Thursday, 28 February 2019
Wednesday, 27 February 2019
Tuesday, 26 February 2019
The Diary Of A Bookseller (Memoir) by Shaun Bythell
Paperback: Shaun Bythell owns The Bookshop, Wigtown - Scotland's largest second-hand bookshop. It contains 100,000 books, spread over a mile of shelving, with twisting corridors and roaring fires, and all set in a beautiful, rural town by the edge of the sea.
A book-lover's paradise?
Well, almost...
In these wry and hilarious diaries, Shaun provides an inside look at the trials and tribulations of life in the book trade, from struggles with eccentric customers to wrangles with his own staff, who include the ski-suit-wearing, bin-foraging Nicky.
He takes us with him on buying trips to old estates and auction houses, recommends books (both lost classics and new discoveries), introduces us to the thrill of the unexpected find, and evokes the rhythms and charms of small-town life, always with a sharp and sympathetic eye.
The Diary Of A Bookseller (2017) is unique and makes a wry yet hilarious case for the influence of books.
About the author: Shaun Bythell bought The Bookshop in Wigtown on 1 November 2001 and has been running it ever since with an increasing passion for the business, matched only by a sense of despair for its future, and an ill-humour inspired by a decade-and-a-half of dealing with confused customers and surly staff.
His first book, The Diary of a Bookseller, was sold into seventeen languages and has been optioned for a television series.
Auschwitz: Nazi Death Camp
Paperback: The book is an outline history of the Auschwitz concentration camp for a general readership. Its contents include the origins, construction, and expansion of the camp, the organizational structure and characteristics of the SS administration, the conditions under which the prisoners lived and laboured, the medical experiments, the fate of children in the camp, the mass extermination of the Jews, the number of victims, the plundering of Jewish property, the camp resistance movement, the escapes, the evacuation, the liquidation, and liberation of the camp, and the trial and punishment of the SS camp garrison.
The publication is based on the latest scholarly research, as carried out in large part by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum research staff in Oświęcim in 2012.
The book is subsidized by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp Victims Memorial Foundation and the Auschwitz Preservation Society.
Auschwitz (2012) is translated from the Polish by Douglas Selvage, edited by Franciszek Piper and Teresa Świebocka.
Its authors are Danuta Czech, Tadeusz Iwaszko, Barbara Jarosz, Helena Kubica, Aleksander Lasik, Franciszek Piper, Kazimierz Smoleń, Irena Strzelecka, Andrzej Strzelecki and Henryk Świebocki.
Thursday, 21 February 2019
Panzram: A Journal Of Murder (True Crime/Penology/Americana) by Thomas E Gaddis and James O Long
Paperback: "In my lifetime, I have murdered 21 human beings. I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons and last but not least, I have committed sodomy on more than 1000 male human beings. For all of these things, I am not the least bit sorry. I have no conscience so that does not worry me. I don't believe in man. God nor Devil. I hate the whole damn human race including myself."
Carl Panzram, who called himself the "world's worst murderer," wrote these words in a full autobiography and confession he prepared for the one friend in his life - a young prison guard named Henry Lesser.
Panzram: A Journal of Murder (1970) combines these brutally forthright memoirs with the perspective of authors Thomas E Gaddis and James O Long in a compelling chronicle of the forces that engender hate.
The authors provided a historical and sociological framework for Panzram's own words, using this uniquely detailed self-analysis by a mass murderer to depict what happens when an intelligent and unbreakable personality that has been interminably and unmercifully abused strikes back in vengeance.
Panzram arrives as a gripping warning from America's recent past to our current repressive era of prison-industrial complex, death penalty abuse and unprecedentedly high rates of incarceration from a man who walked the halls of Death Row with a blindingly clear vision.
About the authors: The late Thomas E Gaddis wrote Birdman of Alcatraz and was technical director of the classic movie starring Burt Lancaster and Karl Malden. A former California probation officer, Gaddis later became a professor at Red College in Portland, Oregon, and a practicing psychologist. While working on the Panzram book, he founded Project Newgate to establish accredited college programs inside some of the country's toughest prisons. It was a revolutionary idea for its time, helping fuel the great expansion of American civil rights under the Johnson Administration's War on Poverty in the 1960s.
