Biography: general Books

Book SynopsisGarry Fabian Miller’s Dark Room is a photography book unlike any other. At its heart is the artist’s description of a life lived making pictures between the dark and the light, a deeply personal account woven against the history of photography from the moment of its birth in the 1830s to its decline, and some would say death, in the digital age almost two hundred years later. It is a memoir that reads at times like a manifesto, at others like a confession; a last testament to the dark room as both a site for the imagination, and a physical space for the alchemy that William Henry Fox Talbot once described as ‘a little bit of magic realised’. Dark Room charts Miller’s work over five decades, shifting from a camera-based practice in early career to the abstract picture making for which he has become internationally recognised, working without a camera to experiment with the possibilities of light as both medium and subject. At its core is the relationship with nature and place that has so sustained his way of life, and specifically with his home on Dartmoor and the cycle of daily walks that have been at the core of his practice for thirty years. The book also features an essay on Miller’s work by his friend the potter and writer Edmund de Waal and technical notes by Martin Barnes, senior photography curator of the Victoria and Albert Museum.Trade ReviewFabian Miller’s works dwell majestically, inviting pause, tempting immersion, evading final qualification. These rare encounters remind us of quite how magical the photographic arts are. * Amateur Photographer *We see a lot of books here at Amateur Photographer, and it’s safe to say that while many of them are excellent, it’s rare for one to give such pause for thought as Dark Room...to sit down and absorb the book, front-to back, is a fantastic experience that is hard to beat. * Amateur Photographer *Table of ContentsDark Room 13 Farewell to an Idea: Edmund de Waal 226 Catalogue 242 Technical Notes: Martin Barnes 256 Further Reading 259 Biography 260 Acknowledgements 262

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Book SynopsisThe bestselling book that inspired the cult classic film, Girl, Interrupted, starring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie."Not since Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar has a personal account of life in a mental hospital achieved as much popularity and acclaim" TIME "Intelligent and painful" Guardian"Poignant, astonishing memoir" New York TimesIn 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital to be treated for depression. She spent most of the next two years on the ward for teenage girls in a psychiatric hospital renowned for its famous clientele - Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor and Ray Charles.A clear-sighted, unflinching work that provokes questions about our definitions of sane and insane, Kaysen's extraordinary memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers.Trade ReviewGirl, Interrupted is a beautiful, complex story that truly led the way on opening up a new, brave, nuanced approach to talking about women's mental health. It is an intense and personal story that taps into a universal truth about how the world responds to complicated young women -- Scarlett CurtisPoignant, honest and triumphantly funny . . . A compelling and heartbreaking story * New York Times Book Review *A cool, elegant and unexpectedly funny memoir * The Times *Memorable and stirring . . . Fascinating. A powerful examination not only of Kaysen's own imperfections but of those of the system that diagnosed her * Vogue *Not since Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar has a personal account of life in a mental hospital achieved as much popularity and acclaim * Time *Intelligent and painful * Guardian *Girl, Interrupted is superb, poignant and more powerful for its lack of romantic inflation, whining, or self-congratulation * Scotland on Sunday *

