Runes on the Cross is an introduction to church history in Great Britain. It does an excellent job of showing the competing images - the Anglo-Saxon view of "warrior-king", the Celtic "hermit-ascete" and the Roman "wealthy bishop" - and how these images interplayed within the church and in secular government.

The book is structured as a series of short entries on individuals, events or places rather than into a sustained narrative. This works well given the changing geographic boundaries and the vagarities of the political times. However, it left me wanting a genealogy for references as brothers, sisters, cousins, and entourages reappear in unexpected places.

This book contains only a few of the hagiographic miracle stories, but enough are provided to give a sense of the common beliefs of the time.

This book provides sufficient historical background to understand the development of the Catholic Church in England; enough for a non-historian, only a brief overview for the true historian.

The Sea, the Song, and the Trumpetfish is a very well written tale on angel-fantasies that most teens will enjoy. It is a comfort to read, although in some places fear does creep up the back of your neck and make the tiny hairs stand on their tiptoes. The story shows a dramatic change between a girl's home in the damp, cold Vancouver, and the warm, welcoming Maui, Hawaii. Basiclly, it is an enjoyable read for everyone.

This is the second of the Daughter of Tintagel series that I am reviewing. The last "telling" brought the reader to the episode where nine year old Morgan, Gorlais's daughter, has attempted to kill her infant brother, Arthur, and Uther, Arthur's father has imprisoned her in a nunnery on Tintagel island for life. This next installment is told in the voice of Luned, whom we first encounter as a young farm girl who thirsts for more than just the typical life of a country female. When she encounters a traveling Christian priest, she is tantilized by the life of learning she could have as a Christian nun, and dreaming of great libraries of books, she follows him to the convent on Tintagel island. The reader is intrigued by Luned's intrepid quest for learning, and we share her disappointment as her first assignment at the convent stronghold is the manual labor of feeding the convent farm animals . As in all such stories, her tenacity reaps its reward for eventually she rises in the convent hierarchy. We applaud her acumen for business and nod at her shrewdness as it shines most noticeably in her dealings with the convent's commercial traders. Happily we watch as the Mother Superior takes Luned under her wing and we become aware that most likely our intense narrator may very well be the convent leader's heir apparent.

However, this is a story with no happy ending. Rather, it is a morality tale where Luned's great ambition and pride are punished. When Morgan is installed at the convent and put in Luned's charge, we hold our breath each and every time Luned's feeble attempts at controlling the girl's actions and affections backfire. Little by little, we realize that it is Morgan who is supervising Luned and we watch in horror as what we know is about to happen, does indeed occur.

This second "Telling" is a masterpiece of understatement. Although the outcome, after all is said and done, is fairly predictable, as the story does unfold, its events do remain unexpected and maintain a freshness that was a joy to read. The reader cannot help but pity Luned as one would pity Oedipus and be more than afraid of Morgan and the power she will wield as an adult.

Reading Aucassin and Nicolette was amusing and enjoyable. The love story of Aucassin and Nicolette is entwined with battles, journeys, and rebellion. It is a light-hearted parody that inlcudes mocking the church, fighting wars with fruit and cheese, and a king in childbed. The issues of medieval times are demonstrated when Aucassin and Nicolette's love is challenged by social order, land, and isolation. Overall, every reader should find this story delightful in its simplicity.

As I began this book, I was drawn in by the powerful imagery that Green created. This didn't continue throughout the book. It became more of a "he said, then he said, then he said" narrative. The beautiful language that Greene uses vanishes as she gets more deeply into the story. I was intrigued by the politics involved. Not being very politically astute, I was amazed at how the sheriff controlled everything in that county. I was also captivated by the tale of civil rights struggles in backwoods Georgia. This was such an interesting book, but Greene's talent at using language seemed to be subverted by her need to tell the story. This was our book group's topic of discussion for this evening; it made for a lively talk. Next time I'm on my way thru Georgia, I DO intend to drive down 17 thru McIntosh County. I may not stop, though.

I grew up in Mcintosh County and was a teen during the years of Uncle Tom, he and his right hand man (deputy) may have done somethings above the law, but he watched out for us kids. We respected them and there is alot more to this story. I have good and bad memories of that time and would love to tell it to Melissa. Melissa there is alot more to tell, your book is great and there should be a movie made, but there also needs to be more of the story told.

Once I picked this book up, I could not put it down. The way Greene chose to set up this book and play out the story is excellent. She laid out the characters and the scene in such a way to allow the reader to draw their own conclusions to the facts, giving equal voice to all parties. Though the heroes and villians are obvious, she doesn't portray them in a straight forward way. It opens with a complete and thorough description of everything surrounding the actual story, which gives the reader the feeling that they are there - a part of it - before all is said and done. The research she did on the subject to offer a tale told with all sides is commendable. Equally Fascinating and Intriguing!!

