Sunday, 31 July 2022
Saturday, 30 July 2022
As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl by John Colapinto
Paperback: As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl (2000) is a true story about the "twins case" and a riveting exploration of medical arrogance, misguided science, societal confusion, gender differences, and one man's ultimate triumph.
In 1967, after a twin baby boy suffered a botched circumcision, his family agreed to a radical treatment that would alter his gender. The case would become one of the most famous in modern medicine—and a total failure. The boy's uninjured brother, raised as a boy, provided to the experiment the perfect matched control. As Nature Made Him tells the extraordinary story of David Reimer, who, when finally informed of his medical history, made the decision to live as a male.
Writing with uncommon intelligence, insight, and compassion, John Colapinto sets the historical and medical context for the case, exposing the thirty-year-long scientific feud between Dr John Money and his fellow sex researcher, Dr Milton Diamond - a rivalry over the nature/nurture debate whose very bitterness finally brought the truth to light.
A macabre tale of medical arrogance, it is first and foremost a human drama of one man's - and one family's - amazing survival in the face of terrible odds.
As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl is a New York Times Bestseller.
Sadly and tragically, David Reimer died by suicide at age 38 in 2004. His parents state that Dr John Money's methodology was responsible for his death as well as the death of his twin brother, Brian, who was found dead of a drug overdose at age 36 in 2002.
About the author: Toronto-born John Colapinto is an award-winning staff writer and journalist at The New Yorker, author and novelist. His articles appeared in Vanity Fair, Esquire, Mademoiselle, Us, New York and The New York Times Magazine. Before joining The New Yorker, Colapinto was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, where he contributed feature stories. John Colapinto is married to fashion illustrator, artist and author, Donna Mehalko. They have one son and live in New York City.
Friday, 29 July 2022
What Is A Woman? by Matt Walsh
Hardback: But as time went on and as the interview hours ticked up, I began to realise that the problem wasn't my understanding. Nothing they said made any sense. They contradicted themselves, sometimes within minutes of speaking. Their terms were fuzzy and quickly discarded. They made bold proclamations but could never say exactly why their proclamation was so. Their arguments collapsed, not with hammer blows or a hard push, but with soft questions, because the core of gender ideology is hollow. Confusing words simply mask the fact that there is no "there" there. But I don't want you to take my word for it. You should hear it from "the experts" themselves. - Matt Walsh
Is this even a question?
What is a woman?
But all of a sudden, way too many people do not seem to know the answer. Is a woman a woman just by feeling or acting a particular way? Aren’t gender roles just a “social construct”? Can a woman be “trapped in a man’s body”? Does being a woman mean anything at all?
We used to think being a woman had something to do with biology, but the nation’s top experts keep assuring us that is definitely not the case. So Matt decided to do what no man (whatever that means) had done before. He sat down with the experts and asked them directly.
In What Is a Woman? (2022), our hero:
• Discovers that no one - not doctors, therapists, psychiatrists, or politicians - can actually define the word “woman”
• Hilariously convinces a radical gender therapist that Matt is questioning his own gender identity
• Uncovers the shocking and horrifying roots of radical gender ideology
• Learns exactly how activists and ideologues are trying to brainwash our kids
• Reveals a strategy to defeat the collective insanity that has taken over our society
Join Matt on his often comical, yet deeply disturbing, journey as he answers the question generations before us never knew they needed to ask: What is a woman?
What is a Woman? (2022) is a Publishers Weekly Bestseller, USA Today Bestseller, Wall Street Journal Bestseller, Seattle Times Bestseller and an Amazon Bestseller. Walsh's books can be purchased in all bookstores and online platforms.
About the author: Matt Walsh is a bestselling author, popular speaker, and conservative political commentator. Walsh began his career as a radio host and quickly become an influential writer among well-known conservative voices. Now, he is the host of The Daily Wire’s The Matt Walsh Show, where he discusses cultural, religious, and political issues in a way that connects with all generations. Matt lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife and young children.
Thursday, 28 July 2022
Wednesday, 27 July 2022
Tuesday, 26 July 2022
Monday, 25 July 2022
Revenge: Meghan, Harry And The War Between The Windsors by Tom Bower
Hardback: Meghan Markle's trajectory from unknown actress to world icon is remarkable. After a childhood spent on Hollywood film sets, she fought hard for stardom. But even when she landed her breakthrough role, her lifelong dream of celebrity remained elusive.