James O Long is a reporter for The Oregonian in Portland, Oregon, where, in the past, he covered the Oregon prison system and wrote extensively about prisoners and the death penalty. His journalism honours include the coved Investigative Reporters and Editors award. He received a degree in philosophy from the University of Portland, and lives in Portland with his wife, Ruby.
Wednesday, 20 February 2019
The Life Of St Francis Of Assisi And The Treatise Of Miracles by Brother Thomas Of Celano
Paperback and about the author: Much has been written about St Francis since his death over 700 years ago and there is a wealth of information available about the man himself and about the Franciscan Order. Nevertheless, to understand exactly who he was and why his movement had such a profound and lasting effect on the Church, it is essential to see him through the eyes of those who knew him and thus to place the man within the context of his life and times.
Consequently, the works of Brother Thomas of Celano represent an invaluable source not only for scholars of Franciscanism but also for the lay person.
The task that was given to Thomas of Celano was to make Francis' life and works known to a vast audience, not only during his own lifetime but, as himself points out in his introductory remarks, for generations to come.
Indeed, in his Preface to Part Two of the Second Life, Thomas states, "Handing down the excellent works of the fathers to the memory of their children is a sign of honour to the former and of love to the latter. Truly, those who have not had the fortune of knowing their forefathers in person will be led towards goodness at least through the account of their lives and will be induced to do their best..."
In this, Thomas has more than succeeded in the task he set out to accomplish, for the Franciscan message, as he wrote it, is as fresh today as it was seven centuries ago when he first set pen to paper.
But who exactly was Brother Thomas?
First biographer of St Francis in Assisi, was born in Celano, in Abruzzo, probably of a noble family. He entered the Order in 1215. In 1221, he went with the Friars on the first mission to Germany, where, in 1223, he was made the Superior of the Rhine Custody. We do not have precise data for the duration of his stay in Germany. It is certain that he was in Assisi in the years 1228, 1230 and probably also between 1244 and 1250. He died in the proximities of Tagliacozzo probably (Abruzzo), where, in the local church of St Francis his body still rests.
He wrote, in the years 1228-29, the first biography of St Francis, the so-called First Life at the bequest of Pope Gregory IX.
Subsequently he wrote a second biography of the saint, called Second Life, commissioned by the Minister General, Crescenzio from Iesi, between 1244 and 1247. In this biography, he used some testimony of the closest companions of Francis.
About 1250, he began a third writing about Francis, The Treatise on the Miracles, at the bequest of the Minister General Giovanni from Parma, which contain the miracles after the death of the Saint.
Also attributed to him is a work about Saint Clare of Assisi, as well as two Sequences in honour of St Francis: Sanctitatis nova signa and Fregit victor virtualis.
The Life of St Francis of Assisi And The Treatise of Miracles (timeless/dateless) is translated from the Italian by Catherine Bolton.
Monday, 18 February 2019
Sunday, 17 February 2019
I Survived Auschwitz by Krystyna Żywulska
Paperback: I Survived Auschwitz (2011) was written by Krystyna Żywulska. Żywulska was born in 1914 as Sonia Landau. During the German occupation of Poland, she was displaced with her Jewish family to the Warsaw Ghetto in 1941. She escaped from the Ghetto and became active in the Polish resistance movement. Under her new name, Żywulska, she was captured by the Nazis in 1943 and sent to Auschwitz.
There is always the danger that we will forget things that are best not forgotten. Certainly, some things should be permanently recorded so that posterity will remember what we would prefer to erase from our memories.
This is the story of a woman who was imprisoned for a number of years in Auschwitz, the notorious death camp. What she saw there makes medieval genocides look like child’s play.
This is her memoir, and she shows not only her own courage but also her fellow prisoners’ fierce will to live. Half-starved, suffering from lice, scabies and dysentery and mowed down by typhus and pneumonia, they worked in fields of icy slush and mud and registered new arrivals - hundreds of thousands of women from Holland, Greece, Italy and Hungary, who did not know where they were or why they had been seized.
That she survived and finally managed to escape to tell the tale is one of many reasons why this book should be published and widely read. Most of her companions were murdered so that they could not bear witness.
Written just after the author’s escape and published in 1946, I Survived Auschwitz was the first ever book to emerge about the camp and therefore occupies an important place in Holocaust literature.
In certain parts of this book you will notice changes made by Poland’s communist censors after 1945. Due to these interventions, the book has become an unintentional double witness to the 20th century’s two most dreadful totalitarian regimes.
