Comments on the margin By the books editor The other week, in a review of Bill Manley’s insightful book on the world’s most ancient book, recording the moral maxims of the ancient Egyptian sage Ptahhapt from about 2,400BC, I remarked that it set off in my mind a train of thought, but I postponed writing…
Lavinia Fontana: Trailblazer, Rule Breaker, by Aoife Brady, with essays by Babette Bohn and Jonquil O’Reilly (National Gallery of Ireland, distributed by Yale University Press, €40.00 / £35.00) Exhibition: May 6-August 27; Rooms 6-10, Beit Wing | Ticketed, check opening hours online. Lavinia Fontana (1552 – 1614) was a remarkable artist of great achievement,…
The Oldest Books in the World: Philosophy in the Age of the Pyramids, by Bill Manley (Thames and Hudson, £25.00/€29.00) How could any literate person resist the appeal of a title like this? Here for once they will find their expectations brilliantly fulfilled. This is indeed a most interesting book, but more than that it…
When Elizabeth II passed away at Balmoral, her beloved Scottish home, in September last, my first thought on her son’s coming Coronation, was “What are they going to do about the Stone of Scone?” This was the ancient inauguration stone of the Scottish nation. Having been removed from the royal site at the Moot Hill…
Whodunits in Dubliners: What Joyce Says, And How He Means, by Peter van de Kamp (Cambridge Scholars, €92.99/£81.99; ISBN: 9781527581487.) For a generation Dr van de Kamp has led the annual Dubliners seminar at the James Joyce International Summer School in University College Dublin, a gathering that is a major event in the Joycean…
Finding God in the Mess: Meditations for Mindful Living, by Brendan McManus SJ and Jim Deeds (Messenger Publications, €11.95 / £10.95) This is a new edition of a book that proved a great success when it was a first issued in 2018, indeed it was awarded two media awards. Though it then had many readers,…
By the Books Editor Into Iraq by Michael Palin (Hutchinson-Heinemann/€19.99/ £16.99) Having abandoned the Python squadron, Michael Palin has created a new strand to his life making travel documentaries. In his new book, which deals with a long-intended journey through Iraq, he admits to feeling the effects of what we can kindly call his mature years, but…
The Death of Jesus: Midrash in the Shadow of the Holocaust by Peter Keenan (Columba Books, €12.99/£10.99) This book is a continuation of the researches that Peter Keenan began to issue through the same publisher in 2021. In a review in these pages back then I felt that despite the deployment of much new information…
Doing Christianity: How religion is about what you do, not what you believe by Paul Higginson (Columba Books, €12.99 / £10.99) As a book for Eastertide, or indeed any time of the year, Paul Higginson’s book is much more interesting. It seems to me to derive more certainly from the precepts and actions of Jesus…
The news the other day from the Office of Public Works, that some vandal had scrawled the word ‘fraud’ across the standing stone on the Hill of Tara was dismaying. There is a programme underway to increase the visitor interest in the place, which decades ago lost out in popularity to Newgrange and the other…