In 2016, she created the ultimate fairy-tale ending: she captivated her very own prince. Finally, the world was her stage.
The British Royal Family believed that the dizzy success of the Sussex wedding, watched and celebrated around the world, was the beginning of a new era for the Windsors. Yet, within one tumultuous year, the dream became a nightmare.
In the aftermath of the infamous Megxit split and the Oprah Winfrey interview, the Royal Family's fate seems persistently threatened.
The public remains puzzled. Meghan's success has alternatively won praise, bewildered and outraged. Confused by the Sussexes' slick publicity, few understand the real Meghan Markle.
What lies ahead for Meghan? And what has happened to the family she married into? Can the Windsors restore their reputation?
With extensive research, expert sourcing and interviews from insiders who have never spoken before, Tom Bower, Britain's leading investigative biographer, unpicks the tangled web of courtroom drama, courtier politics and thwarted childhood dreams to uncover an astonishing story of love, betrayal, secrets and revenge in Revenge: Meghan, Harry And The War Between The Windsors (2022).
Revenge (2022) is currently available on Amazon UK and USA, Kindle, Audible, Book Depository, Wordery, and most UK bookshops. Book Depository ships worldwide (Europe, USA, UAE, Far East) should bookworms require it urgently. It will be available in Dymocks Booksellers in Australia from 4 August 2022: pre-orders are open now.
About the author: Tom Bower's 25 bestselling books encompass a remarkably wide range of subjects. His most recent books include the most authoritative and bestselling account of Tony Blair's decade as prime minister and the definitive biographies of Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn, Gordon Brown and Geoffrey Robinson MP. His book, The Rebel Prince (2018), the story of Prince Charles' scandal-ridden bid to rehabilitate himself after Princess Diana's death, was a number one bestseller.
Bower is probably best known for his unvarnished and unauthorised biographies of Britain's most controversial tycoons including Robert Maxwell, Richard Branson, Mohamed Al-Fayed, Tiny Rowland, Bernie Ecclestone and Simon Cowell. His previous books about the failure to denazify post-war Germany and the hunt for Nazi war criminals, Anglo American intelligence operations against Russia during the Cold War, and corruption in the Premier League won great acclaim.
Saturday, 23 July 2022
Friday, 22 July 2022
Thursday, 21 July 2022
Destination Buchenwald: The Astonishing Survival Story of Australian and New Zealand Airmen in a Nazi Death Camp by Colin Burgess
Paperback: "Only those who have been prisoners have any conception of the horrors of being a prisoner, or of the ineffable joy of release; of the terrible rise and fall of the spirit, the fluctuations between the delirium of happiness and madness of despair, attendant upon the fluctuating hopes and fears as the possibility of release advances and retreats." - Percival Christopher Wren, Beggars' Horses
Destination Buchenwald: The Astonishing Survival Story of Australian and New Zealand Airmen in a Nazi Death Camp (7 June 2022) is the harrowing story of the Allied airmen who experienced the true horrors of Nazism firsthand. It is dedicated to the two airmen who never left Buchenwald:
Flying Officer Philip Derek Hemmens, RAF
First Lieutenant Levitt Clinton Beck Jr, USAAF
It was the summer of 1944 as liberating Allied forces surged towards Paris following the D-Day landings. For a large group of downed airmen being held in that city’s infamous Fresnes Prison, they were about to face evacuation into the blackest, bloody heart of Germany and experience the most acute evil of the war.
Amid great secrecy, those 168 airmen – including several from Australia and New Zealand – were transported on a filthy, overcrowded nightmare train journey which ended at the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp, accompanied by orders for their execution. At Buchenwald they witnessed extreme depravity that would haunt them to the end of their days.
Yet, on returning home, they were confronted by decades of denials from their own governments that they had ever been held in one of Hitler’s most vile concentration camps.
In conducting his original deep research for this book – now completely expanded and updated – Colin Burgess personally interviewed or corresponded with dozens of the surviving airmen from a number of nations, including their valorous leader, New Zealand Squadron Leader Phil Lamason.
Destination Buchenwald: The Astonishing Survival Story of Australian and New Zealand Airmen in a Nazi Death Camp tells a compelling story of extraordinary bravery, comradeship and endurance, when a group of otherwise ordinary servicemen were thrust into an unimaginable Nazi hell.