I Survived Auschwitz was published in cooperation with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. With additional footnotes, 26 percent increase in text, and 45 photos taken during war, the new edition is greatly expanded compared to the original 1946 English version.
The book was translated from the Polish, Przeżyłam Oświęcim, by Lech Czerski and Sheila Callahan based on an initial translation by Krystyna Cenkalska.
About the author: Krystyna Żywulska, born Sonia Landau to Jewish parents in Lódz, Poland, walked out of the Warsaw ghetto in August 1942. She joined the resistance as Zofia Wisniewska and provided aid to Jews in hiding, assuming yet another fictitious identity when arrested by the Nazis in June 1943. Two months later, she was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau as a Polish political prisoner. There, she began to write poems and songs, becoming one of a group of amateur poets and musicians who created “unofficial” art.
In 1970, Zywulska moved to Düsseldorf to be with her sons, who had earlier emigrated to the West as a result of the 1968 anti-Semitic campaigns in Poland. Asked by the Polish psychologist and scholar Barbara Engelking near the end of her life whether Krystyna was her real name, she replied, “In my life, when it comes to such topics, there is nothing ‘true,’ my dear.” But in truth, she was “Zosia” to family and friends from before the war and “Krysia” to her friends who survived Birkenau. They loved her all the same.
She died on 1 August 1992, and is buried in Germany as Zofia Zywulska Andrzejewski. Those who had been closest to her, both family and friends, remember Zywulska as a woman who loved to laugh, sing, and jest. Perhaps befitting a woman endowed with such optimism and spirit - as well as a gift for pictorial description - in the last decade of her life, without training and with impressive success, Zywulska took up painting, fulfilling a life-long desire.
Saturday, 16 February 2019
Deacon Of Death: Sam Smithers, The Serial Killer Next Door (True Crime) by Fred Rosen
Paperback: When a devilish deacon’s secrets are discovered, it is revealed that a man who was holier than thou was also guilty as sin.
By day, Sam Smithers was the deacon of his Baptist church in Plant City, Florida. A respected neighbour to many and considered a true pillar of his community, Smithers was a devoted family man. But after the sun set, he became something else: a violent attacker of prostitutes - and a killer.
Smithers’s twisted double life came to light when a local woman who had hired him to take care of her property found him surrounded by a puddle of blood in her garage, cleaning an axe. Through exclusive interviews with Smithers’s wife, who described her spouse as nothing but a doting husband and father, author Fred Rosen learned why this man of God would be the last person anyone would suspect of committing these savage crimes.
Deacon Of Death was first published in 2000. The above edition was published in 2015.
About the author: Fred Rosen is an American true crime author and former columnist for the Arts and Leisure Section of The New York Times.
Rosen's published works in the genre include There But For the Grace: Survivors of the 20th Century’s Infamous Serial Killers (2007) and When Satan Wore a Cross (2007). Both were best-sellers at the Doubleday Book Club, Literary Guild, Mystery Guild, and Book-of-the-Month Club.
He is also the winner of Library Journal’s Best Reference Source 2005 award for The Historical Atlas of American Crime, and has written many other works of historical non-fiction including Cremation in America, Contract Warriors, Lobster Boy and Gold! He can frequently be seen on the Investigation Discovery network's Evil Kin and Evil Twins TV series, where he is a regular on-air commentator.
Friday, 15 February 2019
The Diamond Caper (Sam Levitt Series) by Peter Mayle
Hardback: Bon vivant and expert sleuth, Sam Levitt, and his partner in love and intrigue, Elena Morales, return in the latest instalment of the delightful, sun-splashed, Provençal Caper series.
When a Riviera socialite's diamonds are stolen - the latest in a string of seemingly unconnected, but ever-more-audacious, jewelry heists across France - Elena flies in to investigate the insurance claim.
It is a trip she is more than happy to make, as it gives her a chance to meet up with old friends in Marseilles - and, particularly, with Sam.
Once reunited, she and Sam buy the local cottage they have had their eyes on, but Sam is not entirely distracted by domestic matters.
In the pattern of these "perfect crime" heists he is beginning to see a master at work, and he is quickly determined to connect and solve the cases.
But as he and Elena dig deeper, they begin to realize just how much is connected and how dangerous it may be to pursue the whole truth.
Meanwhile, there is a house to renovate, rosé wine to share, and feasts of Provençal summer bounty to enjoy.
