My title refers to the way I see this biography; it's as close as you're going to get to a real picture of the man, especially seeing as he's no longer with us. I read this book some 8-10 years ago and have read it at least twice. What I liked,in particular, about this book is the fact that it is made up of, in no small measure, actual extracts from his own memoirs, as well as interviews with those closest to him throughout his life. A picture is painted of a very intense man, of painful and frustrating complexities, a man forever pursued by very real and personal demons. The latter, the "demons", is something which, I feel, is an inextricably inherent component of many of us, if we are truthful. Reading the book, it is easy to feel quite uncomfortable, in an intriguing way, about the fact that here is a man who, perhaps, is not ALL that different to ourselves, in as far as our own insecurities, fears and personal nightmares are concerned. This book is an absolutely fascinating, gritty insight to an angry, tough, yet vulnerable genius of a man of deeply human qualities, with which many of us can identify, at least in some aspects. A chunk of a book but very easily read; lock yourself away with this one, as you definitely won't want to be disturbed, once you're under way!

And there I was thinking Mr Bragg was just the fella off the South Bank Show. This book provided a suberb insight into the man that was Richard Burton; his childhood in Wales leading to his lifelong motivations and passions are covered with great detail and insight. The pieces from Burtons own journals are skillfully edited and included to give extra interest and weight to the piece, they also show that Burton's own misgivings about writing are unsubstanciated.
Every one of the five hundred odd pages keeps you hooked. Get it, read it, it's definitely worth every penny.

I loved the book: it reads like a novel and one has to remind oneself that it is a true story. It quotes extensively from Burton's notebooks and often he seems to be a better writer than Bragg. Burton emerges as a gifted, intelligent and sensitive person torn by inner conflicts - the side of him few people knew. At the same time the book has all: the glamour, the scandals, the love story etc. After reading it I rushed to buy all Burton's videos available here.

This book is a wonderfull display of british artwork, it is also extremely informative and a trully usefull and pleasurable book to have. I can not recomend it highly enough.

This is a well-researched and thoughtfully-written biography of a man who was perhaps the most famous man in the world in the decade of the 1960's. Now, sadly, Burton's legacy and fame have dimmed considerably and he's remembered more as Elizabeth Taylor's fifth (and sixth) husband. He was much more than that. I have always thought Burton overacted miserably in most of his roles and I was chiefly intrigued with him because of his beautiful physicality and because was an erudite, deeply intelligent man. He was also a prodigious reader and a keen intellect, but this genius seemed utterly wasted on Liz, a woman with whom he shared a passionate sex life, but precious little else.

The highlight of this book is the inclusion of over 100 pages of Burton's diaries, kept meticuously from 1965 until his death. Burton writes candidly, wittily and brilliantly. It's devilishly exciting to read his words about Liz and his vicious put downs of others, including a visceral tirade against poor Lucille Ball. He also muses on occasion about his autistic daughter, Jessica, who was hidden by the Burtons and kept in an institution all her life.

Burton had a larger-than-life appetite for living, sex, booze... you name it. He was self-destructive, manic-depressive and difficult, but all of those things make for a compelling character and this book illuminates him like no other.

I approached this book simply as a comprehensive biography of Richard Burton and instead found it to be the most well-written and very detailed. It draws heavily on Burton's own Notebooks, his diary, and while "Rich" may have taken the mickey out of journos over the years, he is candid and blunt in his personal writings.

I enjoyed this book very much, and found it difficult to put it down once I began reading it. It makes me wish I had a moment to converse with Burton himself, a true bookworm and erudite man who was still down-to-earth enough.

I always admired Richard Burton as an actor but it was only when I read his biography by M. Bragg that I realized how vast his acting repertory really was. What I wouldn't give to have all of his recordings too! This is conveniently listed in the book for further research by the dedicated few. One can appreciate the personal glimpses into his life and background, his family ties and his final years. The author has done considerable work in compiling so much information which is much appreciated by lifelong fans such as myself.

Since no one who has purchased this audiotape has reviewed it, perhaps some comments on this memorable and poignant book (available through www.amazon.co.uk) will be helpful to potential customers. Melvyn Bragg's The Soldier's Return is the story of Sam Richardson, a young man from rural England who has fought in the Burma campaign in World War II and who then returns home to a world totally different from the world he has left-everyone and everything has changed.

Sam has seen such atrocity that he is now harder and less willing to show a soft side. His son Joe, now five, doesn't know him. His wife has been successful working two modest jobs and does not want to give them up. Sam has been exposed to the outside world, a world which has shown him how limited his future is in the socially inflexible world of Wigton, while his wife Ellen, in contrast, has been supported by the friendships, traditions, and familiarity of this community, where she knows everyone.