"This was the first book to provide an insight into our experiences as a group of captured allied airmen, betrayed to the Gestapo, tortured and deported to Buchenwald concentration camp. I consider it to be one of the best interpretations of the events as it reflects the voices of the survivors and their challenges to stay alive in such dehumanising circumstances." - Sqn Ldr Stanley Booker, RAF (Rtd), MBE, Légion D'Honneur: Last surviving member of the Buchenwald airmen
Destination Buchenwald: The Astonishing Survival Story of Australian and New Zealand Airmen in a Nazi Death Camp is first published in Australia in 1995 by Kangaroo Press. This revised edition published in 2022 by Simon & Schuster (Australia) is currently available from Dymocks Booksellers in Australia, Barnes and Noble, and in e-book/audio forms on Kindle and Audible on amazon.com.
About the author: Colin Burgess was born in suburban Sydney in 1947. In 2002, after 32 years of in-flight service with Qantas Airways in a variety of roles, Colin took an early retirement in order to concentrate on his writing career.
His first published book was The Diggers of Colditz in 1985, co-authored with Colditz veteran Jack Champ. Since then, he has had numerous non-fiction books published on a wide variety of subjects. In recent years, he has not only turned his attention to writing books on the history of human space exploration, but was appointed series editor for the Outward Odyssey series of books on that subject, published by the University of Nebraska Press in the United States.
To date, he has written or co-authored nearly forty books, and is currently working on a biography of Sister Betty Jeffrey OAM, the Australian nurse who was interned in a Japanese prison camp during the Second World War. Colin still lives near Sydney with his wife Pat. They have two adult sons and three grandchildren.
Tuesday, 19 July 2022
The Widow Of Walcha (True Crime) by Emma Partridge
Paperback: The Widow of Walcha (4 May 2022) is a shocking true story about death, love and lies in the small NSW town of Walcha.
All farmer Mathew Dunbar ever wanted was to find love and have a family of his own. That is why, just months after meeting Natasha Darcy, the much-loved grazier did not hesitate to sign over his multi-million-dollar estate to her.
When Mathew died in an apparent suicide soon afterwards, in a stranger-than-fiction twist, Natasha's estranged husband – who she was once charged with trying to kill – was the first paramedic on the scene after the murder.
Journalist and author Emma Partridge travelled to the cool and misty town of Walcha in the Northern Tablelands of NSW in the months after Mathew Dunbar's death, drawn by the town's collective worry that Natasha was going to get away with murder. Partridge spent months researching the case, interviewing Mathew’s friends, family and Natasha herself in an attempt to uncover her sickening web of lies and crimes.
The Widow of Walcha is about one of the most extraordinary criminal trials in Australia’s history and reveals Natasha’s sickening crimes against those she claimed to love, fuelled by her obsession with money.
The Widow of Walcha is currently available from Dymocks Booksellers in Australia; and in e-book/audio forms on Kindle and Audible on amazon.com.
About the author: Emma Partridge is an award-winning journalist who has covered crime in Australia for more than a decade. After working for regional and local newspapers across New South Wales, in 2013 she joined The Sydney Morning Herald. In 2017, she became chief court reporter for The Daily Telegraph, where she covered court cases and crime investigations. It was here she first reported on the death of farmer Mathew Dunbar, publishing the front-page article, 'The grazier and the widow of Walcha', on 17 November 2017.
Emma moved from print to television journalism in 2019, taking the role of Senior Crime Editor for Nine News Sydney, where she works today. She lives in Sydney with her partner Luke. The Widow of Walcha is her first book.
Monday, 18 July 2022
The War On Informed Consent: The Persecution Of Dr Paul Thomas By the Oregon Medical Board (Children's Health Defense) by Jeremy R Hammond
Hardback: To preserve public vaccine policy, Dr Paul Thomas was disbarred and discredited - discover how he was punished for pursuing the truth for his patients.
On 3 December 2020, the Oregon Medical Board issued an emergency order to suspend the license of renowned physician Paul Thomas, MD. The ostensible reason was that Dr Thomas posed a threat to public health by failing to vaccinate his paediatric patients according to the CDC's schedule.
However, the order came just days after Thomas published a peer-reviewed study indicating that his unvaccinated patients were the healthiest children in his practice.
