Zed
Daphne du Maurier’s 1967 homage to Cornwall. Blending historical anecdotes, literary reflections, and landscape descriptors, she described its people, its legends and myths and its fast-fading industries. In fact, a fading world is stark in her writing.
For those who enjoy Cornwall’s past, this is a nice read. May I get back there one day.
Penola is in Coonawarra country, home to terra rossa soil—soil that has produced some of the finest Cabernet Sauvignons this reviewer has ever tasted.
Set in 1964, Robbie Burns lives the typical life of a 14-year-old in Penola, a small country town, where cultural opportunities are limited. Everyone knows everyone, and the highlight of the week is Saturday footy. Not much else happens. A certain Miss Pamela Peach arrives as a teacher at the local school—a sophisticated city woman whose artistic ways and modernism captivates Robbie. He has a vivid sci-fi imagination, and his new teacher encourages him. Soon, Robbie becomes obsessed with her, and his youthful fantasies lead to unintended and terrible consequences.
Towns such as Penola in 1964 were traditionally rural and isolated, it was then, suddenly forced to grapple with an outsider whose ideas were decidedly modernist. And that begs the question—why would a young, progressive teacher, with a changing big-city world at her feet, move to an isolated town uncertain about embracing change?
This novel explores these themes along with early teenage innocence and desire. Told through Robbie’s first-person narrative, the novel challenges the reader to read between the lines to understand Pamela Peach’s motivations. To reveal the tragic consequences of events would be too much of a spoiler. This reviewer entered the book with no prior knowledge of the story and was glad to experience it without expectations.
Author Peter Goldsworthy shifts seamlessly between humour and tragedy, making this a compelling read. And while there are moments when Robbie’s narration feels slightly awkward, it’s hard not to be challenged by the novel’s exploration of coming-of-age innocence in this unsettling, small-town Australian story.
Another nod to the neighborhood swap libraries I often visit. This one was a battered 1975 release that I picked up while heading out on my daily commute to work. Unlike a few I pick up and put in the TBR pile, I read a few pages and was hooked. I knew the author from The French Lieutenant's Woman, I had seen the film but had never read the book. The blurb of The Magus gave nothing away, not a single clue as to what it was about. To say it has been an eventful read would be an understatement.
Nicholas Urfe, a young Englishman, takes a teaching job on a Greek island, and life gets weird. So weird that I had no idea what was really happening up until the end—and even then? Does that make for an exceptional read, personally—the not knowing, the wanting to know? Yes.
Told in the first person, the character of Nicholas Urfe is not particularly likeable, but then neither are many of the characters that make up the cast in what, to me, was a book about an existential crisis Nick was having.
Even after the final sentence, I found myself wondering about all the characters in the book, what part they had played in Urfe’s crisis and what his awareness was of what he had been put through. Psychological manipulations? Illusion?
For a novel set in the 1950s, it has certainly stood the test of time for the modern reader.
Highly recommended for those who like their minds played with.
Weird, socially awkward, and suffering from severe class angst, Frederick Clegg, a butterfly collector, wins the pools and kidnaps Miranda Grey, an art student he has obsessively admired from afar, believing he can make her love him. A psychological struggle unfolds between them.
I took advantage of audiobook time to read this while also immersing myself in the outstanding The Magus by John Fowles. The Collector is Fowles’ debut, and what a book it is. After reading these two novels in quick succession, I am convinced that he was an extraordinarily gifted writer and storyteller. As with The Magus, the psychological depth of The Collector is profound, with class dynamics at the forefront.
The audiobook, narrated in the first person for both male and female perspectives by Daniel Rigby and Hannah Murray, featured a strangely monotone delivery that was perfect for this listen/read.
The kidnapping in London at the very beginning of the novel is particularly interesting, given today’s ubiquitous CCTV surveillance, such an event would be virtually impossible. But in the early ’60s, it made sense. If the same premise were written today, where could the kidnapping plausibly take place? A minor question really as the narration covers the mind of both protagonists, that was what made compulsive reading.
Highly recommended.
I wanted something light to read, so I started this popular dystopian sci-fi novel. It turned out to be more gripping than I expected, definitely a page-turner. There are plenty of reviews on Goodreads that provide a more in-depth analysis than I intend to do.