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Book SynopsisIn 1909, the largest department store in London's West End, designed and built from scratch, opened in Oxford Street in a glorious burst of publicity. The mastermind behind the façade was American retail genius Harry Gordon Selfridge: maverick businessman, risk-taker, dandy and one of the greatest showmen the retail world has ever known. His talents were to create the seduction of shopping, and as his success and fame grew, so did his glittering lifestyle: mansions, yachts, gambling, racehorses - and mistresses. From the glamour of Edwardian England, through the turmoil of the Great War and the heady excesses of the 1920s and beyond, Selfridges Department Store was 'a theatre with the curtain going up at 9 o'clock each morning'. Mr Selfridge reveals the captivating story of the rise and fall of the man who revolutionised the way we shop. 'Lively and entertaining' Sunday Telegraph 'Will change your view of shopping forever' Vogue 'Harry Selfridge revolutionised the way we shop ... fascinating' Daily MailTrade ReviewIn this energetic and wonderfully detailed biography, Lindy Woodhead ... provides an enthralling description of fashion, politics, music and dance, the arts, the sciences advertising and the use of the media, during the decades before the Second war. * Evening Standard *A man ahead of his time, an accelerator of change, and he deserves to be remembered as the man who put the fun on to the shop floor and the sex appeal in to shopping. * Sunday Express *Harry Selfridge revolutionised the way we shop...fascinating. * Daily Mail *A fascinating biographical, as well as sociological, study * Independent on Sunday *Lively... conveys the excitement of changes in fashion and technology in the late Edwardian era * Sunday Telegraph *This biography - of Selfridge, of the early 20th century and of the legacy of consumerism they helped to create - serves as a fitting tribute as it approaches its 100th anniversary -- Katy Guest * Independent *Fascinating -- Jackie McGlone * Scotsman *A rich social history of a time of great change * Spectator Business *

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Book SynopsisAt the age of eleven, Helena Frith Powell's mother gave her a letter after school. It was from her real father her mother told her, not the abusive and moody man Helena had always assumed was the one. This new father was glamorous, an Italian film maker, and he would like her to meet his family on a grand tour of Italy. The moving discovery of Italy and the many relatives Helena never knew she had is wittily described in Ciao Bella, the memoir of her trip through Italy with her father. In a new twist, her father receives a prestigious literary prize in 2008 at the age of 80 and is reunited with her mother after 25 years - will it last?Trade Review'You really must read... Ciao Bella.' Sunday Times 'Magical.' Daily Mail 'Richly comic.' Sunday Times Best Memoir 'Humorous.' Daily Telegraph 'Beautifully written... I wanted to follow in Helena's footsteps round Italy.' Kate Figes 'I defy anyone not to enjoy it.' Harrow Observer 'A travel book with a difference.' Coventry Evening TelegraphTable of ContentsPrologue 5 1. Two Hundred and Forty Steps 9 2. Nothing Gay about Gabriel 52 3. Fish and Fidelity 72 4. A Date with Caravaggio 103 5. Birds Obsessed with Sex 120 6. Truffles with Everything 150 7. Dinner with a Princess 162 8. An Erotic Tour of Venice 182 9. A Figure in Black and Blue 205 10. On Rimini Beach 221 11. Tea at the Grand Hotel 251 12. Unconditional Love 267 Afterword 286

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Book SynopsisBarry Eaton is back with more fascinating insights into the afterlife. In No Goodbyes, Barry delves deeper into the mysteries of the spirit world and life between lives, and how they can influence our current life on earth.He reveals information about destiny and free will, world unrest, the effects of negativity and addictions, dealing with sceptics, soul energy guidance, consulting mediums and psychics, soul growth and other facets of the bigger picture.Afterlife, Barry's first, bestselling book, introduced Judy, his late partner, who from the world of spirit originally inspired and encouraged him to write. Judy's soul has since advanced to higher levels and now offers fascinating new details about life on both sides of the veil. In No Goodbyes, Barry discloses more of his own afterlife journey, including intriguing glimpses into a long-forgotten past.

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Book SynopsisDame Mary Durack Miller was born into a pastoral legacy that made her name famous even before she became one of Australias most popular literary doyennes of the 20th century. Best known for her history of the Durack family, Kings in Grass Castles, Dame Mary was married to aviation pioneer Horrie Miller and was a sibling to the artist Elizabeth Durack. Among the multifarious threads woven into her life, she became a friend and confidant to many celebrated writers, actors and artists. Drawing on a great accumulation of first-hand sources, principally her mothers diaries and correspondence, Patsy Milletts book is about a well-known family who saw their prospects as blighted. Written from the unique perspective of someone born into the wash-up of the Durack dynasty, Patsy says her account will be controversial, as the reality behind the generally accepted facts has never been told. Millets story is unflinching. Her sharp, insightful prose and acerbic wit create an intimate portrait of an extraordinary writer whose family life was filled with triumph and tragedy.