The medical board ignored this data despite having requested Thomas to produce peer-reviewed evidence to support his alternative approach.
"Dr. Paul" started out practicing medicine the way he was trained to, which meant vaccinating according to the CDC's routine childhood vaccine schedule. But then he went on a journey of awakening, becoming what he calls "vaccine risk aware," and arrived at a place where no longer in good conscience could he continue "business as usual" with this one-size-fits-all approach. He left a private group practice to open his own clinic with the foundational principles of individualized care and respect for the right to informed consent. He wrote the Vaccine-Friendly Plan with Jennifer Margulis, PhD, to help parents navigate the decision-making process. Then the accusations from the medical board started coming.
The War on Informed Consent: The Persecution Of Dr Paul Thomas By the Oregon Medical Board (2021) exposes how the medical board suspended Dr Thomas's license on false pretexts, illuminating how the true reason for the order was that, by practicing informed consent, he posed a threat to public vaccine policy, which is itself the true threat to public health.
The War on Informed Consent is available in most bookshops and online platforms.
About the author: Jeremy R Hammond is an independent journalist, political analyst, and author. Topics he has covered include US foreign policy, economic policy, vaccine policy, and the lockdown responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. His work focuses on exposing state and media propaganda serving to manufacture consent for harmful government policies.
Saturday, 16 July 2022
Missing, Presumed Dead: The Double Murder Case That Shocked Australia by Mark Tedeschi QC
Paperback: It was the double murder case that gripped Australia, and former Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi QC is finally able to share all the shocking details.
Dorothy Davis and Kerry Whelan were both happy, healthy, affluent, middle-class women from conservative, loving families. Such women are hardly ever among the ranks of the missing. They were not hitchhikers, or associates of drug dealers, or unhappy with their family relationships, or suffering from mental health issues. In fact, they fell well outside any of the conventional categories of people at risk of permanently disappearing.
Dorothy Davis was a 74-year-old widow who lived in the quiet, upmarket seaside suburb of Lurline Bay in south-eastern Sydney. She was financially comfortable and led a peaceful, predictable life centred around her children, grandchildren and many friends. She suffered from a few of the usual physical ailments of people of her age, including arthritis. Kerry Whelan was an active and healthy 39-year-old with an affluent, family-based lifestyle. She lived with her husband, Bernard Whelan, the CEO of the Australian arm of Crown Equipment, a large multinational company that made forklifts and their three children on an expansive rural property at Kurrajong on the north-western outskirts of Sydney, where they ran horses and enjoyed country life.
Dorothy Davis and Kerry Whelan came from different parts of Sydney, mixed in quite different circles, and led completely different lives. They had never met each other, and if they had, they would have had little in common. In fact, Dorothy Davis and Kerry Whelan had one thing in common – they both knew Bruce Allan Burrell.
The disappearance without trace of these two women caused massive police investigations and resulted in sensational trials that gripped the nation of Australia.
Missing, Presumed Dead: The Double Murder Case That Shocked Australia (30 March 2022) explores the intricacies of those investigations and delves into the twisted, tortuous processes of the legal proceedings, while exploring the dark recesses of the mind of Bruce Burrell.
Missing, Presumed Dead is currently available from Dymocks Booksellers in Australia; and in e-book/audio forms on Kindle and Audible.
The author's proceeds from the publication of this book will be donated to Australian charities that assist and support victims of crime, the families of deceased victims and the relatives of those who have gone missing.
About the author: Mark Tedeschi AM QC was until 2018 the Senior Crown Prosecutor for New South Wales and the President of the Australian Association of Crown Prosecutors in this state. He is now a private barrister practising at Wardell Chambers in Sydney. He is a Councillor of the NSW State Library and a Trustee of Sydney Grammar School. For more than 40 years, he has prosecuted many of the most significant and high-profile trials in Australia. Mark is also a keen photographer who has had his work shown in 15 solo exhibitions and 20 joint exhibitions in Australia, Italy, France and the USA. Mark is the author of critically acclaimed non-fiction titles Eugenia, Kidnapped and Massacre at Myall Creek. Missing, Presumed Dead is his fourth true-crime book.
Friday, 15 July 2022
Blood on The Rosary by Sue Smethurst and Margaret Harrod
Paperback: Blood on the Rosary (1 March 2020) by Sue Smethurst and Margaret Harrod is a heartfelt, brave and inspiring memoir about the power of speaking out.