I recommend reading this one from Charles.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I particularly liked the question Charles posed:
"Finally, where did the 'rough paper' come from to print that first newspaper indicating the return of modern civilisation? Large-scale papermaking is a non-trivial manufacturing process."
Having spent nearly my entire working life in the printing industry, I found myself thinking about this as I read the part where a newspaper appeared to the delight of the end of the world as we know it survivors, and recall Charles' question from his review. My best guess is that flat sheets of paper were salvaged from abandoned print shops. Additionally, it’s probable that old-style type from specialist letterpress printers was repurposed as was, say, an old pre electric letterpress that can sometimes be found. Some commercial printers have retained this traditional technology even in todays lithographic/digital age of print.
For example, letterpress printing, once considered obsolete, has seen a resurgence, particularly for high-end projects like wedding invitations. These are often printed on acid-free cotton paper, which lasts for decades longer than standard newsprint.
As for "rough paper," it generally refers to uncoated paper with a textured surface. Unlike coated paper, which has a smooth finish for sharp ink absorption, rough paper retains a natural feel, making it ideal for artistic prints, speciality packaging, and letterpress work. It’s somewhat similar to the standard paper used in personal printers but with more pronounced texture.
Anyway, a good dystopian read and recommended to those that like that kind of read.
First person narration by title character 9/10-year-old Paddy there is plenty of childlike humour to enjoy, yet I also found this read to be rather poignant. The brutality that is that male age group was to the fore for long parts, but the confusing observations of the breakdown of his parents had an innocence and confusion that was moving.
A Booker winner in 1993 and for the first half I wondered why but by the end, I thought this a very clever piece of writing and maybe that was what the judges felt. I had read Roddy Doyles Barrytown Trilogy many years back and recall enjoying them but think this is far stronger. It is hard to write as a first person 10-year-old boy and seem authentic, but the general chat and thoughts of Paddy seems to align with my long past memories of that age. The brutality of those times among the peer group, the interest in the world outside that bubble, and the parents’ relationship not making much sense made for a very thoughtful read.
I first heard of Roadside Picnic via the Backlisted podcast and as that was very recently listened to, I was aware of the premise of this famous Sci Fi classic and that it was at times philosophical and with that open to one’s own interpretation.
Unknown to humankind artefacts are being retrieved at great danger to themselves by individuals call Stalkers from a “Zone” that Aliens made visit to. The retrieved artifacts are then being on sold in a black-market situation. As this was written in times of literary censorship by the USSR, the Russian brothers who wrote this very good Sci FI have left a lot open-ended so that the reader can decide as to what is actually happening, what the artifacts are and the philosophy behind the book. Roadside Picnic is a wonderful title once I realised the meaning.
For those looking for their Sci Fi to be more operatic in style, this might not be for them. Nonetheless, considering this was first published in 1972 it has sure stood the test of time and as such is highly recommended.
David Malouf’s Johnno, chosen in 2004 by the Brisbane City Council as a winner of the short-lived "One Book One Brisbane" initiative, had long been on my radar. Released in 1975 as Malouf’s debut novel, it is seemingly semi-biographical, based on his friendship with an old schoolmate.
I’m going to group Johnno with two other Brisbane novels that explore life “on the streets”: The Delinquents by Criena Rohan. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
and Praise by Andrew McGahan https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Johnno delves into Brisbane’s streets during the earlier period of the 1940s through to the 1950s, preceding Rohan’s 1950s in The Delinquents and McGahan’s gritty 1980s in Praise. For a Brisbane reader, these three books provide a fascinating comparison: from Johnno’s defiance against the conservatism of the 1940s, to the rebellious bodgie and widgie couple in The Delinquents, and finally the alienation and disconnection of Gordon in McGahan’s modern world. The descriptions of place in all three novels vividly mirror my early memories of Brisbane in the mid-1960s—dirt roads, no sewage system, the 6 o’clock swill, and the sight of every old bloke sporting a Trilby. Today, Brisbane has transformed into yet another modern metropolis, but at the street level, these books capture the city's evolving identity. Interestingly, The Delinquents wasn’t a bestseller upon its release and only gained recognition after its film adaptation in the 1980s.