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Book SynopsisA series of lively, colourful stories from South Africa's most famous township - snapshots of life and the characters that inhabit the area.

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Book SynopsisA definitive biography of an iconic Canadian architect—and a social portrait of the midcentury design world he lived in. Ron Thom came of age in the mid-20th century, just as the modern movement and an impending building boom were about to reshape the country. Talented in music and art as well as design, he rejected sleek austerity in favor of modern architecture that is warm, intimate, and beautiful. He worked from coast to coast, and his most renowned buildings—Massey College, Trent University, the Shaw Festival Theatre, and landmark houses—continue to inspire generations of architects, as well as the legions of people who work, study, visit, and live in them.In Adele Weder’s new biography, Thom emerges as a complex figure, gifted with creative genius but pursued by demons. More than just the life story of one man, this book is a portrait of the society that shaped him. His world included Jack Shadbolt, Arthur Erickson, the Massey family, Barbara, and Murray Frum, and many other luminaries of 20th-century Canada.To unpack this multifaceted story, Weder pored through institutional and personal archives in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, Peterborough, and Toronto. She tracked down and interviewed Thom’s surviving friends, colleagues, and family members across the country, from New Brunswick to Vancouver Island. Her extensive research serves as the bedrock for Ron Thom, Architect—a book for anyone interested in a transformative era in Canada's cultural history.Trade Review"Through extensive archival research, but perhaps more importantly, interviews and on-site visits, Weder has illuminated what might be termed the time of meaning in Thom’s architecture."—The British Columbia Review "Details the career of one of Canada’s outstanding 20th-century architects and offers a sensitive interpretation of Ron Thom’s many relationships and the nature of his personal demons. . . It is a page-turner."—Michael Peterman, The Toronto Star "A thorough and compassionate portrait. . . Reads like a novel: tragic at times, but exhilarating in so many ways." —Canadian Architect "A terrific book—historically necessary and worthy of its subject. Also a great read." —Douglas Coupland, author of City of Glass "This wonderful study of Ron Thom's genius helped explain to me the difference between a humdrum shelter and something akin to a miracle." —John Fraser, master emeritus of Massey College and author of Eminent Canadians "Ron Thom is one of the most important—and misunderstood—figures in Canadian architectural history, and this compelling and meticulously researched biography sets the record straight." —Elsa Lam, editor of Canadian Architect and coauthor / editor of Canadian Modern Architecture "An insightful, enlightening, and gratifyingly fast-paced examination of one of Canadian architecture’s greatest minds and saddest lives." —Alexander Varty, BC Booklook "The book gives Mr. Thom his due as a designer, and it also raises tough questions about the state of architecture: Where are the great artists today? And does our society care enough about architecture to give them a shot?. . . Ms. Weder's book skillfully explains [Ron Thom's] 'instinctive' approach to composition. But she also reveals the man, who was brilliant, charismatic, driven and, in the end, brought low by addiction." —Alex Bozikovic, The Globe and Mail "Thom was a true talent, and Weder captures how hard it was for him to create in a world that saw buildings not always as marvellous places to enhance life but rather as the more prosaic outcome of functional or commercial imperatives." —Kelvin Browne, Literary Review of Canada "Essential reading for anyone who has even a passing interest in Canadian architecture, and even more so for practicing architects and students. Adele here has demonstrated her skills as an expert storyteller, having culled through what must've been a mountain of material to make this an entertaining and richly informative book." —Sean Ruthen, Spacing

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Book SynopsisFrom his Syrian hometown to Lebanon, Egypt, Scotland, and England, Hussein maps the path of a man cast out of his familiar world. No One May Remain is a raw and candid perspective from a Kurdish-Syrian author on the war in Syria, the refugee crisis, and life for a refugee in the West.

