common backdrop, in this case, Elizabethan England.
   Opening with her own fictionalised account of Bess early morning as Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, we find our subject, Bess Throckmorton, five months pregnant which leads to a brief discourse on the sexual politics that pervaded much of Elizabethan politics. In chronological manner, Beer gives an early account of Bess life, of her Throckmorton relatives who constantly interfered in matters political meaning they often got send to Court, of her mother Anna and her presentation to the Court in 1584. Beer also weaves in an account of the major events of the time featuring Mary, Queen of Scots, Essex, Dudley et al before focusing on Bess' education which was "neither democratizing nor meritocratic". In parallel runs the biography of her future husband, Walter Ralegh and the sexual scandals that seem to have been rife at Court.
   (...)
   Beer, in a simple and entertaining style, has created a story of a woman who was, at first, infatuated with a charming adventurer, then married to one of the most powerful men in England, risking her Queen's fury, then a stoical and steadfast wife displaying brilliant political and legal acumen to keep the Ralegh and Throckmorton family afloat during years of political upheaval and royal dynastical change. Ever-loyal to her increasingly disillusioned husband and afterwards the consummate matriarch it lends credence to the statement that behind every great man there stands a greater woman.
   Well worth reading.



2. "My Just Desire," a superficial look at the life of an Elizabethan gentlewoman, leaves much to be desired. Peppering her writing with modern phraseology, such as "boy toy," author Anna Beer's diminishes both her subject and her readers' interest in it.
   
   Better that the fascinating life of Bess Throckmorton, wife to Sir Walter Ralegh, had been treated in a more reverant and scholarly manner. This is a choice subject poorly limned.



3. I could not put this book down, enjoyed (almost) every minute of it. Some of the details were a little too much, but I loved learning something about running a household, women's rights (or lack of them)and the book is full of details about the many players of the times. I loved the book.

No comments about The Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics.

4 comments about Peter Cushing: An Autobiography and Past Forgetting.

1. Peter Cushing's two-volume autobiography, now conveniently combined into one volume, is indispensible reading to any Hammer fan like myself, who grew up looking forward to each new Cushing shocker. It is the essential companion volume to Christopher Lee's autobiography "Tall, Dark & Gruesome". Mr. Cushing's considerable personal charm and famous gentlemanliness shines from these pages. For my own taste, I could have used less on his great romance with Helen and more day-to-day off screen at Hammer & Amicus, but other readers, especially women, will react differently. Cushing was nothing if not madly in love with his wife, and her early death left a void nothing ever filled, though Cushing lived on past her for over 20 years. The photos have been well & generously selected, and overall, the book is a pleasureable read about one of the nicest men ever to make a career scaring the pants off us. Those who know Peter only as Grand Moff Tarkin in "Star Wars" will find a wealth of career that led to that pinnicle, and even his die-hard Hammer Frankenstein & Van Helsing fans may not know he worked with Laurel & Hardy, Cary Grant and James Whale! It makes you feel like you're sitting in a lovely seaside cottage, sipping tea and nibbling cakes while Peter regales you with tales from a life you may end up wishing you had led.



2. Peter Cushing was fiercely devoted to his wife, Helen and this autobiography certainly drives that point home. The death of his wife in the early 1970's left Cushing in a deep state of mourning that he never really recovered from, in his own words, he spent the remaining years of his life after Helen's death, awaiting his own death. Cushing regales us with stories of his early years, his years in Hollywood, his eventual return to England and his association with Hammer and Amicus, but throughout the entire book, we never lose sight of the fact that Cushing was deeply in love with his wife. One seldom hears/reads of such devotion to one's spouse, but always the gentleman, Cushing gives us all a glimpse into what his world was really like and although it would have been nice to hear more tales of his Hammer/Amicus days, the fact that he opened his heart and bared his soul unashamedly is enough to make this book a must for any Cushing fan.