Full of Peter Mayle's inimitable wit and style, The Diamond Caper (2015) is - the fourth and last book in the lighthearted but excellent Sam Levitt series - sure to charm faithful fans and new readers alike.
About the author: Peter Mayle (born 14 June 1939, in Brighton) was a British author famous for his series of books detailing life in Provence, France. He spent fifteen years in advertising before leaving the business in 1975 to write educational books, including a series on sex education for children and young people. In 1989, A Year in Provence, was published and became an international bestseller. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages, and he was a contributing writer to magazines and newspapers.
Indeed, his seventh book, A Year in Provence, chronicles a year in the life of a British expatriate who settled in the village of Ménerbes. His book, A Good Year, was the basis for the eponymous 2006 film directed by Ridley Scott and starring actor Russell Crowe. Peter Mayle died in Provence, France on 18 January 2018.
Rating: 5/5
Forty Dreams of St John Bosco From Saint John Bosco's Biographical Memoirs compiled and edited by Fr J Bacchiarello SDB
Paperback: For sixty years, St John Bosco experienced remarkable vision-like dreams, which were so lively and vivid that he would often awaken exhausted the next morning. The dreams frequently featured the actual boys at the Oratory; however, their value goes far beyond this, since they bring to life the realities of the Catholic Faith in a way that is absolutely unique!
In these dreams, St John Bosco saw his boys facing fearsome and disgusting animals or involved in battles, banquets and journeys, etc - which would reveal to him the state of their souls.
The boys (and priests) of the Oratory eagerly anticipated the narration of new dreams and for many boys the dreams resulted in the rectifying of bad Confessions, recovery of Sanctifying Grace, preservation from sin and even holy deaths.
Catholics who may not be inspired by abstract spiritual writings will be able to see in these dreams the evil of impurity, disobedience, gluttony, pride, bad Confessions, sacrilegious Communions, etc - as well as the reality of Hell and the danger of flirting with temptations.
They also will see the great power of good Confessions and devout Holy Communions, as well as the rewards in story for those who practice purity, obedience, temperance and humility, but especially for those who preserve their baptismal innocence - a precious gem far too little regarded by most Catholics.
We are truly indebted to those priests who recorded St John Bosco's narrations of his amazing dreams. Readers of all ages will be admonished, entertained and inspired by these Forty Dreams (1969) of one of the greatest and most beloved Saints of the Church!
Thursday, 14 February 2019
Tuesday, 12 February 2019
Monday, 11 February 2019
An Englishman In Madrid by Eduardo Mendoza
Paperback: Anthony Whitelands, an English art historian, is invited to Madrid to value an aristocrat's collection.
At a welcome lunch, he encounters Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder and leader of the Falange, a nationalist party whose antics are bringing the country ever closer to civil war.
The paintings turn out to be worthless, but before Whitelands can leave for London the duque's daughter Paquita reveals a secret and genuine treasure, held for years in the cellars of her ancestral home.
Afraid that the duque will cash in his wealth to finance the Falange, the Spanish authorities resolve to keep a close eye on the Englishman, who is also being watched by his own embassy.
As Whitelands - ever the fool for a pretty face - vies with Primo de Rivera for Paquita's affections, he learns of a final interested party: Madrid is crawling with Soviet spies, and Moscow will stop at nothing to secure the hidden prize.
An Englishman In Madrid (2013) won both the Planeta Prize and the European Book Prize (fiction category) and is translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor.
About the author: Eduardo Mendoza studied law in the first half of the 1960s and lived in New York between 1973 and 1982, working as interpreter for the United Nations. He maintained an intense relationship with novelists Juan Benet and Juan García Hortelano, poet Pere Gimferrer and writer (and neighbour) Félix de Azúa.
In 1975, he published his very successful first novel, La verdad sobre el caso Savolta (The Truth about the Savolta Case), where he shows his ability to use different resources and styles. The novel is considered a precursor to the social change in the Spanish post-Franco society and the first novel of the transition to democracy. He describes the union fights from the beginning of the 20th century, showing the social, cultural and economic reality of the Barcelona at the time. A year later he was awarded the Critic Prize.
His most acclaimed novel is probably La ciudad de los prodigios (The City of Marvels, 1986), about the social and urban evolution of Barcelona between the Universal Expositions of 1888 and 1929. It was adapted to the screen by Mario Camus in 1999.
