For It Is Only When He Is Alone

The Life Of Christina Of Markyate (Oxford World's Classics)

About the book: The Life of Christina of Markyate (2008) is the remarkable story of the twelfth-century recluse Christina, who became prioress of Markyate, near St Albans in Hertfordshire. 

Determined to devote her life to God and to remain a virgin, Christina repulses the sexual advances of the bishop of Durham. In revenge, he arranges her betrothal to a young nobleman but Christina steadfastly refuses to consummate the marriage and defies her parents' cruel coercion.

Sustained by visions, she finds refuge with the hermit Roger, and lives concealed at Markyate for four years, enduring terrible physical and emotional torment. Although Christina is supported by the abbot of St Albans, she never achieves the recognition that he intended for her.

Written with striking candour by Christina's anonymous biographer, the vividness and compelling detail of this account make it a social document as much as a religious one. 

Christina's trials of the flesh and spirit exist against a backdrop of scheming and corruption and all-too-human greed.

The Life of Christina of Markyate is translated from the Latin by C H Talbot in 1959 and revised with an Introduction and Notes by Samuel Fanous and Henrietta Leyser.

The Fourth Secret Of Fatima by Antonio Socci

About the book: On 26 June 2000, Vatican officials (including Cardinal Bertone) released what they claim was the Third Secret of Fatima. They further said that it was a prediction of the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981. 

Antonio Socci, an acclaimed Italian journalist and television personality, originally sided with the Vatican's interpretation of the Third Secret.

Upon closer investigation of this matter, the evidence led him to the conclusion that there is another document of the Third Secret containing the actual words of Our Lady. 

So far, the Vatican is still hiding this text while claiming that all is released.

Antonio Socci, for the first time, in this book produces the testimony of a still-living witness from the inner circle of Pope John XXIII, to prove his point. 

This book - The Fourth Secret of Fatima (2006), Il quarto segreto di Fatima (Italian) - is a fascinating inquiry into the theories and the truths of the most disconcerting mystery of the twentieth century. It has caused a public sensation and debate. 

Far from being a dead issue, the urgent message of Our Lady to the shepherd children of Fatima is now being more critically discussed and examined than ever before.

About the author: Journalist and essayist, Anthony Socci was a correspondent for the weekly Il Sabato and directed the international review 30 Giorni. He was vice-director of Rai Due, for which he conceived and hosted the program "Excalibur." Currently, for Rai, he directs the School of Radio-Television Journalism in Perugia. He is also a contributor to the journals Libero and Il Foglio. He has published, among other works, I nuovi perseguitati (The New Victims of Persecution), Uno strano cristiano (A Strange Christian), Il segreto di Padre Pio (The Secret of Padre Pio) and also Indagine su Gesù (A Study of Jesus).

Fatima: The Great Sign by Francis Johnston

About the book: For the first time in one volume, we are presented with a harmonious synthesis of the declarations of popes, cardinals, bishops and theologians repeatedly stressing, not only the paramount importance of Fatima to the tumultuous problems and perils besetting mankind today and the preservation of world peace, but to the regeneration of modern society, to the resolution of the present crisis in faith and morals, to the promised conversion of Russia, to "the historical and theological happenings of Eden and Calvary" and "the heavenly Jerusalem described by St John," in the words of Cardinal Baggio, Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops and much else besides.

As the Bishop of Fatima expressed it in 1975: "Fatima as a whole is a compendium of the Catholic Faith." 

And in a message to all the world's priests, Cardinal Larraona, Pope John XXIII's legate to Fatima in 1963, exhorted them to "live and cause to be lived the message of Our Lady," which is "a living realization of the gospel..."

In these critical times, no one can afford to ignore the Fatima message. After reading this book - Fatima: The Great Sign (1980, 2012), certainly no informed Catholic should have any reason for doing so.

About the author: Francis Johnston was an Irish priest and author who lived in the twentieth century. His works include Voice of the Saints (1965), Heart of the Saints (1975), Alexandria: The Agony and the Glory (1979), and Fatima, the Great Sign (1980). The latter was republished by TAN a year after its initial release. Mr Johnston also wrote several pamphlets, among them Addict for Christ, Have You Forgotten Fatima?, and A Very Ordinary Girl.

Artist: Kaoru Yamada

Leading By Example

Clear by Carys Davies

About the book: 1843. On a remote Scottish island, Ivar, the sole occupant, leads a life of quiet isolation until the day he finds a man unconscious on the beach below the cliffs. The newcomer is John Ferguson, an impoverished church minister sent to evict Ivar and turn the island into grazing land for sheep. 

Unaware of the stranger’s intentions, Ivar takes him into his home, and in spite of the two men having no common language, a fragile bond begins to form between them. Meanwhile on the mainland, John’s wife Mary anxiously awaits news of his mission.

Against the rugged backdrop of this faraway spot beyond Shetland, Carys Davies’s intimate drama unfolds with tension and tenderness: a touching and crystalline study of ordinary people buffeted by history and a powerful exploration of the distances and connections between us. 

Perfectly structured and surprising at every turn, Clear (2024) is a marvel of storytelling, an exquisite short novel by a master of the form.

Clear is a Sunday Times Best Book of 2024, a BBC Radio 2 Book Club Pick, a Vogue Best Book of 2024 So Far, a Waterstones Book You Need to Read in 2024 and an American Booksellers’ Indie Next Pick.

