Raylan (2012) ~ Elmore Leonard
Something by Elmore Leonard, it's almost two years since I last read anything by him!
Something by Elmore Leonard, it's almost two years since I last read anything by him!
What's Everyone Reading?
- Thread starter Said1
- Start date
I just finished a very old book by Geraldo Rivera called a Special Kind Of Courage. And just starting Born Hutterite by Samuel Hoffer.
Should be a hoot.............
.........Compulsory reading here;-)
Will PM a link to the book in EPub format to anyone who wants it....a 9 meg download
Will PM a link to the book in EPub format to anyone who wants it....a 9 meg download
Almost halfway through the book........I'm surprised and pleased that it's not the usual Glen Beck rant or I would have discarded it...
Almost a hundred pages of references and links at the back of a 373 page book.
Checked a few of them and they support his claims....
Interesting that he seems equally against Republican as Democrats....non partisans should love this book....:lol:
Almost a hundred pages of references and links at the back of a 373 page book.
Checked a few of them and they support his claims....
Interesting that he seems equally against Republican as Democrats....non partisans should love this book....:lol:
I'm reading A History of Britain - Volume 1: At the Edge of the World? 3000 BC-AD 1603 by British historian Simon Schama, based on his BBC documentary series of the same name.
The book starts off around 3000BC, when Neolithic peoples were living in a stone village at Skara Brae in the Orkney Isles, right up in the far north of Britain, the remains of which - the stone houses and furniture, the passageways and burial places - were rediscovered in the 1850s and are now a protected monument open to the public, and takes us right up to 1603, the year that Queen Elizabeth I died, bringing an end to the Tudor era and heralding the start of the Stuart era, as King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England.
In between we learn about the coming of the Anglo-Saxons after the departure of the Romans; the Anglo-Saxon battles against maruading Vikings; the coming of the Normans; the English conquests of Wales and Scotland; the Hundred Years' War; the Black Death; and the colourful lives of the Tudor clan, amongst other things.
Simon Schama
'History clings tight but it also kicks loose,' writes Simon Schama at the outset of this, the first book in his three-volume journey into Britain's past. 'Disruption as much as persistence is its proper subject. So although the great theme of British history seen from the twentieth century is endurance, its counter-point, seen from the twenty-first, must be alteration.'
Change - sometimes gentle and subtle, sometimes shocking and violent - is the dynamic of Schama's unapologetically personal and grippingly written history, especially the changes that wash over custom and habit, transforming our loyalties. At the heart of this history lie questions of compelling importance for Britain's future as well as its past: what makes or breaks a nation? To whom do we give our allegiance and why? And where do the boundaries of our community lie - in our hearth and home, our village or city, tribe or faith? What is Britain - one country or many? Has British history unfolded 'at the edge of the world' or right at the heart of it?
Schama delivers these themes in a form that is at once traditional and excitingly fresh. The great and the wicked are here - Becket and Thomas Cromwell, Robert the Bruce and Anne Boleyn - but so are countless more ordinary lives: an Irish monk waiting for the plague to kill him in his cell at Kilkenny; a small boy running through the streets of London to catch a glimpse of Elizabeth I. They are all caught on the rich and teeming canvas on which Schama paints his brilliant portrait of the life of the British people: 'for in the end, history, especially British history with its succession of thrilling illuminations, should be, as all her most accomplished narrators have promised, not just instruction but pleasure.'
A History of Britain - Volume 1: At the Edge of the World? 3000 BC-AD 1603: Amazon.co.uk: Simon Schama: Books
Also in bookshops are Volume 2 and Volume 3, which take us up to the present day.
The remains of a 5000 year old house and its furniture at the Neolithic village of Skara Brae in the Orkney Isles
A Roman ampitheatre in Chester
Anglo-Saxons
Battle of Hastings, 1066
Llywelyn "Fawr" (Llywelyn "the Great") with his sons Gruffydd and Dafydd. He was Prince of Gwynedd from 1195 to 1240 and Prince of Powys Wenwynwyn from 1216 to 1240
Robert the Bruce
Graffiti dating from 1361 - when the Black Death was at its height - at the Church of St Mary in Ashwell, Hertfordshire, recording the disease passing through the town. It says "Pestile
cia M.C.T.(er)x penta miseranda ferox violenta (discessit pestis) superset plebs pessima testis in fine qevent(us) (erat) valid(us (...h)oc anno maurus in orbe tonat MCCCLXI" ("There was a plague 1000, three times 100, five times 10, a pitiable, fierce violent (plague departed); a wretched populace survives to witness and in the end a mighty wind, Maurus, thunders in this year in the world, 1361"). 40% of the English population was wiped out by the Black Death
Battle of Agincourt, 1415
The funeral procession of Elizabeth I, 1603
The book starts off around 3000BC, when Neolithic peoples were living in a stone village at Skara Brae in the Orkney Isles, right up in the far north of Britain, the remains of which - the stone houses and furniture, the passageways and burial places - were rediscovered in the 1850s and are now a protected monument open to the public, and takes us right up to 1603, the year that Queen Elizabeth I died, bringing an end to the Tudor era and heralding the start of the Stuart era, as King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England.
In between we learn about the coming of the Anglo-Saxons after the departure of the Romans; the Anglo-Saxon battles against maruading Vikings; the coming of the Normans; the English conquests of Wales and Scotland; the Hundred Years' War; the Black Death; and the colourful lives of the Tudor clan, amongst other things.
Simon Schama
'History clings tight but it also kicks loose,' writes Simon Schama at the outset of this, the first book in his three-volume journey into Britain's past. 'Disruption as much as persistence is its proper subject. So although the great theme of British history seen from the twentieth century is endurance, its counter-point, seen from the twenty-first, must be alteration.'