In 1996, he published his third major Barcelona novel, this time set in the 1940s, Una comedia ligera (A Light Comedy).
Also within Mendoza's work stands the saga of Ceferino, a peculiar character, a detective locked up in a mental hospital. The first of these novels, El misterio de la cripta embrujada (The Mystery of the Bewitched Crypt, 1979) is a parody with hilarious moments mixing detective stories with gothic narrative. In the second novel of the saga, El laberinto de las aceitunas (The Labyrinth of the Olives, 1982) he confirms his talent as parodist; the novel is one of his most successful works. The third (and last) novel of the saga, La aventura del tocador de señoras (The Adventure of the Powder Room) was published in 2002.
The newspaper El País published two of his novels by instalments, Sin noticias de Gurb ( No Word from Gurb, 1990) and El último trayecto de Horacio Dos (The Last Journey of Horatio Dos, 2001).
In 1990, his work in Catalan Restauració made its debut. He later translated it into Spanish himself.
In 2010, Mendoza won the Premio Planeta, Spain's most lucrative literary prize for An Englishman in Madrid.
About the translator: Nick Caistor is a translator, journalist and author. He has translated more than forty books from Spanish and Portuguese, including works by Paulo Coelho, Eduardo Mendoza and Juan Marsé. He has twice been awarded the Valle-Inclán prize for Spanish translation.
Rating: 5/5
Saturday, 9 February 2019
When Satan Wore A Cross: The Shocking True Story Of A Killer Priest by Fred Rosen
Paperback: From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth, From the laziness that is content with half-truths, From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth, O God of truth, deliver us. - Hugh B Brown
In 1980 in Toledo, Ohio - on one of the holiest days of the church calendar - the body of a nun was discovered in the sacristy of a hospital chapel.
Seventy-one-year-old Sister Margaret Ann had been strangled and stabbed, her corpse arranged in a shameful and stomach-churning pose.
But the police's most likely suspect was inexplicably released and the investigation was quietly buried.
Despite damning evidence, Father Gerald Robinson went free.
Twenty-three years later the priest's name resurfaced in connection with a bizarre case of satanic ritual and abuse.
It prompted investigators to exhume the remains of the slain nun in search of the proof left behind that would indelibly mark Father Robinson as Sister Margaret Ann's killer: the sign of the Devil.
When Satan Wore a Cross (2007) is a shocking true story of official cover-ups, madness, murder and lies - and of an unholy human monster who disguised himself in holy garb. "Priest Kills Nun" was a first in American criminal history.
About the author: Fred Rosen is an American true crime author and former columnist for the Arts and Leisure Section of The New York Times.
Rosen's published works in the genre include There But For the Grace: Survivors of the 20th Century’s Infamous Serial Killers (2007) and When Satan Wore a Cross (2007). Both were best-sellers at the Doubleday Book Club, Literary Guild, Mystery Guild, and Book-of-the-Month Club.
He is also the winner of Library Journal’s Best Reference Source 2005 award for The Historical Atlas of American Crime, and has written many other works of historical non-fiction including Cremation in America, Contract Warriors and Gold!
Thursday, 7 February 2019
Dark Sacred Night (Bosch and Ballard Series) by Michael Connelly
Hardback: At the end of a long, dark night, LAPD Detectives Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch cross paths for the first time in the new thriller series - Dark Secret Night (2018) - from #1 NYT bestselling author Michael Connelly.
Renée Ballard is working the graveyard shift and returns to Hollywood Station in the early hours to find a stranger rifling through old files.
The intruder is none other than legendary LAPD detective Harry Bosch, hunting for leads in an unsolved case that has got under his skin.
Bosch is investigating the death of fifteen-year-old Daisy Clayton, a runaway on the streets of Hollywood who was brutally murdered and her body left in a dumpster like so much trash.
Ballard escorts him out, but - curious to know what he was searching for - soon becomes obsessed by the murder of Daisy Clayton.
Was she the first victim of a serial killer who still stalks the streets?
For Bosch, the case is more than personal: it may be all he has left.
The Bosch and Ballard sequel, The Night Fire, will be released sometime in 2019 so do watch out for it!
About the author: Michael Connelly was born in Philadelphia, PA on 21 July 1956. He moved to Florida with his family when he was 12 years old. Michael decided to become a writer after discovering the books of Raymond Chandler while attending the University of Florida. Once he decided on this direction he chose a major in journalism and a minor in creative writing - a curriculum in which one of his teachers was novelist Harry Crews.