A brave nun. Her twin brother. The secrets and lies that would tear them apart.
Twins share a special bond, a connection that cannot be put into words. Margaret Harrod shared that bond with her twin brother Michael. Inseparable as children, they both gave their lives to the Catholic Church at age 22, Margaret becoming a nun and Michael a Salesian priest.
Now the brother Margaret adored is in jail after pleading guilty to multiple child abuse charges, and the unlikely whistleblower was Margaret, his courageous twin sister.
It cost Margaret everything, but she could not stay silent any longer about the damage her brother was wreaking in his community. Margaret knows of that damage firsthand, having had that trust betrayed herself.
Blood on the Rosary is the extraordinary story of how the brave nun took on the church, fighting for more than a decade to bring paedophile priests to justice, including her own brother.
Blood on the Rosary is currently available from Dymocks Booksellers in Australia and on amazon.com.
About the authors: Sue Smethurst is a senior journalist with The Australian Women’s Weekly. She has spent 20 years in media working across television, radio and magazines. Her career has taken her around the globe interviewing the likes of Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, Kylie Minogue, Olivia Newton John and Christopher and Pixie Skase. In addition to her editorial career, Sue has worked on and off camera with A Current Affair and Sunrise, and spent five years as a commentator with Neil Mitchell on 3AW. Blood on the Rosary is her seventh book, and her book, Behind Closed Doors, was a finalist for the 2016 Sisters in Crime Davitt Awards. Sue lives in Melbourne with her husband and two children. Her website is www.suesmethurstmedia.com.
Margaret Harrod leads by example. Despite years of abuse, the former nun, who went on to become a much loved teacher, does not view herself as a victim but as an empowered woman who has managed to grasp her life with both hands in order to be able to reach her dreams. Throughout her healing journey, Margaret held fast to her dream of assisting other women. After leaving teaching, she became a crisis supporter and advocate at Lifeline before establishing a successful life coaching business specialising in empowering women who have suffered sexual abuse. She is passionate about challenging her clients to recreate themselves and achieve their dreams. Margaret has been married to Rod for 27 years and lives in Canberra. They have two grown up children.
Sunday, 10 July 2022
Saturday, 9 July 2022
The Bodies Of Others: The New Authoritarians, COVID-19 And The War Against The Human by Naomi Wolf
For in league with mass surrender to all-powerful technology, the “restrictions” against human assembly, speech and gathering, culture and worship brought on by pandemic panic have brought new cultural norms frighteningly at odds with traditional Western notions of freedom and independent thought. Indeed, in our fear of public ostracism and shaming and our ready abandonment of free, open, spontaneous, individualistic, egalitarian and tolerant expression, we in the West today live in a world of CCP-style regimentation and conformity. It is a world in which all human endeavour - all human joy, all human fellowship, all human advancement, all human culture, all human song, all human drama, all worship, all surprise, all flirtation, all celebration - is behind a digital pay wall. A world in which we must ask permission of technology to be human.
This is a world we must challenge and change.
The Bodies of Others: The New Authoritarians, COVID-19 And The War Against The Human (2022) shows how these forces - from Big Tech and Big Pharma to the CCP and our oligarchical elites - seized upon two years of COVID-19 panic in sinister new ways, to not only undermine our Republic but to fundamentally reorient human relations.
But we, the people of the world, did not vote to abandon our old systems and destroy our old ways so absolutely they could never be recovered. And Wolf shows how, against overwhelming odds, we still might win.
The Bodies of Others is #4 on Amazon's Most Sold list, and a Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Publishers Weekly Nonfiction Book Best Seller.
The Bodies of Others is dedicated to the 2049 Generation.
The book can be purchased from Amazon (UK and USA) and most chain bookshops (Waterstones, Barnes and Nobles).
About the author: Dr Naomi Wolf is a graduate of Yale University and a Rhodes Scholar. She completed a DPhil in English Language and Literature from the University of Oxford in 2015. Wolf was a research fellow at the Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department at Barnard College, and had a consultancy at the Athena Center for Leadership Studies, also at Barnard. She held a research fellowship at the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford for her research on John Addington Symonds. She was a Distinguished Fellow in the Senior Common Room at New College, Oxford.
