2 comments about Stiff Little Fingers: Song by Song.

1. Stiff Little Fingers have been a favorite band of mine for a number of years now, mostly for their first two albums, Inflammable Material and Nobody's Heroes. This book has some really interesting insight into what made them tick. It's basically a really long interview between Alan Parker (SLF Superfan), and Jake Burns. It's got some pre-band and pre-first album background on them getting their start, and then takes on a format of basically going through every track on every album and having Jake explain what it was written about, when, and why. They also stop and note lineup changes as they occured between albums and tours and whatnot.
   
   The information it has is really great, as well as easy and fun to read. It definetly made me pull out SLF records that I hadn't listened to in a while, like Go For It or Flags and Emblems, and give them another listen. I really wish it was a bigger and broader book though. I wanted more touring stories, and it would be nice to hear what other folks from the Rigid Digits roster have to say about being from Belfast's best. So it's a good read, but not a comprehensive band bio by any means.



2. Bought this after seeing SLF play in Chicago 06.06. They still deliver. The book is a long interview conducted by a superfan who interjects himself too much for this to be journalism. What is missing is in fact the actual lyrics to the songs they are talking about. There's some true funny bits and some interesting factoids and its a fair read, but overall it's a loosely charted conversation that could have better served the subject.

No comments about Revolutiona Woman.

No comments about Rebel Royals.

No comments about In my father's house.

2 comments about The Word of a Prince: A Life of Elizabeth I from Contemporary Documents.

1. I read this book in a History class of the Tudor-Stuart period in college. While I found the book interesting, many others did not. The book combines documents by Elizabeth herself, many rare or hard to find and of a personal nature, and secondary source comentaty. The book gives an often unheard naritive of Elizabeth I's childhood, accendancy, and reign.

   One problem that many other students found in my class was the constant personal narritives given by the author. While at times they are quite dramatic and through provoking, they are often biased and pure speculation (yet presented as fact). Some issues and events are taken someone out of context or presented in a slanted view.

   While I would definatly recomend this book to anyone wanting to know more and about Elizabeth I, I must caution the reader to question some of the evidence and speculation given in the book. The reader must constantly be on the look out for things that may be biased. This book does make an excellent read for the amature historian, but like all historical books, do not base all your knowledge on this one work.




2. I've never read this book before, But someone that has, Could u tell me why in the world it says The World of a *Prince*? Because shes a princess.

No comments about Keeping Watch: A WAAF in Bomber Command-3rd Edition.

No comments about Back to Beckett.

1 comments about The Monument.

1. If only Ursula and Justin knew what we know about clinical depression...this is a riveting and true love story with a mysterious, mystical quality to it. A 16-year-old manic English boy falls for a bewitchingly glamorous 26-year-old sophisticate of Eastern European origins ( I longed for some photos -- the best Justin's brother could do was compare her to an Afghan hound...was her long helmet of golden hair like Mary Travers' or Veronica Lake's?) and sweeps her away for 15 years of compulsive traveling and devoted hot sex. And they have enough money for a flat in Rome and a house in Greece accessible only by sea! He grabbed her just in time...she was already thinking of suicide despite her comfortable life married to an antiquities dealer. Justin's energy and ardor keep her afloat indefinitely..until that old death wish sweeps her away at the age of 42...when they were about to build another house in their beloved Sudan...what a little emergency medication could have done!!!
   An interesting historical story of the late '50s and the '60s...satisfying and devastating for all of us worshiping in the cult of undying all-consuming love.

No comments about Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells (Selected Correspondence of Bernard Shaw).

2 comments about The Highland Lady in Ireland: Journals 1840-50 (Canongate Classics, No. 41).

1. I don't think Elizabeth Grant ever intended this diary for other people to read - unlike her Memoirs, specifically written for her grandchildren. I think it was used to let off her frustration and anger during what must have been a stressful time. She was born into a wealthy and influential family, which through its own financial mismanagement lost all its own money and more. She, her asthmatic husband and her teenage family had to live off a run-down estate (her husband's brother had nearly ruined it) and an army invalid pension during the Famine, and they decided to stay and try to alleviate the ills of the Famine for their own tenants and the rest of their district too. It's hardly surprising that irritation and exasperation show up in spades - this diary must have been her only safe outlet. Anyone with huge, necessary investments to make and no money to do it with will understand her troubles. It's hardly surprising that any sort of mismanagement irritated her.

   If anyone wants to know about her father and brother, they should find out what they'd done by reading the footnotes, the Memoirs, and also : Rothiemurchus : nature and people on a Highland estate 1500-2000 / T.C. Smout & R.A. Lambert. Dalkeith : Scottish Cultural Press, 1999.

   Meanwhile she lists what the family was reading; what she was writing - earnings from her writing, not the estate's income, kept two local schools open and her daughters clothed - and the book ends with a real mother's angle on the first wedding among her children, including a complete list of the trousseau and wedding presents.

   Readers cannot help but learn something about the period from what she describes. Anyone who was critical of members of the Irish establishment and the activities of the British government during the Famine can hardly be faulted.




2. This book is an amazing piece of literature. It rings true, for the social and political issues of that particular time in Ireland/England/Scotland. It's rare that we get such a peek into the personal life of a person and the lives around her. She was a compassionate person, one who chose to stay and try to relieve the lives of her tenants. It is easy to shake our fingers at some of her pronouncements, especially about the Irish peasantry and culture around her, and the class bias is broad. However, she stayed (mostly) and is correct in her observations of the idle rich (the Milltowns, etc) and the opposite ends with the peasantry. Stupidity abounds in both reaches.
   
   I found her candor refreshing and some of what we would now consider 'politically incorrect', to ring true. There is stupidity in all classes, and the two extremes that she writes about sounds truthful even today.
   
   This is a very good book to read, not especially for what was happening politically or historically in that part of Ireland, but in the social behaviors of this class and culture. It is a special insight into a world that has so many of the same issues and challenges that we have today. Our response to issues might go in and out of fashion, but humanity doesn't really change.
   
   I would have loved to read her writings here before family members got ahold and fed to the fire.