After graduating in 1980, Connelly worked at newspapers in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, primarily specializing in the crime beat. In Fort Lauderdale he wrote about police and crime during the height of the murder and violence wave that rolled over South Florida during the so-called cocaine wars. In 1986, he and two other reporters spent several months interviewing survivors of a major airline crash. They wrote a magazine story on the crash and the survivors which was later short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. The magazine story also moved Connelly into the upper levels of journalism, landing him a job as a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, one of the largest papers in the country, and bringing him to the city of which his literary hero, Chandler, had written.
Michael is the bestselling author of thirty-two novels and one work of non-fiction. With over seventy-four million copies of his books sold worldwide and translated into forty foreign languages, he is one of the most successful writers working today. His very first novel, The Black Echo, won the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1992. In 2002, Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the movie adaptation of Connelly’s 1998 novel, Blood Work. In March 2011, the movie adaptation of his #1 bestselling novel, The Lincoln Lawyer, hit theaters worldwide starring Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller. His most recent #1 New York Times bestsellers include Dark Sacred Night, Two Kinds Of Truth, The Late Show, The Wrong Side Of Goodbye, The Crossing, The Burning Room, The Gods of Guilt, and The Black Box. Michael’s crime fiction career was honoured with the Diamond Dagger from the CWA in 2018.
Michael is the executive producer of Bosch, an Amazon Studios original drama series based on his bestselling character Harry Bosch, starring Titus Welliver. Bosch streams on Amazon Prime Video. He is also the executive producer of the documentary films, Sound Of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story and Tales of the American. He spends his time in California and Florida.
Rating: 5/5
Wednesday, 6 February 2019
The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Historical) by Heather Morris
Paperback: This beautiful, illuminating tale of hope and courage is based on interviews that were conducted with Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov - an unforgettable love story in the midst of atrocity.
In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.
Imprisoned for over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism - but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive.
One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.
A vivid, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful re-creation of Lale Sokolov's experiences as the man who tattooed the arms of thousands of prisoners with what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust, The Tattooist of Auschwitz (2018) is also a testament to the endurance of love and humanity under the darkest possible conditions.
TV rights in Heather Morris’ bestselling novel The Tattooist of Auschwitz have been snapped up by Synchronicity Films for a multi-part, high-end international drama series. The plan is to broadcast in January 2020 to tie in with the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Morris' next book, Cilka's Journey - a sequel to The Tattooist of Auschwitz - will be published on 3 October 2019.
About the author: Heather Morris was born in Te Awamutu, New Zealand, educated at Pirongia Primary School and Te Awamutu College. In 1971, she moved to Melbourne, Australia. In 1975, she and her husband returned to New Zealand, living in Christchurch. She commenced a BA degree at Canterbury University (NZ) in 1986 before moving back to Melbourne in 1987. She completed her BA at Monash University in 1991. In 1995, she began work in the Social Work Department at Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne where she stayed until 2017. In 1996, she decided to follow her passion for storytelling and enrolled in The Professional Scriptwriting Course through the Australian College of Journalism. Heather attended many screenwriting courses, seminars and workshops in both Australia and the US. Her first screenplay was optioned by Academy Award winning writer Pamela Wallace (Witness).
In 2003 she was introduced to Lale Sokolov and subsequently wrote The Tattooist as a screenplay.
The Tattooist was optioned by Instinct Entertainment (Melbourne). When the option lapsed, Heather entered it into several international screenwriting competitions, winning the International Independent Film Awards competition in 2016 and highly placing in several others, including the ISA (International Screenwriters’ Association) and Final Draft competitions.
Inspired by the comments from competition readers, Heather embarked on a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to self-publish her story as a novel. Through this venture, she came to the attention of Angela Meyer at Echo (Bonnier Publishing Australia) in Melbourne.
Rating: 4/5
Diary Of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy In My Soul (Spiritual Growth/Mysticism)
Paperback: Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, a simple, uneducated, young Polish nun receives a special call. Jesus tells her, "I am sending you with My mercy to the people of the whole world. I do not want to punish mankind, but I desire to heal it, pressing it to My merciful Heart." Jesus also tells her to record His message of mercy in a diary: "You are the secretary of My Mercy. I have chosen you for that office in this and the next life."