About the author: Carys Davies’s debut novel, West, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, longlisted for the European Literature Prize, Runner Up for the Society of Authors' McKitterick Prize, and winner of the Wales Book of the Year for Fiction. Her second novel, The Mission House, was The Sunday Times 2020 Novel Of The Year.

She is also the author of two collections of short stories, Some New Ambush and The Redemption of Galen Pike, which won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. She is the recipient of the Royal Society of Literature's V S Pritchett Prize, the Society of Authors' Olive Cook Short Story Award, a Northern Writers’ Award, a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of the Folio Academy. 

Her short stories have been nominated for many other awards, including the Sunday Times/EFG Short Story Award and the William Trevor/Elizabeth Bowen International Short Story Prize. They have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and widely published in magazines and anthologies, including Granta, The Dublin Review, and The Stinging Fly.

She has been a judge for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award and has twice judged The Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award. Her book reviews, essays, and other non-fiction have appeared in Granta, The Guardian, The London Evening Standard, Marie Claire, the Sunday Telegraph and The Times.

Born in Wales, she grew up there and in the Midlands, lived and worked for twelve years in New York and Chicago, and now lives in Edinburgh.

Rating: 5/5

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), English Novelist, Poet And Journalist

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), American Writer

Arrow Through The Heart: The Biography Of Andy Gibb by Matthew Hild

About the book: Andy Gibb was one of the biggest pop stars of the disco era. 

His first three singles - "I Just Want To Be Your Everything," "(Love Is) Thicker Than Water," and "Shadow Dancing" - reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 during 1977-78, and he became a fixture on television specials, appearing alongside legends such as Bob Hope, George Burns, and Dean Martin. 

In 1981, he became the co-host of the iconic Solid Gold television series, and a year later he starred in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on Broadway. 

But despite his enormous success, he battled with insecurity, depression, and substance abuse, causing his career to flounder and leaving him bankrupt by 1987. By then, he seemed ready to start anew and launch a comeback, but he died suddenly in 1988, five days after his thirtieth birthday.

Despite the tragic brevity of his career and life, Andy Gibb still has a strong fan base around the world, but his story has never been told - until now. 

Arrow Through the Heart: The Biography of Andy Gibb (2022) draws upon extensive research, rare archival interviews with Andy Gibb and members of his family, and interviews conducted by the author with nearly fifty of Andy's friends and associates to examine the life and career of this beloved pop idol.

"Arrow Through The Heart" was the final song recorded by singer-songwriter Andy Gibb before his death in 1988. The song was publicly released in its entirety for the first time on the Bee Gees' 2010 compilation box set Mythology.

About the author: Matthew Hild is a lecturer of history, specializing in southern history and US labour history and agricultural history. He earned his PhD from Georgia Tech’s School of History, Technology, and Society (now called the School of History and Sociology) in 2003. He is the author of Greenbackers, Knights of Labor, and Populists: Farmer-Labor Insurgency in the Late–Nineteenth-Century South (University of Georgia Press, 2007) and Arkansas's Gilded Age: The Rise, Decline, and Legacy of Populism and Working-Class Protest (University of Missouri Press, 2018). The latter won the Arkansas Historical Association's J.G. Ragsdale Book of the Year Award in 2019.  

He is also the co-author (with fellow HSOC/HTS PhD alumnus David L. Morton) of Georgia Tech (Campus History), published by Arcadia Publishing in 2018. He is the co-editor of and a contributing co-author (with Keri Leigh Merritt) to Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power (University Press of Florida, 2018), which won the United Association for Labor Education's Award for the Best Book Related to Labor Education in 2019. 

He is also the co-editor (with Michael Gagnon) of and a contributing author to Gwinnett County, Georgia, and the Transformation of the American South, 1818-2018 (University of Georgia Press, 2022). 

Courses that he has taught include US History to 1877, US History since 1877, History of the New South, US Labor History, America in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era,  Modern America, Science and Technology in the Modern World, Technology and Science in the Industrial Age, and Engineering in History. He lives in Georgia.

When You Are Old by W B Yeats (1865-1939)

A Congenial Book

Notes From Poland

Nourished By Books

For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain by Victoria MacKenzie

About the book: For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain (2023) is an astounding debut, both epic and intimate, about grief, trauma, revelation, and the hidden lives of women by a major new talent.

In the year of 1413, two women meet for the first time in the city of Norwich.

Margery has left her fourteen children and husband behind to make her journey. Her visions of Christ – which have long alienated her from her family and neighbours, and incurred her husband's abuse – have placed her in danger with the men of the Church, who have begun to hound her as a heretic.

Julian, an anchoress, has not left Norwich, nor the cell to which she has been confined, for twenty-­three years. She has told no one of her own visions – and knows that time is running out for her to do so.

The two women have stories to tell one another. Stories about girlhood, motherhood, sickness, loss, doubt and belief; revelations more powerful than the world is ready to hear. Their meeting will change everything.

Sensual, vivid and humane, For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain cracks history open to reveal the lives of two extraordinary women.

For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain is the winner of the Scottish Book Awards - First Book of the Year 2023. It was selected as a book of the year by the Sunday Times, Guardian, Scotsman and Irish Times.

About the author: Victoria MacKenzie is a fiction writer and poet. She is the winner of the Scottish Book Trust New Writer Award and the inaugural Emerging Writer Award from Moniack Mhor. She was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, as well as being awarded prestigious writing residencies in Scotland, Finland and Australia. She teaches creative writing for the Open College of the Arts. She lives in Scotland. Visit her website at victoriamackenzie.net or on Twitter at @forthygreatpain

Rating: 5/5