In Johnno, Malouf’s narrator Dante recounts meeting Johnno as schoolboys, seemingly from well-to-do, middle-class families. Dante describes Johnno as an outsider and prankster, intelligent and well-read in the classics. It was Johnno who gave Dante his lifelong nickname. As Johnno grew older, his wanderlust led him to Brisbane’s pubs and post-war brothels. Many of the places mentioned in the book—the street names and even a few pubs—are familiar to me. When I was an apprentice in the mid-1970s, near-retirement tradesmen often shared stories of the brothels and gambling dens that were once prolific in the city centre. The Brisbane of their youth for the most parts was isolated culturally and academically, it was very inwards looking and wary of those perceived as outsiders. For that generation, this lifestyle was as good as it got outside the dullness and sectarianism of those times. What sets this book apart is its bold depiction of a middle-class boy/young man stirring up trouble on Brisbane’s streets before deciding to get on a boat and head to Europe—a relatively novel concept in Brisbane literature at the time. Even into the mid-1970s, the idea of going ‘overseas’ carried an almost exotic allure.
Brisbane's identity shifted rapidly, shedding its big-country-town conservatism as global connectivity grew. Nowadays, street grit in Brisbane isn’t much different from the world portrayed in McGahan’s Praise. As for traveling abroad, all it takes is a plane fare, a visa to work (if you're from a Commonwealth country), and the right mindset to embrace the adventure.
Yet another great Brisbane novel. Highly recommended.
An audio read that went for about 36 hours. I have nothing against bricks of books but a lot of this intergenerational family story, told very well by the author to be fair, just seemed overwritten at times. The love/sex events, for example, were just dull and ponderous, going far too long. The same can be said for the medical detail, and there was plenty of medical detail explained.
I do get the effect that this read may have had with other readers. There are things to learn that are of interest to the curious mind and for anyone that likes an epic this would be up there. Be that as it may, I was glad to finish it.
“The best-selling classic of a generation” says the blurb on the front cover. I was of that generation, but I have to say that I found this all a rather dull plod. Highly repetitive and may well have been better served by being half the page count. Would I have found it any better in my teens back in the day when I was part of that generation? I suspect not. My bookish sci fi youth seemed more interesting, and a 33-year-old girl falling head over heels for a useless smack addict (he had these wonderful blue eyes we were repetitively told !) may never have made the grade. And repetitively throughout, chapter after chapter, they fucked, and they fucked again, and then she fucked with someone else, and he fucked with someone else, and it went on and fucking on, her having her mind fucked over by those smack riddled blue eyes.
One thing that really really did, I mean really got on my nerves while reading this (other than the repetition of the theme and the repetitive use of the fuck word some may ask?) was the use of “Good day” as a greeting. “Good day” is said - g'day – It is the way Australians and New Zealander say it. Do not be mistaken, do not be misled, they say bloody g'day and that’s bloody it. g'day g'day g'day g'day. Editors need to get it into their thick heads that it is g'day and if the novel wants Australian authenticity, then to change any manuscript to “Good day” makes it sound like some upper class toff doing the greeetings.
Anyway enough ranting already, I am sure many loved this book but not me.
Read for a future book club meet. This was a nice read without reaching great heights. Pity really as the subject is one, I can relate to. I am a watcher of Australian Rules Football and as this is a very recent release, many of the players of the AFL team that the author Helen Garner follows, The Western Bulldogs, are familiar to me.
Helen claimed to know not much about Aussie Rules, and began to take a greater interest when her 16-year-old Grandson was playing Colts. This was written as a dairy like homage to the season and the young boys that played in the team.
Certain passages are worth considering in a modern context, as the fact that Helen is 80 years old and by her own admission is of a past era.
At one point she writes of being “reproached” by her grandchildren for having a picture on her phone of 3 under 10s as she “…admired..” their bravery. She was “…furious…” at the reproach. The parents told her she would not like her picture on a stranger's phone, and she pretended to agree with them. I am not sure that 80-year-old Helen got the point as she tried to compare having the captain of the Western Bulldogs on the phone as well.
Helen mentions briefly concussion. This reminded me of working with a then State of Origin Rugby League player, early 1980s, who when I asked how his weekend was told me he had no idea as he got concussed in the game on Saturday and had no recall of the weekend at all. Concussion in body contact is now a serious issue for those controlling sport. Helen does not particular cover this in any meaningful way other than to iterate others, as the book is basically about her relationship with her grandson. I personally required more depth on the subject. Her Grandson may be a future AFL player after all. She is at one time offered information about institutional sexual abuse of young boys at football clubs but rejects the offer as the book is about her Grandson. She defends not discussing this as the book is about her relationship with her Grandson and “a record of a season we are spending together before he turns into a man and I die”
There are a couple of grammatical issues that caught my attention. The use of the word “versing”. It was always “verses” in any football circle I have engaged in. I am informed that a younger generation is using “versing” so I presume that Helen used it throughout as that is what she was hearing from her Grandson and his peer groups. Language changes over time, I except that, but I did not enjoy reading it. Helen also wrote that her team was “demolished by 2 points” at one point. Is this a typo? This is the 2nd lowest losing score possible.