3. It seems an amazing fact that the majority of actors who have tied their stars to horror have had personalities that couldn't be farther apart than the characters they played. Certainly, Peter Cushing may be the classic example of this. He often played unethical murderous characters in horror films and appeared as the hero in countless others, but he was one of the most soft-spoken gentleman one could ever meet. This book includes both of Cushing's books - written in the late 80s. His Autobiography and the follow up "Past Forgetting." The first is excellent, recounting his life and career from its early days to the present and includes many thoughtful anecdotes and his great love for his wife Helen shines through. The second part - Past Forgetting - is for fans only. It's not badly written or boring but contains little of substance and is not easily recalled. A disappointment after the first book, but then again - when you already told your life story, what are you supposed to do? Tell it again. Still, this is highly recommended for all fans of Cushing and Hammer films.



4. If you are a Hammer, or an Amicus, Tigon, Tyburn, and all the english gothic periode fan, you are already acquainted with Sir Peter Cushing. Unlike Christopher Lee, he didn't live long enough to bring his commentary to the audio tracks of his numerous films now released on DVD. But this book gives us his memories and his commentaries on the films we love.

5 comments about The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan.

1. To paraphrase another wit: This is some of the best fun you can have with your clothes still on. Was Kenneth Tynan the most sophisticated and intelligent critic of his generation? It's hard to think that he wasn't, especially after reading these diaries. Not only does he give you a grand notion of what theater can be, but he also gives you a guided tour of the international theater scene in the late twentieth century. What a grand tonic his intellectually sharp viper tongue is in these days of spineless critics. Bravo!



2. Kenneth Tynan was a marvellous journalist. There is no-one writing for magazines or newspapers today (perhaps with the exception of Christopher Hitchens) who can so readily draw upon an apparently limitless well of wit, and do so in perfect sentences. All of his books are worth reading if you can find them second-hand: his early collection of drama criticism, 'Curtains', and the collection 'Profiles', are probably the places to start. For devotees of Tynan, who bemoan the paucity of his output in the last fifteen years of his life, the Diaries, splendidly introduced by John Lahr, can prove very frustrating. It seems everything conspired against Ken sitting in front of the typewriter and working his magic. His health was abysmal -- emphysema worsened by a heavy cigarette habit; he was preoccupied by a strange strain of socialism, which allows him to finish one entry with a call for action on the part of the workers and begin the next with an account of a tour through France, eating at three-star Michelin restaurants all the way; and he was rather excessively waylaid by a spanking-based dalliance with a mistress. That he managed to eke out portions of 'The Sound of Two Hands Clapping' and the profiles collected in 'Show People' is, on the evidence of the diaries, something of a miracle.

   The diaries themselves make for very entertaining reading. There is plenty of celebrity gossip and, as befits writing not meant for public consumption, a good deal of invective. Sir Peter Hall, referred to throughout as 'P. Hall' is dealt with particularly harshly, and the relationship between Laurence Olivier and Tynan is fraught with ambiguity. There is also Tynan's almost comical political naivete; while there is certainly much that can be said for socialism and sexual liberation, Tynan's blatant hypocrisy (there are several references to his employing servants and nannies) and his very middle-class hatred of anything at all tainted by being middle-class, does not make for a convincing advertisement. I can only imagine how awful his 'spanking film', which he spends several years trying to find backers for, would have been. But these are, believe it or not, minor cavils, and actually add to the enjoyment of looking over Tynan's shoulder as he unburdens himself of his daily thoughts. (He certainly does not let himself off lightly, frequently despairing over his lassitude.) And the concluding entries, shadowed as they are by the reader's (and Tynan's) knowledge of his imminent death, are genuinely moving. I trust and hope there is more Tynan to be reissued soon. He's a fine companion.




3. I remember Kenneth Tynan from an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show shortly before his 1980 death. Until this book, I was unfamiliar with his work. Now I see what I was missing.
   
   Not only was Tynan a highly skilled writer of prose, but as a critic he saw things for what they were, even if the majority disagreed. He gives Warren Beatty's pretentious and mystifyingly overrated film Shampoo the swift kick to the rear that it deserves, and even finds a fault with Paddy Cheyefsky's Network that I had not detected prior to reading his assessment of the film in his diaries. Tynan also has his say on economics ("Inflation rides high and I believe intentionally" he writes in 1973) and a myriad of other subjects including his preoccupation with spanking.
   
   Overall, these diaries reveal a melancholy soul who found some solace in writing about his life and its disappointments in his journal. Most published diaries promise more than they deliver. Not Tynan's. His diaries are a compelling read.



