Languages

Pope Saint Sylvester I (285-335)

New Year’s Eve 2023

Shortest Complete Sentence

Language Of The Air

Toughest Tongue Twister

Midnight Vigil

Merry Christmas 2023

The Bridesman by Savyon Liebrecht

About the book: From one of the most important voices in contemporary Hebrew literature, The Bridesman (2023) is the gripping story of a reunion between two family members that brings back a long-forgotten past and reveals secrets that will change their lives forever.

Micha, an Israeli expat in Los Angeles working as a ghostwriter, receives an unexpected invitation. Adella, married to his beloved uncle, has bought him a ticket to Israel and booked a boutique hotel, so that he can return home and meet with her.

Years before, Micha was the bridesman at Adella’s wedding. He remembers her as a rebellious young woman, and orphan and an outsider, who was mocked by his close-knit family of Persian Jews. Micha is stunned by the Adella of today–poised, confident, with nothing of the uneasy woman he remembers from the past. When finally Adella reveals the true story of her life, powerful memories resurface in Micha, although nothing can prepare him for the surprise she has in store for him.

The Bridesman presents a beguiling cast of characters, whose stories are interwoven into a gripping and moving tale about family, place, and the unceasing power of the past to reshape our lives and identity.

The Bridesman is translated from the Hebrew from the original HaShoshbin by Gilah Kahn-Hoffman.

About the author: Savyon Liebrecht was born in Munich in 1948, to Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Israel soon afterwards. She studied philosophy and literature at Tel Aviv University and began her writing career in 1986. She has received several awards for her work, including the Alterman Prize and the Amelia Rosselli Prize, and has been named Israel’s Playwright of the Year twice. Her books have been translated into nine languages. She lives in Tel Aviv.

About the translator: Gilah Kahn-Hoffmann moved from Montreal to Jerusalem after studying theater, literature, and communications at McGill University. Starting out as a freelance journalist, translator, writer, and editor, she became a feature writer at the Jerusalem Post and, subsequently, editor of the paper's youth magazines. After working for NGOs in East Jerusalem and the developing world, she has recently returned to literary translation. She lives in Jerusalem.

Rating: 5/5

The Church And Her Enemies by Father Michael Müller CSsR

About the book: The Church and Her Enemies is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of the original edition of 1880.

The story is told of a Western-bound train, flying along with lightning speed: the time was shortly after sunset. Suddenly, a crash was heard. The train stopped. "What is the matter?" the passengers asked one another.

A huge owl, dazzled by the glare, had struck against the reflector in front of the engine, shivered the glass, and tried to extinguish the light, and a great bull had set its head against the engine, to stop the train.

The lamp was rekindled, the engine sped on, but the stupid owl and the obstinate bull were cast aside, dead, and left to rot, and be devoured by wild beasts.  An Irishman, on seeing them, exclaimed: "I admire your courage, but condemn your judgment."

This train may be likened to the holy Catholic Church, speeding on, on her heaven-sent mission, to lead men to heaven by the light of her holy doctrine. The foolish owl, the enemy of light and the friend of darkness, represents Lucifer, who, as the foe of God, and of the light of God's holy religion, has always been endeavouring to extinguish the light of the true religion.

 

The bull represents the kings and emperors, the heretics and members of secret societies, whom Lucifer uses to stop, if possible, the progress of the Catholic Church, the bearer of the light of faith. Although it is hard, in a certain sense, not to admire the courage of Lucifer's agents, yet we cannot but condemn their judgment, their folly and wickedness, in opposing the work of God, and bringing down upon themselves the everlasting curse of the Almighty. 

About the author: Fr Michael Müller (1825-1899) CSsR was a prolific Catholic writer of the 19th century in the United States.

Sitting In Her Little Room

The Armour Of Light (The Kingsbridge Novel Series) by Ken Follett

About the book: The grand master of gripping fiction is back. International No 1 bestseller Ken Follett returns to Kingsbridge with an epic tale of revolution and a cast of unforgettable characters.

Revolution is in the air

1792. A tyrannical government is determined to make England a mighty commercial empire. In France, Napoleon Bonaparte begins his rise to power, and with dissent rife, France’s neighbours are on high alert.

Kingsbridge is on the edge

Unprecedented industrial change sweeps the land, making the lives of the workers in Kingbridge’s prosperous cloth mills a misery. Rampant modernization and dangerous new machinery are rendering jobs obsolete and tearing families apart.