Not for those looking for deep and meaningful discussions on the sport itself, more for those that want a pleasant read about (mostly) a Grandmother and her relationship and observations of her Grandson playing sport.
A bunch of short stories from an author I had not previously read. I do have the more noted Monkey Grip and also her latest The Season, both of which I intend to read in the next few weeks as The Season is the book of choice for my local book club.
My favourite by far All Those Bloody Young Catholics is what I can only describe as a drunken stream of dribble by a bloke at the pub who catches up with an old female acquaintance from the past. Kind of reminded me of someone's youth, hopefully not mine.
The other of note The Life of Art told in the first person about a female and her artist friend and their observations of life occasionally imitating art and vice versa.
This one is online for anyone interested.
https://bookanista.com/life-art/
An easy collection to read and for me, it showed Helen Garner can write in various styles. I look forward to further readings of her works.
A.N. Wilson has written an overview of the years of Elizabeth I that covers the more famous events of her reign, as well as far few forays into social history. Not having read too much on the Elizabethan era in any great since depth for very a long time, it was interesting to read again on the likes of Drake and Raleigh and others. I did want more social history.
Released in 2012 Wilson writes his first sentence in the preface as follows:-
We have lived to see the Elizabethan world come to an end. This makes now a very interesting time to be reconsidering the Elizabethans, but it also makes for some difficulties. As human societies and civilisations change, it is natural for them to suppose that what they do, what they think, what they eat and drink and believe is superior to what went before. While the Elizabethan world was still going on and in some respects it was still continuing, in modified form, until the Second World War British and American historians were able to see the reign of Queen Elizabeth I as a glory age. This was how the Elizabethans saw themselves.
If one is comfortable that that age from the crowning of Elizabeth I to 2012 was a ‘glory age’ then I would suggest that history has moved on rapidly in the last decade in my opinion. Glory years these are not.
Wilson has written a history of the Elizabeth I era that is not influenced by hagiography, as some Tudor writers are prone to be. He has had no issue pointing out the failures of Elizabeth I even with what is seen by many as a Golden Age in English history. For example, the Irish issues are covered with balance and those so-called swashbuckling mariners of those times are given the respect they deserve within the norms of those times.
Wilson is strongest in the social history areas that he covers, the literature and theatre of the times, the promiscuous sex lives that seemed to hardly bother anyone. I wanted more in this area. I was interested to read Chapter 21 London and the Theatres.
English migrants to London fell into two broad categories. There were those who came driven by ambition, and there were those who came driven by hunger. 'In London we find rich wives, spruce mistress pleasant houses, good diet, rare wines, neat servants, fashionable furniture, pleasures and profits the best of all sort', as one such ambition young man wrote.
On the other hand, there were those who had been driven off the land for the simple Malthusian reason that existent crops could not sustain country produced land an increased workforce. Population growth in the country produced land shortage, reduced the size of smallholdings and led to a fivefold increase in food prices. In the course of the sixteenth century the real value of wages halved. The poor became poorer. Living-in servants, apprentices and day-labourers were the lucky ones. Many simply drifted towards London with the vague hope that it would provide them with some form of livelihood. The number of homeless beggars was vast.
In 1581 Elizabeth was riding by Aldersgate Bars towards the fields of Islington when she found herself surrounded by a crowd of beggars, ‘which gave the queen much disturbance'. That evening, William Fleetwood, the Recorder, arrested seventy-four of them who had dispersed in the fields, where they lived in a kind of shanty-town. Eight years later, a mob of some 500 beggars threatened to disrupt Bartholomew Fair. They had formed their own collective and were trying to sell stolen goods at a fair of their own - Durrest Fair.