These words of Jesus are found in the Diary of St Maria Faustina Kowalska, which chronicles Sr Faustina's great experience of Divine Mercy in her soul and her mission to share that mercy with the world.
Though she died in obscurity in 1938, Sr Faustina is now hailed by Pope John Paul II as "the great apostle of Divine Mercy in our time."
On 30 April 2000, the Pope canonized her as St Faustina, saying that the message of Divine Mercy she shared is urgently needed at the dawn of the new millennium. More than 800 000 copies of the Diary have been sold worldwide.
In the Diary, this woman mystic's childlike trust, simplicity and intimacy with Jesus will stir your heart and soul. Her spiritual insights will surprise and reward you. "Only love has meaning," she writes. "It raises up our smallest actions into infinity."
How did St Faustina grow in deeper trust and intimacy with Jesus?
What promises did He make to her?
Discover the answers to these questions and many more in the Diary of St Faustina (1987).
About the author: Saint Faustina is "a gift from God for our times", great mystic, mistress of spiritual life, prophet, who reminded the biblical truth about merciful love of God for every human being and calls to proclaim it to the world through the testimony of life, deed, word and prayer.
Apostle of Divine Mercy, Prophet of Our Times, Great Mystic, Mistress of Spiritual Life - these are the epithets usually appended to the name of Sister Faustyna Kowalska, St Faustyna (Faustina), of the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. Sister Faustina is one of the Church’s most popular and widely known saints and the greatest mystics in the history of the Church.
Sister Faustina was born on 25 August 1905 in Głogowiec, Poland to Marianna and Stanisław Kowalski as the third of ten children. Two days later she was baptized with the name Helena in the parish church of Świnice Warckie. At the age of nine, she made her first Holy Communion. She attended elementary school for merely three years and then she went to work as a housekeeper in various well-to-do families in Aleksandrów and Łódź. From the age of seven, she had felt the calling for religious vocation, but her parents would not give her permission to enter the convent. However, impelled by the vision of the Suffering Christ, in July 1924 she left for Warsaw to find a place. For another year she worked as a housekeeper to save some money for a modest monastic trousseau. On 1 August 1925, she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Warsaw on Żytnia Street.
She lived in the Congregation for thirteen years, staying in many houses, the longest time (she spent) in Kraków, Płock and Vilnius; working as a cook, shop assistant in baker’s shop, gardener, and portress. She suffered from tuberculosis of the lungs and alimentary system and that is why for over 8 months stayed at the hospital in Kraków - Prądnik. Greater sufferings from those which were caused by tuberculosis, she offered as a voluntary sacrifice for sinners and as the Apostle of Divine Mercy. She experienced also many extraordinary graces such as: apparitions, ecstasies, the gift of bilocation, hidden stigmata, reading into human souls, the mystical betrothal and nuptials.
Sister Faustina’s principal task was to pass on to the Church and world the Message of Mercy, a recapitulation of the Biblical truth of God’s Merciful Love for every human being, and a calling to each of us to entrust our lives to Him and to actively love our neighbour.
Jesus not only revealed the depth of His Mercy to St Faustina, but also gave her new forms of worship: the picture inscribed Jesus, I trust in You, the Feast of Divine Mercy, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, and the Prayer in the Hour of His Death on the Cross, the Hour of Mercy. To each of these forms of worship, as well as to the preaching of the message of Mercy, He attached great promises, on condition that we care about the attitude of trust in God that is to fulfil His will and show mercy to our neighbours.
Sister Faustina died in Kraków on 5 October 1938, at the age of just thirty–three. Out of her charism and mystical experience grew the Apostolic Movement of the Divine Mercy which continues her mission, proclaiming the message of Mercy to the world through the testimony of life, deed, words and prayer.
On 18 April 1993, the Holy Father John Paul II raised her to the glory of the altars and on April 30, 2000, numbered her among the saints of the Church. Her relics are in the Shrine of the Divine Mercy at Łagiewniki, Kraków.
The Holy Father John Paul II wrote that in the age of totalitarianisms Sister Faustina became the ambassador of the message that the only power strong enough to counteract their evil is the truth of God’s Mercy. He called her Diary a Gospel of Mercy written from a 20th-century perspective, which has helped people to survive the extremely painful experiences of these times.
"This message," Pope Benedict XVI has said, "the message of Mercy as the Divine Power, as God putting a check on all the world’s evil, is indeed the chief message of our times."
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