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Happiness No 10223

The Apparitions Of Garabandal by Francisco Sanchez-Ventura Y Pascual

Paperback: "Conchita, I bless you...and with me, the whole Church blesses you." - Pope Paul VI

The Apparitions of Garabandal (1965, 1966) is the definitive recounting of the extraordinary events which occurred in that remote village located in northern Spain. 

First published in 1965 and written while the apparitions were still occurring, Sanchez Ventura’s vividly detailed account of his own direct observations and those of the other first hand witnesses he interviewed, is the most authoritative on this subject. 

If you want to know what really happened at Garabandal — this is the one book you need to read.

The original book was published in Spain under the title Las Apariciones No Son Un Mito: el interrogante de Garabandal. The English translation was carried out by A de Bertodano. For more information on Garabandal, go to www.garabandal.org

About the author: Francisco Sanchez-Ventura y Pascual was a highly respected Spanish attorney, economics Professor, award-winning novelist, personal counsellor to Spanish royalty, and founder of various businesses. However, above all, Francisco was a warrior for the Virgin Mary. He founded the magazine Maria Mensajera (Mary Messenger), directed numerous courses specializing in Mariology and published more than 50 books — most of them investigative studies into mystical phenomena and Marian apparitions. He died 13 June 2007.

The Library: A Fragile History by Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen

Paperback: The Library: A Fragile History (2022) is longlisted for the Historical Writers' Association Non-Fiction Crown Awards 2022 and a Sunday Times Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2021.

Famed across the known world, jealously guarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes or filled with bean bags and children's drawings - the history of the library is rich, varied and stuffed full of incident.

In The Library: A Fragile History, the first major history of its kind, Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen explore the contested and dramatic history of the library, from the famous collections of the ancient world to the embattled public resources we cherish today. 

Along the way, they introduce us to the antiquarians and philanthropists who shaped the world's great collections, trace the rise and fall of fashions and tastes, and reveal the high crimes and misdemeanours committed in pursuit of rare and valuable manuscripts.

The Library: A Fragile History is essential reading for booklovers, collectors, and anyone who has ever gotten blissfully lost in the stacks.

About the authors: Arthur der Weduwen (b 1993) is a Dutch historian and writer. His work primarily focuses on the Dutch Republic, the history of the book and the emergence of the newspaper. Educated at the University of Exeter, der Weduwen took his doctoral degree at St Andrews University, where he currently works on the Universal Short Title Catalogue Project. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. 

Professor Andrew Pettegree (b 1957) is a British historian and an expert on the European Reformation, the history of the book and media transformations. As of 2022 he holds a professorship at St Andrews University, where he is the director of the Universal Short Title Catalogue Project. He is the founding director of the St Andrews Reformation Studies Institute.

Der Weduwen has collaborated with Andrew Pettegree on a number of books about the publishing industry in the Netherlands in the Dutch Golden Age. These include The Bookshop of the World. Making and Trading Books in the Dutch Golden Age (2019) in English and Dutch, and studies of the origins of advertising, The Dutch Republic and the Birth of Modern Advertising and News and Business and Public Information. Advertisements and Public Announcements in Dutch and Flemish Newspapers, 1620-1675. 

They also co-wrote The Library: a Fragile History (2021) which charts the history of the library from the ancient world to the modern era.

Revenge: Meghan, Harry And The War Between The Windsors by Tom Bower

Paperback: In 2018, the wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle was a dizzy success. Watched and celebrated all over the world, it was hailed as the beginning of a new era for the Windsors. Yet, within a few short years, the dream had become a nightmare. The Queen had passed, and the Sussexes were no longer working members of the Royal Family.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle continue to make headlines and divide opinion. With a new King on the throne, and the aftershocks of Megxit and the infamous Oprah Winfrey interview still being felt, what lies ahead for Meghan and Harry? And what of the royal family they are so determined to leave behind?

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 events that led the family here. 

With courtroom drama, courtier politics and thwarted childhood dreams, the paperback edition of Revenge: Meghan, Harry And The War Between The Windsors (2022) includes sensational new material and is an astonishing story of love, betrayal, secrets and revenge. Revenge is an instant No 1 internationally bestselling “explosive tell-all” and the No 1 Sunday Times bestseller.

About the author: Tom Bower is acknowledged as Britain's leading investigative writer. His 25 bestselling books encompass a remarkably wide range of subjects. He is best known for his unvarnished and unauthorised biographies of Britain's most controversial tycoons including Robert Maxwell, Richard Branson, Mohamed Al-Fayed, Tim Rowland, Bernie Ecclestone and Simon Cowell.

Good Morning

Unspoken Fellowship

The Tumbler of Our Lady and Other Miracles translated by Alice Kemp-Welch

Paperback: The Tumbler of Our Lady And Other Miracles (1908, 2023) is a collection of medieval Marian stories from the golden age of chivalry. 

Translated from Middle French by Alice Kemp-Welch (1856-1944), these tales offer a charming glimpse into the Marian piety of the High Middle Ages. 

The Tumbler of Our Lady and Other Miracles contains nine stories with original manuscript illustrations.

About the translator: Alice Kemp-Welch (1856-1944) was a British medievalist author and translator. Some of her writings included Of Six Mediæval Women; To Which Is Added A Note on Mediæval Gardens, The Chatelaine of Vergi and The Book of the Duke of True Lovers.