The tensions within the family and within individual characters grow and boil over, as stiff-upper-lip-ishness comes into conflict with the human need to communicate and share--the stuff that can give real drama and intensity to an audiotape. Bragg's written dialogue is completely natural, needing only the inflections of a voice to bring it completely to life. His descriptions and his narrative style are simple, as is his choice of vocabulary, so that a listener will have no trouble following the various threads of the story while learning much about Cumbria, post-World War II social upheavals, and the kinds of personal problems that may have been typical for many other young soldiers. The cast of characters is limited enough that a listener should have no difficulty remembering who is who. Like the best of the old-fashioned novels, this one is made to be read aloud.

Homecoming is not always the pleasant experience we want it to be. This is true of Sam, returning to rural England from fighting the Japanese in Burma. He is trying to rebuild his life, fighting his own inner turmoil with flashbacks of the horrors of the war he experienced. At the same time, his wife does not want to give up the jobs and independence she gained in his absence. Their communication is nil, further jeopardized by Sam's jealousy of the mother/son bond formed during the many years he was away. The author takes the reader into the lives of many touched by the war, with every attention to detail and sensitivity.Their frustrations become very real. With the offer of relocation to Australia, Sam has a renewed spirit, but Ellen is not willing to go and leave everything she knows behind.This is a great read about the struggles, sacrifices, and bonds of soldiers during war, and those very same concerns that surface with their homecomings.

I devoured "The Soldier's Return" on a long overseas flight; I literally couldn't stop reading! Bragg's excellent novel tells the story of a British soldier returning home after years at the Burmese front during WWII. During his absence, his wife has had to cope with being a single parent, raising their young son, Joe.

Sam's return home is not as simple as it would be seem. He and his wife struggle to resume their relationship, to get to know one another again. Adding to the tension is Sam's jealousy of the bond formed between mother and son during his years away. Ellen herself cannot get her husband to open up about the horrors that he and his buddies experienced in Burma.

Always compelling and wise when it comes to dealing with the intricacies of relationships, "A Soldier's Return" by far is one of the best books of this year and should especially appeal to fans of Pat Barker's very literate war novels.

I saw his exhibit in Paris a few years ago and I was intrigued about this artist.This book will give more explanation on his work and why he does it. Some of the writing can be too academic and hard to understand. There's an interview with Boltanski which I loved. He's very opinionated and an interesting artist. There's not much info on him on the internet so I'm really glad that was made.

A good book on an excellent artist. Why, then, only 8 / 10 ? Because the authors/contributors do not deal in-deep with certain AMBIGUITIES in Boltanski's life and art. Everybody always focusses on the quote >official< unquote biography and bibliography of Boltanski (e.g. in Lessons of Darkness). But CB himself is constantly re-arranging and reconstituting these 'facts'. Critics and curators, though, always seem to take the information for granted.

I think that CB plays a game with us, and that (t)his game is a very important part of his oeuvre. As such it should be properly documented and studied.

Han Geers

I have extensively researched Christian Boltanski and would highly recommend this wonderful book. It reads like an exhibition. Five stars *****

Melvyn Bragg's highly acclaimed novel "The Soldier's Return" is a poignant story of a young post-war English family crumbling under the pressure of war induced trauma suffered by the returning spouse and father. Sam's displacement from his domestic environment is mirrored in his wife's and son's futile attempt to rediscover his old familiarity which seemingly evaporated during his long absence. His inability to articulate his feelings about the war locks him into his own world where nobody can reach him. The fragile nexus holding together conjugal relationships is also revealed in the aftermath. The novel opens optimistically with the reunion scene but from there it's downhill all the way. Soon, the nerves start to fray and bouts of anger fill the void. The horrors of war may have reduced Jackie to a mental invalid but Sam is forced to admit that he misses the sense of purpose fighting for kin and country in the jungles of Burma. Coping with the vestiges of the old life is just too much for him. Ellen and Joe are the victims of this cruel irony when Sam decides to build a new future for himself and his family away from home. Bragg captures the tension of disintegrating relationships with a rare economy and insight. He pays great attention to period details with elaborate descriptions of provincial life. The novel is filled with many such passages which will no doubt endear themselves to British readers for the air of familiar nostalgia they create. For the rest of us, they can seem rather interminable. "The Soldier's Return" doesn't break any new grounds. It treads a well trodden path but does it with authenticity and honesty and for that, it is has to be applauded. It is an accomplished piece of work that deserves to be read.