Fay Weldon's been funny before; let us hope she will again, 'cause she sure struck out this time. This thing is so utterly meanspirited that it had me wanting to kick men and smack women. Had I not been trapped on a cross-country flight with nothing else to read, I wouldn't have endured it. As it was, I wished I was able to open the window; I would have chucked it.

She's done it again. In her succinct, dry way, Fay Weldon has succeeded in capturing the hopes, dreams, crushing defeats, and stunning recoveries that mark, bruise, and reshape the women of today. Her "Big Girls" are really a small group, every member flawed of course. She shows them tripping falling, fighting, succeeding. The problem is simple. These women decided it was easier to change the world than to change themselves. Of course, they do change, and the world is all the better for them having done so. Weldon's characters give us all a short, succinct course in feminist history, as they rise from humble beginnings (naked dancing in a living room for all to see) to forces to be reckoned with in publishing circles. They change the world. They change themselves. They change the reader. Weldon's wit is superb. She can say more in a few simple sentences than many writers can in several paragraphs (myself included).

You would think that after having written so many novels, and all about the same subject -- love and it's many complexities -- that Weldon would slip into formula writing. And I am still waiting for this to happen. A Weldon fan for more than 10 years, I have yet to be disappointed. How many times can one person write about lovers who cheat on each other (I haven't read a single Weldon novel that didn't involve multiple shades of adultery) and still keep it fresh? Obviously many. I've always considered Weldon more of a "womanist" than a feminist, and she uses this opportunity to trash the feminist movement of the 70s. Her satire is deliciously biting as she examines everyone's disparate perspectives. You don't know whom to sympathize with on what page because you can be sure that whomever you respected at the opening of the novel you will surely despise somewhere along the way, and vice versa. I eagerly await each new Weldon novel knowing that I am in for a wild ride. I had the opportunity to hear her read many years ago from her (then) new novel Darcy's Utopia and have never read her novels the same way since. She's like a cross between Mother Goose and Lizzie Borden. I would highly recommend this novel (or any other Weldon novel) to anyone who enjoys to laugh out loud, both at the characters and at him/herself. And there is just no way to be offended because she offends everyone at some point. On a down side I will say that her ending was a bit predictable, which is surprising for an author who usually can turn the formulaics of life into something spontaneous and exciting to witness.

In grade 12 English, we had to pretend to be a person and talk about our life. I picked up this book, and started looking through it, read the first page and was very impressed. Nobody has ever heard of Faye Schulmann, so, I figured it would be a nice idea. Everybody kind of looked at me funny when they asked me whom I chose, and chuckled a bit. I have always been interested in this topic, especially being from Germany. People my age just don't have a clue about what went on over there, and that is a shame. I thought this book brought part of the war to life anyway. Everybody was sceptical about my speech at first, kind of got a giggle out of it, but by the time that I was finished, half of my class was in tears, and were very moved by that story. Books such as this one is a great educational book. It was sad to see, that people actually had to live through this just because of their religion.Maybe it will make somebody think twice about judging someone by their skin colour or their religion.

In one scene in the book, Faye described an attack by a German helicopter on their group of partisans. Two of the reviews said that the book is historically inaccurate as they claim that the Germans did not have helicopters in use in WWII. This is false information. The Germans did use a helicopter in WWII called the Flettner FL-282 Kolibri. Initially it was used by the German navy for reconnaissance purposes for convoy protection and submarine warfare. However, later in the war, it was used in land warfare by artillery brigades to direct artillery fire. It is entirely possible that Faye and the partisans had an encounter with the helicopter in this context. And even though the helicopter did not have its own weapons, it's not difficult for a soldier to stick a machine gun out of the window and fire away at targets on the ground. This book is accurate, and the details of Faye's exploits, and her courage, will serve as an inspiration for generations.

I cried at least once every other chapter...I would like to applaud Faye for having the courage to write about such painful memories!!! It is hard for me to even imagine what life must have been like in Europe during WWII...especially for the Jews!! Faye does an outstanding job of pulling the reader into her world, and it is impossible not to feel her pain and terror. And she does so with such little bitterness or self-pity!! If you love memoirs, you must read this one!!! Excellent!!!

I have two fundamental problems with Fay's book, both of which really prevent me for giving it a solid endorsement, much less considering it a benchmark in biography.

First, Fay has taken the position that all of her sources must be written (and generally published). This not necessarily a safe thing to do in a society with a free and open press, and becomes very problematic for a prominent Soviet citizen. Were articles published in Soviet books, journals, and newspapers true and accurate? Were they free of political influence? Can anyone verify the authorship of any of these? Even with the extensive endnotes offering references with publication sources and dates, it's hard to consider her work to be any more valid than, say, Solomon Volkov's "Testimony", which Fay hates so much that she cannot be objective about it.