Dr Wolf has taught Victorian studies as a visiting professor in the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook University, as well as advocacy literature at The George Washington University. She has lectured on the themes in her latest book Outrages at the Ashmolean Museum, at Balliol College and at Mansfield College, and to the undergraduates in the Faculty of English Language and Literature, all at the University of Oxford, as well as for the Inaugural Rhodes LGBTQ+ Forum, held at Rhodes House, Oxford, where she also taught nonfiction writing to the Rhodes Scholars for several years. Wolf was an advisor on women’s issues and messaging to both the Clinton reelection campaign and to the Gore 2000 presidential campaign; cofounded the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership and the American Freedom Campaign; and is CEO of DailyClout.io, a news site and legislative database on which she and her team explain US state and federal legislation weekly, interview national elected officials, and report on democracies worldwide. Wolf holds an honorary doctorate from Sweet Briar College, and was a Glamour Woman of the Year.
Her most recent books include the New York Times best sellers Give Me Liberty and The End of America, as well as the landmark best seller The Beauty Myth. Wolf lives in New York City.
P/S I apologise for not checking all comments on my blog and more importantly, replying to them expeditiously. I have since remedied this. Thank you for your understanding.
Friday, 8 July 2022
Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity Is Taking Over The World by Elle Hardy
Hardback: Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity Is Taking Over The World (2021) is a fascinating exposé of the global revolution you’ve never heard of: a deep-pocketed, tech-savvy Christian movement reshaping our societies from within.
How has a Christian movement, founded at the turn of the twentieth century by the son of freed slaves, become the fastest-growing religion on Earth? Pentecostalism has 600 million followers; by 2050, they will be one in ten people worldwide. This is the religion of the Holy Spirit, with believers directly experiencing God and His blessings: success for the mind, body, spirit and wallet.
Pentecostalism is a social movement. It serves impoverished people in Africa and Latin America, and inspires anti-establishment leaders from Trump to Bolsonaro. In Australia, Europe and Korea, it throws itself into culture wars and social media, offering meaning and community to the rootless and marginalised in a fragmenting world.
Reporting this revolution from twelve countries and six US states, Elle Hardy weaves a timeless tale of miracles, money and power, set in our volatile age of extremes. By turns troubling and entertaining, Beyond Belief exposes the Pentecostal agenda: not just saving souls, but transforming societies and controlling politics. These modern prophets, embedded in our institutions, have the cash and the influence to wage their holy war.
About the author: Elle Hardy is an Australian-born journalist and foreign correspondent usually based between the USA and the UK. She has reported from the United States, the former USSR and North Korea, among a long list of places. Her work has appeared in GQ, Lonely Planet, Foreign Policy and Business Insider, and on ABC Australia.
The Iconoclast: Shinzo Abe And The New Japan by Tobias S Harris
Hardback: The Iconoclast: Shinzo Abe And The New Japan (2020) is a revealing profile of Japan’s longest-serving prime minister and his controversial legacy.
Shinzo Abe (1954-2022) entered politics burdened by high expectations: that he would change Japan. In 2007, seemingly overwhelmed, he resigned after only a year as prime minister. Yet, following five years of reinvention, he masterfully regained the premiership in 2012 and, until his resignation in 2020, dominated Japanese democracy as no leader had done before.
Abe inspired fierce loyalty among his followers, cowing Japan’s left with his ambitious economic programme and support for the security and armed forces. He staked a leadership role for Japan in a region being rapidly transformed by the rise of China and India, while carefully preserving an ironclad relationship with Trump’s America.
The Iconoclast tells the story of Abe’s meteoric rise and stunning fall, his remarkable comeback, and his unlikely emergence as a global statesman who laid the groundwork for Japan’s survival in a turbulent century.
About the author: Tobias S Harris is a Senior Vice President of the advisory firm Teneo, covering Japan and East Asia. Since working for a Japanese legislator in 2006-2007, he has run the blog Observing Japan, commented on Japanese politics for major publications and on television and radio programmes; and conducted graduate research at MIT and the University of Tokyo. From 2014-2020, he was a research fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA, where he studied Japan’s political economy and analysed public opinion polls. His website is http://www.observingjapan.com.
