Wednesday, 31 January 2024
Tuesday, 30 January 2024
Meditations And Devotions by Cardinal John Henry Newman
About the book: To pray is to be a Christian, to be a Saint is to have prayed often. John Henry Cardinal Newman was a man of prayer and this book contains the culmination of his prayers and devotions, divided into three sections.
The first and second parts contain the vocal prayers he wrote for public use, the litanies - the Stations of the Cross and short meditations. The long meditations in the third part of the book are intended for private use, which draw one into a deeper sense of intimacy with our Lord.
The prayers are also a testament to his particular devotion to Our Lady with moving commentaries on her several titles from the Litany of Loreto. These are tender and profound, yet without any trace of sentimentality.
Newman's meditations are full of doctrine. Doctrine is the expression of Truth, and above all things, Newman longed to bear witness to the Truth. It is from the Scriptures, the Church Fathers and the living Church that Newman drew his doctrine, and in his meditations he made it his own.
In this work (Baronius Press Limited, 2010), Newman's heart speaks to our hearts.
About the author: John Henry Newman CO (1801-1890) was an English theologian, academic, philosopher, historian, writer, and poet, first as an Anglican priest and later as a Catholic priest and cardinal. He became an important and controversial figure in the Oxford Movement, an influential and controversial grouping of Anglicans who wished to restore to the Church of England many Catholic beliefs and liturgical rituals from before the English Reformation. He was known nationally by the mid-1830s and was canonised as a saint in the Catholic Church in 2019.
Newman was also a literary figure: his major writings include Tracts for the Times (1833–1841), his autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1865–1866), Grammar of Assent (1870), and the poem The Dream of Gerontius (1865), which was set to music in 1900 by Edward Elgar. He wrote the popular hymns "Lead, Kindly Light", "Firmly I believe, and truly", and "Praise to the Holiest in the Height" (the latter two taken from Gerontius).
Newman is the fifth saint of the City of London, after Thomas Becket (born in Cheapside), Thomas More (born on Milk Street), Edmund Campion (son of a London bookseller) and Polydore Plasden (of Fleet Street). (Source: Wikipedia)
Queen K by Sarah Thomas
About the book: 'She thirsted for everything but the clear stream of her own life, flowing hidden in the grass.' - Honoré de Balzac, Lost Illusions
On a balmy evening in late March, an oligarch's wife hosts a party on a superyacht moored in the Maldives. Tables cover the massive deck, adorned with orchids, champagne bottles, name cards of celebrities. This is what Kata has wanted for a long time: acceptance into the glittering world of high society.
But there are those who aim to come between Kata and her goal, and they are closer to home than she could have imagined.
Witness to the corruption and violence underneath the shiny surfaces is Mel, a young English woman employed to tutor Kata's precocious daughter, Alex, and navigate her through the class codes of English privilege. Now the closest Mel gets to such privilege is as hired help to the wealthy, and she is deeply resentful.
Exquisitely written and deliciously unreliable, Queen K (2023) takes the reader to some of the most luxurious places in the world, from the slopes of Courchevel, the terraces of Monaco and the deck of a superyacht in the Indian Ocean. Perpetually overlooked by their masters, Mel and Alex will find their invisibility offers them the opportunity to wield a destructive power of their own. A dark refrain sounds from the very beginning of the story and grows towards its operatic finale: a novel about insatiable material desire can only ever be a tragedy.
About the author: Sarah Thomas was born in Scotland, grew up in Kenya, and lives in London. She spent years travelling the world working as a tutor to the super-rich, and has written and performed for TANK, Art Review, EPOCH, Loewe and others. Queen K is her first novel.
Rating: 3/5
Sunday, 28 January 2024
Thursday, 25 January 2024
Cell 22 by Monica Smit
About the book: Founder of 'Reignite Democracy Australia', Monica Smit, became a well-known activist during the COVID era. She spoke out against the government’s handling of the pandemic and her political stance and human rights advocacy saw her arrested and imprisoned in solitary confinement for 22 days.
But Monica was not always a strong, outspoken activist. In fact, it was only through a long journey of shameful mistakes and personal suffering that she became a woman of conviction, and a person who dared stand up and fight for justice.
Monica’s tell-all expose is a real, raw, and courageous account of how a former party girl became a political prisoner during the world’s longest and harshest lockdowns and what she learnt about life and humanity along the way.