4. From THE DIARIES OF KENNETH TYNAN: "Whenever we solve the problem of dreams, we shall not be far from solving the root problems of human identity and creativity. Has anyone noticed the really inexplicable thing about our nightly narrative tapes? They have suspense. This occurred to me last night, when I was involved in a Hitchcock-type chase dream---in which, I suddenly realised, I did not know what was going to happen next. I did not know who would be lurking behind the next door; and I wanted desperately to know. What part of one's mind is it that harbours secrets unknown even to the unconscious? (For in dreams we are surely privy to the unconscious in full flood.) The theory that in dreams we tap a source of energy outside the individual psyche is powerfully reinforced by the presence of suspense."
   
   After Tynan left his job as dramaturg at the National Theatre, he pretty much floundered around for the rest of his life. I wish he had gone back to doing theater reviews. But I guess he was burned out on theater. Maybe he grew bored with the very medium of theater. He said he was profoundly bored with everything ("I shall die writhing in apathy"), but I'm not too convinced of that claim. I wish he had felt an artistic duty to his audience and had then carried out that duty. While reading this thing, I had an overwhelming urge to slap that cigarette out of his mouth and that hairbrush out of his hand and to sternly command him to "do do that voodoo that you do so well".



5. I suggest reading this as a cautionary tale: how a man with so much promise, talent and intelligence, saddled with insecurities and a taste for hedonism, left him broke and feeling like a failure at the end of his life. How terribly tragic. But this book is definitely not a downer.
   
   However, knowing that Kenneth Tynan was a British literary critic, I had reservations about delving into this. I thought it could be a very dry read. Instead, it turned out to be laugh out loud funny, with some serious dish about famous people (the man knew EVERYBODY) and at the same time introspective and melancholic. This book is not for everybody, but for those with a love of brilliant prose and serious wit, the rewards are rich. - Susan Sayles

2 comments about Boudica: Iron Age Warrior Queen.

1. This book could not be given enough stars. It takes a fascinating episode in history, the revolt of the Queen of the Iceni of Britain in AD 60-61, and looks at it from historical, archaeological, literary, and mythical points of view. It shows how Boudica has went from simply the best-remembered of many contemporary British female warlords to variously being portrayed as a sadistic villian, a feminist hero, and a champion of British nationalism and politics. Overall, the book examines the real Boudica's role in history and her subsequent impact on modern Britain in a manner that is both informative and enjoyable to read. It is a fine source on Queen Boudica, the Celtic 'Woman of Victory' from every perspective!



2. This is one of the best books on Boudica yet, and if you only read one, this should be the one you read. There is relatively little known about the woman that has become so important in some many ways to so many segments of society, and what is "known" should be treated with caution. Hingley and Unwin do an excellent job of showing what we do know, what we don't know, and what we might know but should think critically about in the context of the story of Boudica. They manage to create an interesting story without compromising on the evidence, avoiding what so many do when they say all the right things about biased sources and then mostly ignore what they just said and relate what those sources say as fact. Instead, Hingley and Unwin weave the critical assessment of both written and archaeological courses into their discussion in a way that keep it relevant to the story they tell. This story is given substance by the up-to-date discussion of current archaeological research on the period, which provides as useful review for professionals and interested others alike. The second half of the book was also interesting, providing a review of the ways in which "Boudica" became transformed into "Boadicea", the cultural icon variously of the right, the left, and the centre. This is far more standard in this type of literature, but nonetheless valuable in terms of what it brings to the table.
   Probably most importantly, they manage to do all this in a highly readable fashion. Tackling the deconstruction of assumptions of Roman superiority, the inevitability of Romanization, and the uncritical use of written sources can often get mired down in jargon and so sail beyond what most people understand or care about. However, this book does it in a way that is both accessible and convincing. Nice job all around!

No comments about The Viking Age: the Early History, Manners, and Customs of the Ancestors of the English-Speaking Nations: Illustrated from the Antiquities Discovered in ... from the Ancient Sagas and Eddas. Volume 1.

1 comments about In Pursuit of the English: A Documentary.

1. This little book is a gem in every way. Lessing's loving account of how she got along when she first came to London/England is warm, witty, funny and written with an admirable insight into the minds of people she met. It is never less than very good, and it digs deeply into "the English character", if there is such a thing...