Tuesday, 5 July 2022
Monday, 4 July 2022
Sunday, 3 July 2022
Christus Vincit: Christ’s Triumph Over The Darkness Of The Age by Bishop Athanasius Schneider in conversation with Diane Montagna
Paperback: In this absorbing interview, Bishop Athanasius Schneider offers a candid, incisive examination of controversies raging in the Church and the most pressing issues of our times, providing clarity and hope for beleaguered Catholics.
He addresses such topics as widespread doctrinal confusion, the limits of papal authority, the documents of Vatican II, the Society of St Pius X, anti-Christian ideologies and political threats, the third secret of Fatima, the traditional Roman rite, and the Amazon Synod, among many others.
Like his fourth-century patron, St Athanasius the Great, Bishop Schneider says things that others would not, fearlessly following St Paul’s advice: “Preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching” (2 Tim 4:2). His insights into the challenges facing Christ’s flock today are essential reading for those who are, or wish to be, alert to the signs of the times.
Reminiscent of The Ratzinger Report of 1985, Christus Vincit (2019) will be a key point of reference for years to come.
About the authors: Athanasius Schneider was born in 1961 in Kyrgyzstan to a German family and baptized with the name Antonius. In 1973, the family emigrated to Germany. He joined the Order of Canons Regular of the Holy Cross in Austria in 1982 and received the religious name Athanasius; he was ordained a priest in Brazil in 1990. Having earned a doctorate in Patrology at the Augustinianum in Rome, he has taught since 1999 at the seminary in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. In 2006, he was ordained bishop in the Basilica of St Peter in Rome and appointed titular bishop of Celerina and auxiliary bishop of Karaganda. From 2011 to the present, he has been auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana, Chairman of the Liturgical Commission, and Secretary General of the Conference of the Catholic Bishops of Kazakhstan. Bishop Schneider is the author of two books on the Holy Eucharist: Dominus Est—It Is the Lord and Corpus Christi: Holy Communion and the Renewal of the Church.
Diane Montagna is an American journalist based in Rome.
Saturday, 2 July 2022
A Life Of Hermann Cohen: From Franz Liszt To John Of The Cross by Timothy Tierney
Paperback: Venerable Hermann Cohen (1820-1871) was a noted German Jewish pianist, who converted to the Catholic Church. He was a star pupil of the great composer/pianist Franz Liszt in Paris in the mid-1800s. Cohen became an international concert pianist in his own right and mixed with many of the famous names of the day. He provided piano accompaniment for Giovanni Mateo De Candia ( Mario), the Pavarotti of his day, on concert platforms in Paris and London.
After converting to Catholicism, Hermann Cohen became a Carmelite friar and priest and preached throughout Europe. In1862, he officially restored the Carmelite Order to England (Kensington Church and Priory). In France, he became friends with many future French saints. These will all be mentioned in the course of the story.
One of his many Canticles, The Divine Prisoner's Little Flower, greatly influenced Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, often known as the Little Flower.
Hermann Cohen inspired Raphael Kalinowski to turn from a worldly life and become a Carmelite like himself. (Timothy Tierney also wrote a biography of Saint Raphael Kalinowski in 2016).
Hermann Cohen was also known as Augustine Mary of the Blessed Sacrament OCD (French: Augustin-Marie du Très Saint-Sacrement), or better known as Father Hermann. He was instrumental in introducing the widespread practice of nocturnal adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
In Timothy Tierney's book - A Life Of Hermann Cohen: From Franz Liszt To John Of The Cross (2017) - you will witness, through his rich and fluent narrative, the encounter with Father Hermann, a genius who savoured the intoxicating highs of success as an artist and the despairing depths of a gambler enslaved by his addictions but through music, the atheistic Cohen experienced and discovered the spiritual realm brought about by an overwhelming intense experience of submission while playing the organ for a Benediction service in the former Church of Saint Valère in Paris in May 1847.
The cause for Father Cohen's canonization has been accepted for investigation by the Holy See.
About the author: Father Timothy Tierney joined the Carmelite Order in his native Ireland. After ordination as a priest in Dublin, he spent two years in ministry in Ireland. In addition to his seminary studies for priesthood in Dublin, Timothy holds a BA degree in Ecumenical Theology from London School of Theology (now affiliated to Middlesex University) and a BD from the University of London. From 1969 until 1939, he worked in various Carmelite communities in the UK. Timothy came to Australia in 1993. His most recent appointment was as a member of the Carmelite Community in Morley, Perth, Western Australia.
Friday, 1 July 2022
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