You won’t find Cell 22 on Amazon or elsewhere. The only shipping point is from Australia specifically from Monica Smit's website. Monica ships her book worldwide but bear in mind overseas shipping can be expensive. Every book is printed and packed with love by people Monica knows personally. When you buy a book, you are supporting families, not corporations.
About the author: Monica Smit has been on the front line of Australia’s freedom movement since August 2020 when she founded ‘Reignite Democracy Australia’. She hit the international stage after spending 22 days in prison for refusing to sign draconian bail conditions after being charged with incitement. Her ‘crime’ was publishing an anti-lockdown protest poster on social media. Yes, you read that correctly. She recently self-published her book, Cell 22 and toured Europe for five months, meeting with as many freedom lovers, groups, and organizations as possible. She is currently touring Australia and at the same time, running global campaigns and projects. She has a large database and can be contacted to plan an event, a meeting or interview at contact@monicasmit.com
Wednesday, 24 January 2024
Monday, 22 January 2024
Leaving by Roxana Robinson
About the book: 'What does love demand of us, and who must pay the price?’
High school sweethearts, Sarah and Warren, have grand plans for an adventurous future together, but when a misunderstanding causes them to part ways, they end up marrying other people.
When they meet again at sixty, their lives have been carved into very different shapes. Sarah lives outside New York; Warren lives in Boston. Sarah is divorced, Warren still married, and both have grown up children.
When they reconnect, they feel the rekindled spark of love and desire – a spark that has been dead for so long.
But are they willing to risk destroying all that they have built separately for the chance of a future together?
Leaving (2024) charts a passage through loyalty and desire as it builds to a shattering conclusion. In her boldest and most powerful work to date, Roxana Robinson demonstrates her “trademark gifts as an intelligent, sensitive analyst of family life” (Wendy Smith, Chicago Tribune) in an engrossing exploration of the vows we make to one another, the tensile relationships between parents and their children, and what we owe to others and ourselves.
About the author: Roxana Robinson is the award-winning author of seven novels, three collections of short stories and a biography of Georgia O'Keeffe. Her books have been chosen as New York Times Notable Books and as New York Times Editors' Choices. Her books have been published in England, France, Germany, Holland and Spain. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of many awards, including the Barnes & Noble "Writers for Writers" Award.
Roxana Robinson has received fellowships from the National Education Association, the MacDowell Colony, and the Guggenheim Foundation and she was named a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library. Robinson has served on the Boards of PEN and the Authors Guild, and was the president of the Authors Guild from 2013 to 2017. She teaches in the MFA Program at Hunter College. She lives in New York City and Connecticut and spends as much time as she can in Maine.
Rating: 3/5
Saturday, 20 January 2024
The Second Coming Of Christ (Translated): A Fourth-Century Lecture by St Cyril of Jerusalem
About the e-book: In the middle of the fourth century, a young priest, Cyril (315–86), was ordained bishop of Jerusalem, a see first led by St James, a kinsman of the Lord Jesus.
St Cyril is most famous for his twenty-three catechetical lectures, the first eighteen of which were delivered to prospective converts during Lent. St Cyril’s fifteenth lecture, printed here (2014), is devoted to the Lord Jesus’ second coming.
This new work is a substantial revision of the translation found in the elegant but somewhat archaic Library of the Fathers edition (1839), a text in the public domain but not as widely available online as the translation found in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers edition (1893).
Numerous editorial revisions have been made in order to foster ease of understanding, and over one hundred biblical citations have been added to the body of the text.
The Latin word for teacher is doctor, and Pope Leo XIII declared St Cyril a Doctor of the Church on 28 July 1882, with the publication of a Mass and Office in the saint's honour. Let us join the catechumens of that Lent of nearly seventeen centuries ago, and sit beside them in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, and listen to St Cyril’s teaching on Christ’s second coming.
Friday, 19 January 2024
I Got A Name: The Murder Of Krystal Senyk by Eliza Robertson with Myles Dolphin
About the book: I Got A Name (2023) was an instant national bestseller.
How can a dead woman speak?
Why does she have to be dead in order to be able to speak?
And what is speech in a book of murder? - Mieke Bal
I Got A Name tells a vivid and meticulous true-crime story that exposes the deep fractures in a system that repeatedly fails to protect women, while tracking the once-cold trail of a murderer still at large.
Krystal Senyk was the kind of friend everybody wants: a reliable confidant, a handywoman of all trades, and an infectious creative with an adventurous spirit. Most importantly, she was tough as nails. So when her best friend needed support to leave her abusive husband, Ronald Bax, Krystal leapt into action.