Change - sometimes gentle and subtle, sometimes shocking and violent - is the dynamic of Schama's unapologetically personal and grippingly written history, especially the changes that wash over custom and habit, transforming our loyalties. At the heart of this history lie questions of compelling importance for Britain's future as well as its past: what makes or breaks a nation? To whom do we give our allegiance and why? And where do the boundaries of our community lie - in our hearth and home, our village or city, tribe or faith? What is Britain - one country or many? Has British history unfolded 'at the edge of the world' or right at the heart of it?
Schama delivers these themes in a form that is at once traditional and excitingly fresh. The great and the wicked are here - Becket and Thomas Cromwell, Robert the Bruce and Anne Boleyn - but so are countless more ordinary lives: an Irish monk waiting for the plague to kill him in his cell at Kilkenny; a small boy running through the streets of London to catch a glimpse of Elizabeth I. They are all caught on the rich and teeming canvas on which Schama paints his brilliant portrait of the life of the British people: 'for in the end, history, especially British history with its succession of thrilling illuminations, should be, as all her most accomplished narrators have promised, not just instruction but pleasure.'
A History of Britain - Volume 1: At the Edge of the World? 3000 BC-AD 1603: Amazon.co.uk: Simon Schama: Books
Also in bookshops are Volume 2 and Volume 3, which take us up to the present day.
The remains of a 5000 year old house and its furniture at the Neolithic village of Skara Brae in the Orkney Isles
A Roman ampitheatre in Chester
Anglo-Saxons
Battle of Hastings, 1066
Llywelyn "Fawr" (Llywelyn "the Great") with his sons Gruffydd and Dafydd. He was Prince of Gwynedd from 1195 to 1240 and Prince of Powys Wenwynwyn from 1216 to 1240
Robert the Bruce
Graffiti dating from 1361 - when the Black Death was at its height - at the Church of St Mary in Ashwell, Hertfordshire, recording the disease passing through the town. It says "Pestile
cia M.C.T.(er)x penta miseranda ferox violenta (discessit pestis) superset plebs pessima testis in fine qevent(us) (erat) valid(us (...h)oc anno maurus in orbe tonat MCCCLXI" ("There was a plague 1000, three times 100, five times 10, a pitiable, fierce violent (plague departed); a wretched populace survives to witness and in the end a mighty wind, Maurus, thunders in this year in the world, 1361"). 40% of the English population was wiped out by the Black Death
Battle of Agincourt, 1415
The funeral procession of Elizabeth I, 1603
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This is another book which I've just started reading.
Rupert Shortt, the book's author, is religion editor of the Times Literary Supplement and author of Rowan's Rule: The Biography of the Archbishop, about Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury between 2002 and 2012.
In Christianophobia: A Faith Under Attack Rupert Shortt travels around the world to show how Christians are persecuted in many countries. The places he visits include Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, Egypt, Nigeria and the Holy Land.
Rupert Shortt
Christianity is the most under attacked religion in the world, with over 200 million Christians - more than any other religion - being persecuted and attacked every year just for practising their faith.
Here are some examples: On October 29, 2005, three Indonesian schoolgirls were beheaded as they walked to school - targeted because they were Christians. And while we are free to deepen our spiritual lives, Christians in Nigeria are murdered while attending Mass; Christians throughout the Middle East are hunted down, killed, persecuted and discriminated against.
Like them, many other church members around the world face violence or discrimination for their faith. Why is this religious persecution of Christians so widely ignored?
Rupert Shortt reveals that Christians are oppressed in significantly greater numbers than members of any other faith. The extent of official collusion is also exposed. Even governments that have promised to protect religious minorities routinely break their pledges, with life-shattering consequences.
Unlike many Muslims, young Christians don't easily become radicalized but tend to resist non-violently or keep a low profile. This has enabled politicians and the media to play down a problem of huge dimensions.
Shortt identifies several reasons for the upsurge of hatred and violence against Christians - from Islamic fundamentalism to the over- identification of Christianity with Western political or economic interests. These are complex questions worthy of a big book which Shortt has given us. His painstakingly researched account should act as a much needed wake-up call.
Rupert Shortt, the book's author, is religion editor of the Times Literary Supplement and author of Rowan's Rule: The Biography of the Archbishop, about Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury between 2002 and 2012.
In Christianophobia: A Faith Under Attack Rupert Shortt travels around the world to show how Christians are persecuted in many countries. The places he visits include Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, Egypt, Nigeria and the Holy Land.
Rupert Shortt
Christianity is the most under attacked religion in the world, with over 200 million Christians - more than any other religion - being persecuted and attacked every year just for practising their faith.
Here are some examples: On October 29, 2005, three Indonesian schoolgirls were beheaded as they walked to school - targeted because they were Christians. And while we are free to deepen our spiritual lives, Christians in Nigeria are murdered while attending Mass; Christians throughout the Middle East are hunted down, killed, persecuted and discriminated against.
Like them, many other church members around the world face violence or discrimination for their faith. Why is this religious persecution of Christians so widely ignored?
Rupert Shortt reveals that Christians are oppressed in significantly greater numbers than members of any other faith. The extent of official collusion is also exposed. Even governments that have promised to protect religious minorities routinely break their pledges, with life-shattering consequences.
Unlike many Muslims, young Christians don't easily become radicalized but tend to resist non-violently or keep a low profile. This has enabled politicians and the media to play down a problem of huge dimensions.
Shortt identifies several reasons for the upsurge of hatred and violence against Christians - from Islamic fundamentalism to the over- identification of Christianity with Western political or economic interests. These are complex questions worthy of a big book which Shortt has given us. His painstakingly researched account should act as a much needed wake-up call.