I draw here on the statistical definitions for reliability and validity, in which "reliable" merely means that a result can be reproduced reliably, while "valid" implies that a result accurately represents what it claims to represent. This seems to be a useful distinction, and I will hedge, and grant Fay's book reliability, but not validity.

What she leaves out is equally troubling. There are many people still alive who knew Shostakovich. How many of them did Fay talk to? How many of them did she quote? Virtually none. Are such sources really any less valid than, say, an article in Pravda? In each case, one should note the source. If there are contradictory statements, one should note the contradictions. If sources may be less than credible, one should say why. Fay's biography is noticeably lacking in contradictions, which is remarkable in a biography of a man who himself seems to have been full of contradictions, and who lived in a society that was full of contradictions.

I wouldn't have such a problem with all of this if Fay had taken the position that "these are what the published sources say" rather than "this is Shostakovich". As long as a reader understands the difference, then yes, Fay's biography is an invaluable source. I do wish that Fay had drawn this distinction.

Finally, along these same lines, I have to question Fay's position of objectivity. Selection and omission of sources are always a source of bias. And there are times, particularly in relation to the Jewish issues of 1948 (the existence of the "doctor's plot" and the question about how much Shostakovich really knew about the risks of using Jewish subject matter in writing his music), where Fay takes a strong stand that is not supported in her sources, and which does not hold up in light of Shostakovich's previous use of Jewish themes or his previous connections to the Russian Jewish community. While Fay paints an unflattering picture of Shostakovich, the person she really defames is herself.

My second concern, much of which flows out of the first, is that this is a bloodless biography. I finished the book with a sense of the history, or at least one version of it, but in no way did I ever feel in Fay's book any presence of Shostakovich himself. There are glimpses, such as the quote by Shostakovich about party criticism of the eighth symphony (which he looked forward to as "one step forward, rather than one step back"), but the irony of this statement came across more because I knew of Shostakovich from other sources (writing, and of course the music), rather than from Fay herself. If I knew nothing of Shostakovich, would I have noticed this? It's hard to get a feeling whether Fay even likes or respects Shostakovich, either as a man or as a composer. There is no life in "Shostakovich: A Life". There is no music in "Shostakovich: A Life". Without these things, what is the point?

Good biography does not have to be this way. As an example of what *can* be accomplished, I highly recommend "Patton: A Genius for War" by Carlo d'Este. D'Este accomplishes what Fay fails to do, which is to capture the full humanity of a brilliant, complex, difficult, enigmatic, and controversial public figure. If there is a standard for judging biographies, it starts with this book; one comes away knowing what formed and motivated Patton, and more importantly, one learns to see both the private and the public man in everything he did and said. D'Este combines Fay's level of documentation with Elizabeth Wilson's level of personal insight in "Shostakovich: A Life Remembered", and it is a remarkable achievement. For anyone looking for a single volume on the life of Shostakovich, Elizabeth Wilson's book is the one to get.

In fairness, I don't think we'll ever see such a biography of Shostakovich, because the documentary record is much, much weaker, and because Shostakovich was so closed about himself. But I do wish that Fay had at least tried to capture "A Life". As it stands, Fay is only one of several "required readings", and I wouldn't put her at the top of the list unless one has need of her endnotes.

Having recently discovered Shostakovich, I quickly ran into the controversy regarding the official versus private accounts. Fay includes the official denunciations by the Stalinist regime, most infamously in 1936 and 1948, and so clearly moves beyond the "loyal son of the Communist Party" propaganda line, but rejects as unreliable much of the recent testimony of those who knew Shostakovich, including the memoirs called "Testimony." Personally, I am convinced by the mass of testimony that Shostakovich was indeed a passionate dissident, and that his music expressed that "to those with ears to hear," in the words he often used.

Take this volume for what it's worth. For now it is the standard biography, and has no competition in that regard. It tells the whole story, but leaves us feeling that we are missing the true inner story. For that story, other sources are clearly invaluable -- the book of reminiscences compiled by Elizabeth Wilson ("Shostakovich: A Life Remembered"), Solomon Volkov's "Testimony," and "Shostakovich Reconsidered," which contains much valuable commentary beyond simply defending Volkov's book.

I am listening to Rostropovich conducting Shostakovich's Fifth as I write, and nothing seems more absurd than the notion that the composer was a party apparatchik. Shostakovich's music expresses deep sorrow and suffering, and his defiant humanism. The music speaks for itself, but I am confident that Fay's biography will be surpassed by accounts that more fully convey the spiritual significance of Shostakovich's life and music.