But soon Krystal became the new outlet for Bax’s rage. He terrorized and intimidated her for months on end, and finally issued a chilling warning to her and his ex-wife: the hunt is on. Krystal was scared but she was smart: she reached out to the RCMP for a police escort home. The officer brushed her off.
Bax’s threat had been all too real. At 29 years old, the woman who seemed invincible - who was a beloved sister, daughter, and friend - was shot and killed at her home in the Yukon.
Ronald Bax disappeared without a trace.
Three decades later, Eliza Robertson has re-opened the case. In compelling, vibrant prose, she works tirelessly to piece together Krystal’s story, retracing the dire failings of Canadian law enforcement and Bax’s last steps.
I Got a Name uses one woman’s tragic story to boldly interrogate themes of gender-based violence and the pervasive issues that plague our society.
In this riveting true-crime story about victimhood, power, and control, Robertson examines the broken system in place, and asks: if it isn’t looking out for the vulnerable, the threatened, the hunted - who among us is it protecting?
About the authors: Eliza Robertson attended the University of Victoria and the University of East Anglia, where she received the 2011 Man Booker Scholarship. In 2013, she won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and was a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize and Journey Prize. Her novel, Demi-Gods, won the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. Her first story collection, Wallflowers, was shortlisted for the East Anglia Book Award and selected as a New York Times Editor’s Choice. In 2015, she was named one of five emerging writers for the Writers’ Trust Five x Five program. She lives in Montreal.
Myles Dolphin is a communications specialist and a former journalist in all three Canadian territories. Newspapers he has worked for include the Hay River Hub, Nunavut News and Yukon News. He currently lives in Victoria, BC with his wife Aimee and Pomeranian Bobbi. I Got a Name is his first book collaboration.
Tuesday, 16 January 2024
The Devil's Harvest by Jessica Garrison
About the book: This suspenseful true story - The Devil's Harvest: A Ruthless Killer, A Terrorized Community, and the Search for Justice in California's Central Valley (2021) - of a drug cartel hitman who got away with murder after murder in California's Central Valley over three decades reveals how the criminal justice system fails our most vulnerable immigrant communities.
On the surface, fifty-eight-year-old José Manuel Martínez did not seem evil or even that remarkable - just a regular neighbour, good with cars and devoted to his family.
But in between taking his children to Disneyland and visiting his mom, Martínez was also one of the most skilled professional killers police had ever seen.
He tracked one victim to one of the wealthiest corners of America, a horse ranch in Santa Barbara, and shot him dead in the morning sunlight, setting off a decades-long manhunt. He shot another man, a farmworker, right in front of his young wife as they drove to work in the fields. The widow would wait decades for justice. Those were murders for hire. Others he killed for vengeance.
How did Martínez manage to evade law enforcement for so long with little more than a slap on the wrist?
Because he understood a dark truth about the criminal justice system: if you kill the "right people"- people who are poor, who are not white, and who do not have anyone to speak up for them - you can get away with it.
Melding the pacing and suspense of a true crime thriller with the rigour of top-notch investigative journalism, The Devil's Harvest follows award-winning reporter Jessica Garrison's relentless search for the truth as she traces the life of this assassin, the cops who were always a few steps behind him, and the families of his many victims. Drawing upon decades of case files, interrogation transcripts, on-the-ground reporting, and Martínez's chilling handwritten journals, The Devil's Harvest uses a gripping and often shocking narrative to dig into one of the most important moral questions haunting our politically divided nation today: Why do some deaths - and some lives - matter more than others?
Martínez confessed to an estimated 36 murders and was sentenced to multiple life terms in prison without the possibility of parole.
"Meticulously researched and tightly woven, The Devil's Harvest is an important story because it tells us that if [this] can happen in one place, then it can happen in any place. And that's damn scary." - Michael Connelly, New York Times bestselling author of The Closers, The Lincoln Lawyer, and The Night Fire
About the author: Jessica Garrison is an investigations editor for BuzzFeed News and spent more than a decade as a reporter at the Los Angeles Times. She has previously covered Los Angeles City Hall, courts, education and the environment. As a reporter, her work has won a National Magazine Award for Public Service, among other honours. Work she has edited has won a George Polk Award and was a finalist for a Goldsmith Prize. Her book, The Devil’s Harvest, told the story of a contract killer who stalked Central Valley farm towns for years while authorities failed to bring him to justice. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley.
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