Yet it was a fluid underclass, never a settled one. No state-sponsored social-welfare system existed. In the absence of religious houses, there was nowhere for the indigent or the starving to find charity. The beggars took what they could, and then found work or moved on. It all had a cruel effectiveness. The authorities, ever anxious about the double dangers of plague and insurrection, kept a merciless eye on the swarming hordes.
Wilson has end noted his research throughout, and Durrest Fair is noted from Peter Ackroyd’s London – The Biography. Curiosity got me and I can find nothing on the www about Durrest Fair though plenty on Bartholomew Fair. I have only read one Ackroyd book and was not that sure on his research in Foundation his first volume of his history of England.
Wilson has supplied plenty of endnotes as stated and I will have to trust most of them. He has supplied an extensive bibliography that would be useful to anyone that is keen to read further on Elizabeth I and her times, and any also of his references to other events he discussed. I have found his style of delivery frustrating at times but others ideal. The occasional reference to modern culture and topical comparisons to the time of writing is not generally my style, but the first paragraph I have quoted above gave him opportunities to use historical comparisons.
Be all that as it may, this is a worthy read for those that have an interest in the subject, and they should enjoy this telling of the Elizabethan era.
AI, can you explain "The Machine to me please as I am too lazy to write a review...........
"The Machine Stops" delves into several profound and prescient themes:
Overreliance on Technology: The novella explores the dangers of becoming excessively dependent on technology to the point where it governs all aspects of human life. The Machine is both a provider and a controller, and humanity's reliance on it leads to their eventual downfall.
Isolation and Dehumanization: The story depicts a society where individuals live in isolation, rarely interacting in person. This separation leads to a loss of human connection and empathy, making people more machine-like in their behavior and interactions.
The Fragility of Civilization: Forster highlights how a seemingly advanced and stable society can quickly collapse when its foundational technology fails. The breakdown of the Machine exposes the vulnerability and unsustainable nature of such a civilization.
Rebellion and Individualism: Kuno's character represents the spirit of rebellion and the desire to reclaim individual autonomy and experience the world beyond the Machine. His quest for freedom and truth contrasts sharply with the complacency of those who accept the Machine's dominance.
Nature vs. Artificiality: The novella contrasts the artificial, sterile environment of the Machine with the natural world that Kuno seeks to rediscover. This theme underscores the importance of maintaining a connection with the natural environment.
"The Machine Stops" serves as a cautionary tale about the potential consequences of technological advancement without consideration for its impact on human relationships, individuality, and society as a whole. It's remarkable how many of these themes remain relevant in today's world.
Thank You, AI.
Are books such as this any use in this day and age of sat nav on the phone etc? Would one stick a book in a backpack for the walk, or leave it in the car? Would I trust the phone to not drop out? I don’t know. I found this in the local neighbour swap library, so someone has, I guess, gone to the phone option (or had a clean out)
Be those short musings as they may be, this is a good book for anyone wanting to do a day walk in Tasmania as it does a fine job of pointing out the fine places to go for bush walks be they easy, medium or hard, be they good for the season and also much much more that would be useful. Each walk has a map and a distance marker on that map, lets one know where to start, where to park and also much much more. Each walk has some nice pics to give the future walker a hint of what they might see.
Fern Tree to Mt Wellington looks like one I might have attempted back in my far fitter youth, but nowadays, I would take the bus.
I was attracted to this book after reading Ians excellent review.
Link here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3891452160
Other GR friends have also added excellent reviews.
Jills here. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4907270520
Numdicas here. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4131596789
I have listened to the audio as told by the author and have no criticism at all of her narration. She made this a fascinating book.
I have no intention to add anything more to the above reviews other than add personal insight to the Green Line in Cyrus. My wife and I had a week in Cyprus in 2000 in January, their winter. It did remind me of winter in Brisbane, beautiful days and cool nights. We did make a trip to the Green Line in Nicosia and it was as described in this book. Where we found very interesting was the ghost city of Famagusta. We went to a café that for the price of a coffee allowed us to get onto the roof and look into the city with binoculars. It was a deserted city the likes I had at the time no imagination for. Along the boundary fence were many warnings not to take photos etc. Up on the roof we took pics and the only movement we caught sight of was a couple of UN vehicles in the distance. It had an eerie dystopian feel, a place that one would want to go and have a look around, take pictures.
We made visit to another area of the Green Line that surrounds Kokkina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokkina
Our recall when driving close was the quantity of abandoned shacks and barns and the amount of bullet holes and damage. The wiki link states that “The village itself still carries heavy battle damage.” I don't recall being able to see the village itself from the road we drove.