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Book SynopsisThis nostalgic and absorbing memoir tells the story of a real-life female police detective in post-war Britain, as she navigates a man's world.It's 1956, and the Berkshire Constabulary has never had a woman detective before. That is, until bright and ambitious WPC Gwen Crockford passes out of Hendon Detective Training School with flying colours...After five years serving as one of Britain's first policewomen, Gwen Crockford becomes one of its first female detectives. Swapping crime prevention for detection, she must soon become comfortable with attending murder scenes and post-mortems, investigating sex crimes and going undercover. Her police work is diverse and challenging: dealing with Teddy boy violence, arson, a paedophile 'war hero', and solving an unexplained death are all part of her remit.Gwen is sharp and quick to learn, considered 'one of the boys' by her colleagues, DS Kinch and DS Le Mercier. Until, that is, the traumatizing death of a child, the arrival of a new sexist DS, and near-zero opportunity for promotion force Gwen to reevaluate her career.Written and researched by Gwen's daughter Ruth from family papers, remembered stories from her mother and contemporary newspapers, this is a fascinating insight into late-1950s society and the challenges faced by female police officers.This is the second book in the Crockford series, following Calling WPC Crockford – Gwen's time as a pioneering uniform policewoman in the early 1950s.

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Book SynopsisMagnaccioni: (Roman dialect) people who live to eat well. I know no other word that captures that rare gift, that supremely basic human quality of eating with mind, eyes and heart and radiating uncontainable pleasure in so doing.In Magnaccioni, Anne Pia wants to make you feel tempted, greedy. She celebrates her heritage, the way of life, food, wine, music and dialect of southern Italy.Writing as a passionate food aficionada, she shares family recipes and food she has enjoyed in Italy based on la cucina povera, la cucina di terra – the use of fresh produce and simple ingredients to create sumptuous, joyful feasts. This book is a glorious and bold celebration of a very special culture and a fundamental way of looking at life and food which Anne is proud to call her own.Wine and music are essential in the mix that is southern Italian life. Anne guides you through her own pairings to her food so that you may join her in becoming joyful magnaccioni!Trade ReviewIn Magnaccioni poet and author Anne Pia departs from familiar forms, creating a book of recipes, philosophy and well-being that reflects the culture of her native Southern Italy. BOOKSFROMSCOTLANDThis is more than a cookery book. It is a glorious ‘Te Deum’ to Italy expressed through food, wine, music and anecdote. When you feel the ‘nostalgia d’Italia’ really badly and can’t hop on a flight straight away, open this book, plunge in and all will be well. CAV. RONNIE COVERY, Honorary Italian ConsulYou will not read Anne Pia's 'Magnaccioni', you will devour it.' FRANCESCA CONTINI MACKIE, Valvona & Crolla Ltd.This is a book not to be simply read and admired, but one destined to become a close companion in the kitchen, simultaneously feeding the body and soul. With prose which demands to be read and recipes just begging to be cooked, all written with a style and poetic flair which we have come to expect from Anne Pia, Magnaccioni: My Food… My Italy stands alongside the work of Diane Henry, Simon Hopkinson, and Nigel Slater – writers whose cookbooks you return to again and again. Anne Pia’s Magnaccioni: My Food… My Italy is a hymn to eating well as part of living life to the full. This appetite is evident on every page, inspiring not only conversations about food and drink, but music, philosophy, history, friends, and family. ALISTAIR BRAIDWOOD, Scots Whay HaeMagnaccioni," a cookery book that not only teaches you to cook like an Italian but also to live like one. Get ready to don your dancing shoes and indulge in authentic recipes with Anne Pia's celebration of Italy. CAV GIOVANNA EUSEBI

