The Journey of the Mayflower: God’s Outlaws, or the Invention of Freedom by Stephen Tomkins (Hodder & Stoughton, £21.99) Today is Thanksgiving Day across the United States, a feast day that rivals Christmas in the minds and memories of its citizens. We have to particularise the United State of America, as Thanksgiving, which derives from the…
O Shining Light: Old English Meditations for Advent and Christmas, introduction and commentary by Jacob and Mamie Riyeff (Gracewing, £9.99) In the Venerable Bede there is a passage where a pagan Saxon king likens the life of an individual to the flight of a small birds through the warm and lighted hall of a Anglo-Saxon home,…
Mainly about books By the books editor The great and internationally-regarded art galleries of Ireland (though now for a period of months necessarily closed) are institutions we are all rightly proud of. I sometime think, though, that they do not always do full justice to some talents who worked in what some might think of…
Quiet Times With God: a Devotional by Joyce Meyer (Hodder & Stoughton, £14.99) This is the sort of book that has a very long history in Christianity. Common in the Middle Ages and earlier, they changed their form at the Reformation. Some, like the book of hours of the Duc du Berry, were wonders of the…
Old Ireland in Colour by John Breslin and Sarah-Anne Buckley (Merrion Press, €24.95/£22.90) The idea of this book will delight many people, and it should prove to be a huge Christmas time bestseller. The creators have taken a wide range of historical photographs, some very familiar already in monochrome, others little seen. These have been colourised,…
The World of Books By the books editor The announcement that Peregrine Cavendish, the 12th Duke of Devonshire, based in England, has presented the celebrated Book of Lismore to University College Cork, comes as a delightful surprise. In effect, some might say, it give Munster an ancient book to play off against Leinster’s Book of…
Inspiring Faith Communities: A Programme of Evangelisation by Michael Hurley (Messenger Publications, €12.95/£11.95) Inspiring Faith Communities: A Programme of Evangelisation: a Booklet for Renewal in the Holy Spirit by Michael Hurley (Messenger Publications, €4.95 / £4.50) These two books together make up a way forward for renewal. It is built up around three points that seem essential…
Wandering Wicklow with Father Browne edited by Robert O’Byrne (Messenger Publications, €19.95/£18.95) The latest volume in the series of books drawn from the files of one of Ireland’s greatest photographers under the auspices of the Irish Jesuits is one of the best, for several reasons. It has a limited subject, finely produced. It was been edited…
Fearfully & Wonderfully: The Marvel of Bearing God’s Image by Dr Paul Brand & Philip Yancey (Hodder Books, £9.99; kindle edition, £9.99) These days, with the daily news dominated by medical fears of all kinds and our inability to cope, many people all too conscious of the frailties of the human body and the effects that…
The World of Books By the books editor Just over a week ago, to men driving along a mountain road around Saint-Martin-Vésubie (see the Nice-Matin newspaper’s website for its report of October 24, 2020), were astonished to encounter a pack of wolves straddling the road ahead. These it seems were not truly ‘wild wolves’. They…