Excellent book and highly recommended.
As an aside, this walk down memory lane has reminded me of an event that still gives my wife and I a chuckle to this day. In the lobby of the motel we stayed at just outside Limassol, my wife spoke to me and a young English girl nearby turned to her mother and said in a loud voice, “She sounds like she's from Neighbours”. The coffee shop at Famagusta had a cage full of Australian zebra finch's. I recall asking the man at the counter where he had got them from, and after his English being very good 15 seconds earlier, it declined into not understanding my question.
A very good book of short stories that have a seemingly connected theme of flawed people, be they the young or the old, the single or the married. Drug takers, through to weird Christian wannabe hippy wife swappers and more, are represented in 29 tales told over only 259 pages.
Mostly set in Western Australia, with the odd foray to other places.
Great cover, an ibis in polluted water and a metaphor for many of the stories ecological roots.
Short stories = short review. Recommended to those that wonder about us all.
23 “disturbing” tales that I have been dipping into to relieve the actual horror of an abysmal history book. This type of tale is generally not my style of story, but I have to admit I have enjoyed the collection, especially the ones that had Brisbane as the location.
Kangaroo Point, has a man standing ready to jump off the cliff, was one that had me thinking.
Cathedral Man and the Rare Twelve Inch made me perish the thought of taking on a homeless man for one of his few worldly possessions. Was that meant to be Ziggy? Maybe not as Ziggy was in Toowong if I recall.
A fun read for me and recommended to those that like their short stories with a twist.
The Introduction had me wondering the direction that the author would take when on the first page was written “There are accepted few facts about Anne's life. Virtually everything is still in dispute, from her date of birth to her appearance.” The Introduction ends with the line “It is time for a fresh look at the facts” A fresh look at the “few accepted facts”? This reader had his concerns. They were heightened when discussion took place in the first chapter as to Anne's appearance via known writings and portraiture. I agree with the author that Henry VIII was not going to marry a lady with an extra finger and a goitre, and that those that reported this were propagandists for their cause. But Joanna Denny writes that no contemporary portraiture survived but then says that the National Gallery portrait, said to be a copy of a lost original “...is no doubt the most authentic...” based on “... certain similarities with portraits of her daughter”. My italics.
Research by the author is seemingly good initially, but with further reading, not all statements had end notes. For example, when discussing the witch hunts in Europe we are quoted figures of 160,000 to 250,000 without end note referral. It is easy to check this out via internet search. Via Mathew White via his Necrometrics site, sadly no longer updated, he states the following......
• Witch Hunts (1400-1800)
• Wertham: 20,000
• Jenny Gibbons “Recent Developments in the Study of The Great European Witch Hunt”, Pomegranate, no.5, Lammas 1998 [http://www.interchg.ubc.ca/fmuntean/POM5a1.html] cites:
o Levack: 60,000
o Hutton: 40,000
o Barstow: 100,000, “but her reasoning was flawed” (i.e. too high.)
• Davies, Norman, Europe A History: 50,000
• Rummel: 100,000
• Bethancourt: The Killings of Witches, lists 628 named and 268,331 unnamed witches killed as of Dec. 2000, and estimates that between 20,000 and 500,000 people were killed as witches. [http://www.illusions.com/burning/burnwitc.htm?]
• M. D. Aletheia, The Rationalist's Manual (1897): 9,000,000 burned for witchcraft.
• 5 Jan. 1999 Deutsche Presse-Agentur: review of Wolfgang Behringer's Hexen: Glaube - Verfolgung - Vermarktung:
o estimates cited favorably
Thomas Brady: 40-50,000
Merry Wiesner: 50-100,000
Behringer, at lowest: 30,000
o estimates cited unfavorably
Gottfried Christian Voigt (1740-1791) extrapolated from his section of Germany to calculate 9,442,994 witches killed throughout Europe. From this came the common estimate of 9M.
Mathilde Ludendorff (1877-1966): 9M
Friederike Mueller-Reimerdes (1935): 9-10M
Erika Wisselinck: 6-13 Million
• MEDIAN: Of the 15 estimate listed here, the median is 100,000. If we limit it to just the ten estimates that are cited favorably, the median falls between 50,000 and 60,000.