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Book Synopsis"I'm not Nebuchadnezzar, and I'm not MacBeth." So who am I? Chicago, Nairobi, Jerusalem, Cambridge, Edinburgh: the geography of Jenni Calder's life is as diverse as the ethnic, intellectual and emotional components.Jenni Calder has spent a lifetime in search of her identity, first as a daughter and sister, then as a writer, wife and mother. Not Nebuchadnezzar is a biography of sorts, a chronicle of the consuming search for that elusive concept known as 'identity'.Highly respected biographer of Robert Louis Stevenson, poet and historian, Calder has chosen an intriguingly elliptical, thematic approach to writing her own vividly presented life story. Keenly observed cameos of people and places abound but although this moving book is infused with a sense of mischief and fun, at heart it is a wise contemplation of life. Jenni Calder's retrospect describes a life well-lived, full of event and achievement, love and loss, aspiration and frustration. If you know who you are not, do you then know who you are?Jenni Calder was born Jennifer Rachel Daiches to a Scottish-born mother and English-born Jewish father in Chicago, one of America's great melting-pot cities. Not Nebuchadnezzar traces her journey from then to now. Through this book, Calder discovers that her true sense of identity can only develop from finding out who she is not. Here she balances her multiple identities to throw kaleidoscopic prisms from a single source - herself.Trade Review...a touching and highly resonant account of what it means to have several identities... This is an intelligent, personal, yet universal tale. - THE SCOTTISH STANDARD, 20 April 2005 ...explores aspects of her life in a series of lucid, thoughtful essays which examine the concept of identity. - FEATURE in The Scotsman, 16 April 2005 ...absorbing memoir...sketches of a brilliant and very unusual family...one of the book's strengths that she revisits them [the high points and the low points of her life] with a clear eye. ...This is a nicely-written and very interesting memoir. It's also nicely packaged... - SUNDAY HERALD, 01 May 2005 Calder's wondrous way with a pen... Not Nebuchadnezzar is a curious blend of personal self-analysis and more prosaic passages of travel writing, but somehow it works... Calder observes and describes the people and places important to her ever-changing quest for identity this considered and unusual book ... Calder's memoir...demonstrates a consistently high level of fine, emotive writing and makes hers by far the more memorable. - THE HERALD, 07 May 2005

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Book SynopsisFor lovers of the often dark and troubled poetry of Louis MacNeice, his father is a reassuring presence: solid, sober, pious yet tolerant, a Church of Ireland clergyman who was not afraid to reject the Ulster Covenant of 1912, denounce sectarianism, and even espouse Irish nationalism. This book originated in the discovery of one inconvenient fact. Frederick MacNeice (1866–1942) was not a Home Ruler but an all-Ireland Unionist, who for many years was an enthusiastic Orangeman in Dublin and then Ulster. In later life, especially as Bishop of Down after 1934, he set aside these connections in order to pursue intercommunal peace and tolerance in Belfast and beyond. Louis colluded with his father in reinterpreting his earlier career, as part of a process of personal reconciliation which profoundly affected his later poetry and autobiographical writings. The relationship between father and son is discussed in two chapters, and several well-known poems are reinterpreted in the light of fresh evidence. Above all, this is the biography of a visionary who never despaired of spreading salvation through the often derided Church of Ireland. Using unfamiliar archives and local newspapes as well as the writings of both father and son, this book reconstructs the disparate worlds in which Frederick MacNeice lived and worked. It also explores his muted responses to the suffering of his parents and siblings, the early death of his deeply depressed first wife, the benefits resulting from his second marriage and its consequences for his children. The figure that emerges is complex, guarded, astute, and remarkably effective in using religion to spread enlightenment. His life demonstrates that salvation deserves to be taken seriously as a motive force in modern Irish history.