36 Islands: In Search Of The Hidden Wonders Of The Lake District And A Few Other Things Too by Robert Twigger

Hardback: Robert Twigger, poet, artist and travel author, is a lover of uninhabited islands. A lifelong passion for the Lake District led him to embark on a mission to visit all 36 islands of the region – some little more than rocks, some home only to wildlife, some the perfect spot for a night of wild-camping. 

Armed only with an inflatable canoe, and inspired by Arthur Ransome, Wainwright, Wordsworth and other writers of the region, he journeys beyond the tourists and the busy roads, beneath the surface, to islands both real and remembered. 

Here the low tide of the unconscious reveals itself through the strange flotsam that it leaves on the shore – a new sense of discovery, about himself and the world we live in.

36 Islands: In Search Of The Hidden Wonders Of The Lake District And A Few Other Things Too (2022) is a journey across the Lake District to discover the secrets of its 36 islands

About the author: Robert Twigger has won the Newdigate Prize for poetry, the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award and the Somerset Maugham Award. His twelve books have been translated into over twenty languages and cover both fiction and non-fiction, memoir and travel. He spent a year training with the Tokyo riot police, crossed Canada in a homemade birchbark canoe and was the first person to traverse entirely on foot the Egyptian Great Sand Sea. His quarterly comic of memoir and travel, This Simple Life, is available at roberttwigger.com

The Smoke Of Satan: How Corrupt And Cowardly Bishops Betrayed Christ, His Church, And The Faithful...And What Can Be Done About It by Philip F Lawler

Paperback: The sex-abuse scandal, which has erupted anew in 2018, poses the greatest challenge that the Catholic Church has faced since the Reformation. In The Smoke of Satan (2018), veteran Catholic journalist Philip Lawler explains why the crisis is even more severe than when it first commanded headlines in 2002, and how the failure of Church leaders goes all the way to the Vatican.    

In this unflinching look at the crisis threatening the Church and her members, Lawler shows how the sex-abuse scandal is not a question of paedophilia, but of homosexual activity within the clergy. He explains how Catholic bishops have developed a habit of covering up serious problems, to avoid the serious divisions that have developed within the faith since Vatican II. He demonstrates a catastrophic rupture in Church unity, causing a breakdown in morale and discipline among priests, bishops, and laity, paving the way for the current crisis.

He also reveals the growth of a faction within the Vatican that is ready to make peace with secularism and details the charges in the explosive "Vigano testimony," and the efforts by Vatican officials including Pope Francis himself to ward off a thorough investigation. He then concludes with a program for reform, led by faithful lay Catholics, demanding a new policy of candour and a forthright proclamation of Church teaching.  

This crisis, brought about by the failures of corrupt and cowardly bishops and clerics, has been allowed to fester long enough. It is well past time for serious action to be taken at every level before more lives are ruined, more souls are lost, and more fractures divide the Church.   

In these pages, Lawler details the problems besetting the Church and lays out a clear plan to overcome them in order that the Church and Her members may once again thrive and bring souls to Christ.

About the author: Philip F Lawler, the editor of Catholic World News, is one of America's most incisive Catholic journalists and commentators. A graduate of Harvard College, he has been the editor of Crisis magazine, the Boston Pilot, and Catholic World Report. He is the author of Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston's Catholic Culture (2008), a penetrating analysis of the scandals that brought the Church to its knees in America, and co-author of A Call to Serve: Pope Francis and the Catholic Future (2013). The father of seven and grandfather of twelve, Lawler lives in central Massachusetts with his wife, Leila, a popular Catholic blogger. 

Happiness No 2223

Franz Kafka (1883-1924), Czech Novelist and Short-Story Writer

Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi: Selected Revelations (The Classics Of Western Spirituality)

Paperback: Maria Maddalena De'Pazzi: Selected Revelations (2000) is translated and introduced by Armando Maggi.

Saint Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi (1566-1606) was one of the most important mystics of the Renaissance. Her mystical works are a fascinating meditation on the nature and purpose of language.

Born in Florence in 1566, Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi joined the Carmelite convent Santa Maria degli Angeli in August 1582, when she was sixteen. She took the veil the following year and soon after, began having daily visions. During these raptures, she conversed with Christ, whom she generally refers to as the Word.

Maria Maddalena believed that the Word wanted her to summon his being through her voice. Her visions, therefore, have a distinctly oral character, and the convent sisters who transcribed them carefully attempted to reproduce the mystic's oral style.

Maria Maddalena's long monologues were, in fact, repeated attempts to embody the Word through oral language, and her daily raptures bore similarities to solo mystical plays, which focused on Christ's passion and death.

The manuscripts containing the mystic's visions were edited in seven volumes from 1960 to 1966. Available here for the first time in English are a selection of de' Pazzi's most powerful and disturbing visions.

About the translator: Armando Maggi PhD is Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and a member of the Committee on the History of Culture at the University of Chicago. A specialist of Renaissance culture, he has published several essays on female mysticism, Renaissance theories on visuality, Neoplatonic treatises on love, seventeenth-century books on demonology, and Portuguese literature. He is the author of several books, including Satan's Rhetoric, a Study of Renaissance Demonology and The Resurrection of the Body: Pier Paolo Pasolini from Sade to Saint Paul, both published by the University of Chicago Press.