________Historians have an obligation to their reader to explain their research, and certainly to end note. “This realm of England is an Empire” the author states Henry VIII saying at one point but with no end note. This happens so often; there are just too many references lacking sources. ________
This read is astonishingly flawed propaganda on behalf of Anne Boleyn and some of her family, just via the poor referencing of sources alone. When sources are used, they are done to support the author in writing hagiography that is really just an advocacy of an historical position, a position of Anne Boleyn and her family as being on the correct path to some kind of future enlightenment of the Anglican England. Several times throughout the narrative the author quotes Protestant interpretation of the biblical passages from Exodus through to Revelations to support the Boleyn faction's beliefs that the Roman Catholic Church was the anti-Christ and is written in such a way as to make this at times proselytising as appose to a narrative history.
This reader has an acceptance that historians are sometimes unable to keep their own interpretations of events out of the narrative. Be that as it may, to be credible, they should not be supportive of one side of history over the other based on their own religious beliefs and certainly not on events half a century ago when to quote the author's own words there are “...accepted few facts...”.
The author quoted Anthony Denny (16 January 1501 – 10 September 1549) on pages 14 and 89 and after writing on page 180 that Anne Boleyn favoured Cambridge University men such as “...Cranmer, Dr Butts and Anthony Denny...” I researched if the author Joanna Denny could be a descendant. Wiki and other links say yes, though sources are rather tenuous. Anthony Denny was one of Henry VIII closest confidants being Groom of the Stool and was an influence in the English Reformation. Joanna Denny, 500 years later, may have been too close to the subject due to possible family ancestry to be objective.
This is a staggeringly poor history book.
The Beach is a fine title for a summer read and being in the middle of summer in the most important part of the world, the south, it would be churlish of me not to read a book devoted to Surfers Paradise.
I actually dug this out of one of the neighbourhood libraries during a walk and for some unknown reason began it immediately. Something about it being a cult book according to the front cover blurb. I know it was a film that I never watched. I have actually enjoyed the book.
GR has 91,345 ratings 4,090 reviews and I have not read one of them nor really read much about this beach book or film that I can recall. So, here's my take.
And that take is that the first-person narrator, Richard, is an unreliable one. My take further is that he is a junkie in a Bangkok hotel room who has occasional earworm and a hell of a lot of junk filled dreams about a guy called Daffy Duck and a trip to an island to hang out on a beach with a bunch of hippy surfer dudes who are all very individualistic except when they're not. (Just like the rest of the western world, in my opinion.) They have a kind of commune that has each individual going to work and once the work is done, they can do what they like be that play computer games, go smoke pot, throw frisbees and play beach footy. But there is no sex. A bunch of 18-year-olds to mid-30's, I presume, make up the people of beach and I would have thought that they would have been rutting like randy rabbits, but no, Richard has no libido, so therefore no one else does. The junkie hallucinations of Richard include, among others, firebombing airfix models, pretending he is in Vietnam and playing hide and seek with armed guards of a marijuana plantation. He has plenty of these dream sequences but as with all junkies it ends all ends in tears and the final hallucination has this insane kind of murderous mayhem that him and his backpacker pals have to escape from via a raft.
As he is coming down from his junk hallucinations his backpacker pals take him back home to England and as he says in the last line, he has the scars. These scars are that backpacking and junk is not all Surfers Paradise and that some in paradise are sufferers, and that may be the moral of the book.
I saw a mouse!
(Where?)
There on the stair!
(Where on the stair?)
Right there!
A little mouse with clogs on
Well I declare!
Going clip-clippety-clop on the stair
Oh yeah!
Once upon a time all history was environmental history.
That is the first line of this well told audio by the author Sunil Amrith. I would have thought all history is environmental, even that in the making.
The author discussed many events that I have read about in some depth. The Mongol invasions for example, but I had not read discussions previously as to the changing of the land from grazing to crop production. The discussion on the Little Ice age and the possible cause being the conquest of the South American continent by the Spanish I had read about. The discussion on Nipah virus in Malaysia was interesting as it was linked, in terms of propagation, to the Hendra Virus that occurred in Brisbane in the early 2010s. Hendra caused the death of 4 people and 83 horses. Nipah bought on the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of pigs and the deaths of over 100 people. The cause? Flying Fox having to move from their natural environment due to deforestation. As a species, we change our environment at our peril.
Recommended to those with an interest in the subject.