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Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1992, this childhood memoir, revised and augmented, now has the status of a modern Irish classic. On his first trip abroad, Adrian Kenny observes that the signs are in one language only. There is no need for translation: there is nothing behind. Not so in his suburban childhood and adolescence, where Mayo is behind Dublin, poor fields behind the bourgeois drawing rooms of Rathmines, wildness behind authority. Attached to both, his attempts to reconcile them take him from close certainty to total collapse in the year of change – America, 1968. ‘What was it all for?’ his father asks. ‘It's like the end of the Aeneid,’ whispers his friend. ‘You came at the end of that world,’ Father Wilmot says. The end of Latin Mass, maids, floggings and charcoal suits. The author's keen eye and clear style lends this portrayal of an individual and a generation the truth and elegance of an enduring work of art.Trade ReviewHe brings maturity to bear on the past, without making a parable of it. Most of all he makes the past seem as it really is, swimming about inside us. This is a great book altogether. -- Rosita Sweetman * Irish Times *‘He brings maturity to bear on the past, without making a parable of it. Most of all he makes the past seem as it really is, swimming about inside us. This is a great book altogether.’ –– The Irish Times

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Book SynopsisLorna Martin's life is in chaos and she needs to make some big changes. After all, there must be a reason she keeps chasing after the wrong men, making toe-curling blunders at work and generally failing to keep her life on track. Egged on by her friends, she signs up for the talking cure: a year of therapy with the frosty Dr J.Along the way, she catches sight of the holy grail of true love in the shape of the gorgeous Dr McDreamy. But will Lorna find her own happy ending? With support (and not a little exasperation) from her friends and long-suffering sister, some serious setting-the-world-to-rights sessions involving too many bottles of wine, and the help of her inscrutable shrink, Lorna feels she might be getting her life together.Revealing, intimate and highly entertaining, Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is a must-read for any woman who loves the idea of being in love and worries about settling for second best.Trade Review'Martin . . . is a brave and engagingly entertaining survivor' * Financial Times *'A cross . . . between HBO's therapy drama In Treatment and Bridget Jones's Diary . . . Hilarious and wickedly moreish' * Guardian *'Her account . . . on the therapist's couch is revealed with the sort of honesty that could strip paint . . . enthralling' * Observer *'A hugely enjoyable page-turner' * Katie Toms, Observer *'A good, girly read . . . A thought provoking commentary on modern expectations' * Daily Telegraph *'Bridget Jones with knobs on' * Sun *A fascinating journey towards a happier existence * Sainsbury's Magazine *This humorous account of Martin's early midlife crisis will resonate with any professional thirtysomething who suddenly realises that they don't have a partner, kids or a mortgage * Glamour *'Funny, moving and critically acclaimed' * Grazia *'I was glued to it, as it made me laugh and cry in equal amounts - I didn't want to finish it' * Prima *

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Book SynopsisLET NOT THE WAVES OF THE SEA is Simon Stephenson's account of his journey following the loss of his brother in the Indian Ocean tsunami. If it is a story of grief, it is also a story of hope and of the unexpected places where healing can be found. Simon's journey takes him from Edinburgh in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, to Downing Street in London, to Thailand and the island where his brother died, to the scene of an ancient tsunami on the north-west coast of the United States, and to the town where he and his brother's favourite childhood film was made. Along the way there is heartbreak, dengue fever, Greek mythology, and hard physical labour in the tropical heat, but there is also memory, redemption and humour as well.Trade Review'Enviably well written ...one perfect sentence after another' * FT *'Like William Styron's moving memoir of depression, Darkness Visible, there is profound empathy here' * welovethisbook.com *A fine meditation on what is salvaged from loss. A humane and manly book * Janice Galloway, Scotland on Sunday *[A] moving and honest account...the book contains countless heartbreaking moments * Sunday Times *A beautifully crafted portrait of bereavement that tells us something new about the landscape, people, customs and hardship that he encountered along the way * Sunday Telegraph *Profoundly moving...it is impossible not to be touched * Observer *As much a celebration of Dominic's life and the brothers' relationship as it is a lament for his passing * Daily Mail *'An immensely moving, truthful and honest elegy. Stephenson has created something extraordinary' * Neel Mukherjee *'An extraordinary and courageous book' * Alex Preston *Remarkable... seldom will you find grief anatomised quite so acutely and honestly * John Preston, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year *'A remarkably moving and compelling read. The travelogue and biography is a celebration of his brother's life and deals courageously with the journey to understand his death in the Asian tsunami on Ko Phi Phi' * Andrew Dixon, Scotland on Sunday *

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Book SynopsisThis book provides an inside account of Khalifman's life and chess career, describing his emergence from promising junior to FIDE World Champion.