Tyranny is on the horizon

Now, as international conflict nears, a story of a small group of Kingsbridge people – including spinner Sal Clitheroe, weaver David Shoveller and Kit, Sal’s inventive and headstrong son – will come to define the struggle of a generation as they seek enlightenment and fight for a future free from oppression.

Taking the reader straight into the heart of history with the fifth novel in the ground-breaking Kingsbridge series, The Armour of Light (2023) is master storyteller Ken Follett’s most ambitious novel to date.

About the author: Ken Follett was born in Cardiff, Wales. Barred from watching films and television by his parents, he developed an early interest in reading thanks to a local library. After studying philosophy at University College London, he became involved in centre-left politics, entering into journalism soon after. His first thriller, the wartime spy drama Eye of the Needle, became an international bestseller and has sold over 10 million copies. He then astonished everyone with his first historical novel, The Pillars of the Earth, the story of the building of a medieval cathedral, which went on to become one of the most beloved books of the twentieth century. One of the most popular authors in the world, his many books including the Kingsbridge series and the Century trilogy - a body of work which together chronicles over a thousand years of history - and his latest novel Never - which envisages how World War III could happen - have sold more than 188 million copies. A father and husband, Ken lives with his wife in England and enjoys travelling the world when he can.

Rating: 5/5

The Duchess of Kent: The Troubled Life of Katharine Worsley by Mary Riddell

About the book: The Duchess of Kent, tireless and genuinely compassionate, is perhaps best known for her presence at Wimbledon, her work for UNICEF and other charities and as a devoted mother.

But there has also been a darker side to Katharine Worsley's royal existence. Despite her anxieties about the wisdom of her marriage to the Duke of Kent in 1961, she struggled to come to terms with royal duty and endured the shadow of her formidable mother-in-law, Princess Marina. Then personal tragedies - chiefly a termination and the stillbirth of her last child - led to a nervous breakdown and a chronicle of ill-health.

She continued to carry out royal duties, some of which she relished, such as her appearances at Wimbledon. Finally, it was announced she was suffering from ME. At around the same time, she was received into the Roman Catholic Church. Underlying her search for physical and spiritual healing were other undisclosed problems.

Mary Riddell's much-discussed, analytical and immaculately researched book also examines the destructive impact of the Royal Family, and its courtiers, on outsiders drawn into the inner circle. 

In this account of the Duchess' search for a means of survival, Mary Riddell has accomplished the definitive biography of one of the most liked and well-respected members of the Royal Family.

The Duchess of Kent (1999) is Mary Riddell's first book.

About the author: Mary Riddell is a journalist and writer. She was a columnist for the Observer (2001-2008). After reading modern languages at Nottingham University, she began her journalistic career on regional papers. She is a former deputy editor of Today, and her writing awards include Interviewer of the Year in the British Press Awards for a portfolio of political profiles. She interviewed for The Times, the Guardian and YOU magazine before becoming a weekly columnist and later an interviewer for the New Statesman and the Daily Mail. Mary Riddell is a member of the advisory board of Out of Trouble, which is affiliated with the Prison Reform Trust. Riddell is married to John Shute, an oilfield exploration manager. They have two sons and live in London.

Hold Your Breath, China (An Inspector Chen Mystery Series) by Qiu Xiaolong

About the book: Inspector Chen is on the case of a serial murderer when he is called away to report on environmentalists trying to tackle the pollution issues in China.

Chief Inspector Chen and Detective Yu Guangming are brought into a serial murder case when the Homicide squad proves incapable of solving it. But before Chen can make a start, he is called away by a high-ranking Party member for a special assignment: to infiltrate a group of environmental activists meeting to discuss the pollution levels in the country and how to prompt the government into action.

Chen knows it will be a far from simple task, especially when he discovers the leader of the group is a woman from his past. Meanwhile, Yu is left to investigate a serial murder case on his own.

Both Chen and Yu face pressure from those above to resolve the cases in a satisfactory way even if that means innocents face the punishment.

Hold Your Breath, China (2020) is the tenth instalment in the well-crafted Inspector Chen Mystery series set in modern Shanghai, China.

About the author: Anthony Award winning author Qiu Xiaolong was born in Shanghai and moved to Washington University in St Louis, US, to complete a PhD degree in comparative literature. After the Tiananmen tragedy in 1989, he stayed on in St Louis where he still lives with his wife. Qiu’s sold over two million copies of his Inspector Chen mysteries worldwide and been published in twenty languages. On top of his fiction, he is a prize-winning writer of poetry. All the titles in the Inspector Chen series, including Hold Your Breath, China, have been dramatized in BBC Radio 4 productions.

Rating: 5/5