This biography definitely adds to what we know about Shostakovich, but is somewhat academic.

Historical accuracy is the goal at every point, and there is much clearing up of obvious falsehoods from other quarters. Not too much light shed on anything one couldn't already glean from other sources, except for precise dating, and cross-referencing of sources, which is of interest only to musicologists, and not the general public.

A good book and a must-read for any Shostakovich aficionado, but not as good a read as Elizabeth Wilson.

Fay. A beautiful girl. A dumb girl. A hick girl. Described as innocent as a new born. I don't know about that. The folks she runs into or the losers and dregs of society. You want them all to die, and that's a good thing, because a lot of them do. Fay can't find a decent situation. Poor pregnant Fay. She smokes and drinks while pregnant. She gets taken advantage of. Given all of the above, why three stars? The reason is that Mr. Brown writes in the voice and limits of each of his characters. A lesser writer would really fail at that given the character's flaws and dimensions. I enjoyed reading it and the best parts are when Fay gets tough. The rest of the women in this book are people that will really tick off women: Strippers, Porn stars, Play things, Neglecting mothers. I really wanted this book to be a five star classic, because I think Larry Brown's books are remarkable. Fay still is a remarkable book, but only for hard core fans of the author.

Fay walks a lot. That's what Fay does. She walks and lights cigarettes. Fay drinks beer and tosses empty cans. And then she walks some more. On a road. And this is how Larry Brown writes about Fay. Walking. On a road. Walking. A lot. Despite this overwrought attempt at Hemingway simplicity, Fay is still an exceptional novel. The style is forgotten quickly as the plot unravels in seedy, rural Mississippi. Larry Brown's book is a quick read that sways from one side of a country road to the other - blindly speeding and turning when least expected. It's an engaging story of starting over, coming of age and sexual discovery. Fay Jones is a determined, endearing girl who wants a better life. She walks away from paternal abuse and searches for anything better. She is a backwoods teenager unaware of her feminine beauty, and she discovers her sexual appeal the hard way. It's a country mouse goes to the city and finds Larry Flynt kind of tale - a classic bildungsroman with a touch of Penthouse Forum. Using language and landscape, Larry Brown effectively paints the South in which Fay travels. His characters are well developed, and their rural southern dialect is natural and unstrained. Brown doesn't exaggerate southern conversation - a hurdle many authors can't clear. His southern scenery is also accurate, with its kudzu jungles, high humidity and shrimp trawlers. The song of salt air blowing through sailboat rigging accompanies seabirds' cries and early-morning dock sounds. It's Shem Creek in Biloxi. All you need is boiled peanuts. If anything in Fay is contrived, however, it's the non-stop coffee, beer and cigarettes - there's always one or the other in everyone's hand. Nearly every page has a pot brewing, a beer opening or cigarettes burning. It's a relief when the hash pipes appear, just for a change of pace.

Fay is a mixture of Deliverance, On the Road and Rabbit, Run - a backwoods journey of an everyman heroine, who endures rape, murder and lost love. A story filled with substance abuse and altered states, Fay captures southern society's underbelly in a provocative and heartfelt way. Trailers, bars and old houses fill Larry Brown's Mississippi, which overflows with cops, strippers and criminals. Overall, Fay is a straightforward, compelling book. Subplots are sparse, but the central story is engaging entertainment. It has appealing characters and a rapid rhythm. Fay Jones is a character to root for, and Fay is a novel worth reading. What else would you expect from a Chapel Hill publishing company founded by a Charleston native? For further information, visit www.algonquin.com and for more of the Jones clan, read Larry Brown's prequel, Joe.

This is a compelling story about a young innocent finding her way through Mississippi circa 1985, before the casinos took over the Gulf Coast. With Fay, Brown has created an engaging heroine who is thoroughly believable. Her journey from backwoods shacks to strip joints, from paternal abuse to true love, pregnancy and tragic loss is moving, often hilarious and unforgettable. Male authors rarely create believable female characters, which is not the case with Fay. The supporting characters are deftly drawn and include a kindly couple (a highway patrolman and his alcoholic wife) who offer Fay shelter, a sexy but dangerous strip club bouncer who falls hard for Fay and his slimy, womanizing half-brother. Despite her tender age (17) and fifth grade education, Fay has an amazing instinct for survival which helps her escape several perilous situations. This book was so incredible that I gobbled it down in two days. "Fay" is a thrilling page-turner that is also a beautifully written, poignant tale. It was my first introduction to Larry Brown and I'm so grateful that I found it. I strongly recommend this book to readers who appreciate fine writing as well as those seeking a great original story. If readers like this book, they should also check out two other fine books by Brown: "Big Bad Love," a tremendous collection of short stories, and "Father and Son," another novel.