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Book SynopsisThis selection from the most productive Christian pen of the 19th century is also an introduction to one of its most compelling and troubled minds. John Henry Newman (1801-1891) was a dominant figure in both the Anglican and the Roman Catholic churches. His writings and his human presence in Oxford and elsewhere had an abiding impact on both communions and contribute still to the spirit of ecumenicism. This bok concentrates on Newman's life and work up to 9 October 1845, the mid-point of his life and the moment be became a Roman Catholic. He was a prolific and subtle writer, a great prose artist whose sermons, tracts and polemics, together with a talent for organization and an ability to inspire others to faith and action, launched the Oxford Movement and the controversies that still follow from it. The 12 years between 1833 and 1845 are among the most important for English Christianity, and they were shaped for the most part by the pen and energy of Newman, a rather shy, quiet Oxford don, whose enduring legacy was to restore to the Church of England its Catholic heritage. Newman was complex and sometimes contradictory as a man, and even in his most formal writings the man is present, responding to social and political pressures of church and state. A great communicator, with a need for self-disclosure, he is nonetheless revealed "and" concealed in his writings.

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Book SynopsisThis work, whose full title is Life of Colman, son of Luachain, or Betha Colmain maic Luachain, is a thirteenth-century Life of a seventh-century saint Colman (who first gave Mullingar its name, ‘the wry mill’, An Muileann gCearr), written originally in Irish at Lynn monastery south of Mullingar, preserved at the Rennes Municipal Library in Brittany, and translated and published by Kuno Meyer in 1911. This Life provides one of the most important sources for the ecclesiastical, topographical, social and political history of life in the midlands during the Early Christian era. Next to the Tripartite Life of Patrick and the biographies of Colum Cille, it is the richest and fullest among the lives of Irish saints that have come down to us, replete with details of the daily life of the monasteries, their royal patrons and subjects, dwelling among miracle-workers, saints and demons in a land subject to the vagaries of plague, famine and war. Meyer’s translation and introduction to the Life form the core of the book, added to which is a preface by Leo Daly, an original essay review by J.C. MacErlean from Studies, and commentary by Father Paul Walsh and others, correcting and amending the original document. A glossary, an index of personal names, places and tribes, and bibliographic essay make up the text. Pages from the original manuscript, topographical photographs showing monastic remains and associated sites, as well as more recent iconography, furnish illustrations.Trade ReviewLEO DALY, a native of Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, is a distinguished writer, broadcaster and photo-journalist. His books include James Joyce & the Mullingar Connection (1975) and a guide-book, Oileain Arann (1975), Titles (1981), a collection of essays, and The Rock Garden (1984), a novel.

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Book SynopsisEdward Ashdown Bunyard (1878-1939) was England''s most well known pomologist (student of apples) and a significant gastronome and epicure in the 1920s and 30s. His family were the owners of one of England''s most significant fruit nurseries, founded in 1796 in Kent. In his written work, Bunyard was important for his enlightening explication of the charm of apples, as well as pears and other fruits.  This volume of essays is written for the most part by Edward Wilson, fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, and Joan Morgan (currently England''s foremost authority on the history of apples), but with important contributions by Alan Bell (biographer of Sydney Smith and former Librarian of the London Library); Richard Sharp (formerly a Senior Research Fellow in History at Worcester College, Oxford); and Simon Hiscock (Reader in Botany at University of Bristol); the book is topped and tailed by poems from Arnd Kerkhecker (Professor of Classics at the University of Berne) and U.A. Fanthorpe. The studies include a biographical essay on Edward Bunyard and chapters about his friendship with Norman Douglas; his literary tastes; his scientific work in plant genetics and his relationship with the epicurean society.

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