Bragg does a fantastic job bringing this little town from the English North West to life. Bragg's treatment of his characters is very sympathetic and well rounded. His slow meandering way of describing people and event serves to let us know the people very well. Bragg does that not just for Sam and Ellen, but for all the characters we come across in this wonderful work, no cardboard here, they are all very real.

Sam, an ordinary working class man returns home after 7 years fighting on the Japanese front in Burma. Sam returns clearly suffering what we call now post combat trauma, living through it and fighting it. Many from his town were with him in Burma, many never came back, a close friend is suffering a sever case of trauma.

Ellen and Joe lived with Ellen's aunt and uncle during the war. Bragg deals very well with the struggle the family goes through coming together after such a long absence, this at the time of Sam's internal suffering from his memories of the war.

For Sam, a major element of his suffering and to a certain extent his resentment is his feeling that his years of war and service have done little to advance his status in England. Eventually Sam decides with a friend to move to Australia to start a new life; the old life was just too painful to endure after all that he had been through. But Ellen, who lost her parents as a child and grew up with her aunt and uncle, is a fixture of this little town. The town means a great deal to her; it is her anchor. Ellen chooses to stay and Sam decides to go.

Bragg's sequel, Son of War is even better. Both books are wonderful, very human, very real. Bragg does succeed in taking us completely into his world of 40's England

Melvyn Bragg's On Giants' Shoulders: Great Scientists And Their Discovers From Archimedes To DNA explores the twelve greatest minds in the history of science and ranges from the foundation of hydrostatics in the third Century B.C. to the discovery of the human DNA structure and gene mapping of our present day. This outstanding science history is superbly written, splendidly presented, totally reader friendly, and ideal for both the science history student and the non-specialist general reader with an interest in knowing more about the science and scientists who have made modern life possible.

As a non-scientist, I especially appreciate this book which "focuses on twelve scientists who, in the last two thousand five hundred years, changed the world as we perceive it and as we live in it. From Archimedes in Ancient Greece to Francis Crick and James Watson in mid-twentieth century England, these landmark minds, their lives, their struggles, their colleagues and rivals are explored and unravelled by some of today's leading scientists. In combination, their stories and discoveries constitute a single guide to the history of science." We are indeed provided with a wealth of information about both their "stories" and their "discoveries." I especially enjoyed the chapters on Newton, Darwin, Freud, and Einstein but found all of the other commentaries well worth reading, also. The history of science is, in essence, a history of discovery, and the most important discoveries are of ideas. In this invaluable volume, Bragg makes understandable what has been until now (for this non-scientist, at least) a "marvellous enterprise" of human experience and intellectual achievement otherwise inaccessible.

On Giants' Shoulders is a tribute to twelve scientists who, in the last two thousand five hundred years, changed the world both as we perceive it and as we live in it. Their minds, their lives, their struggles, their colleagues and rivals are explored and unravelled by some of today's leading scientists. Taken together, their stories and discoveries constitute a guide to the history of science.

A bestseller in England, this book combines engaging portraits of these figures with accessible discussions of their most important discoveries. Those profiled are Archimedes, Galileo, Newton, Lavoisier, Faraday, Darwin, Poincaré, Freud, Curie, Einstein, Francis Crick and James Watson. Their stories are enhanced by insights provided by interviews with some of today's leading scientists, including Paul Davies, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, John Gribbin, Sir Roger Penrose, Sir Martin Rees and Oliver Sacks.

Based on interviews broadcast over British radio, this book differs from the radio series in the ampler amount of material contained, as it was possible to include more material from the original transcripts, which had been mercilessly pruned for the thirty-minute radio programmes.

Melvyn Bragg is an acclaimed journalist and the host of the popular BBC Radio 4 programme Start the Week. He is also the author of seventeen novels and five works of non-fiction, including biographies of Richard Burton and Laurence Olivier.

I was very excited with the character development in the first 150 pages, but was disappointed with the remainder of the novel. With over 700 pages it is hard to beleive that so little can happen.

I have many books that deal with the world of ancient Ireland. Subjects range from druids to archaeological finds to monasticism. Mr Bragg has synthesized this knowledge and created sympathetic characters in an accurate historical milieu. Modern people want characters to act with modern sensibilites in settings such as this. But such anachronistic leanings detract from the color and excitement of reading historical fiction. I found this book funny, inspirational, and sad though I was disappointed in how Bega and Chad died. I think it wasn't fair of the author to do away with them in such a off-handed manner. This book is now available under the title: The Sword and the Miracle from Random House.

Melvyn Bragg's Credo is astonishing. It is so well researched and so well written that the characters live in your head long after you have closed the pages for the last time.

It's a classical battle; between the Pagans and the Christians, and between the Christian Celts and the Christian Catholics, set in a violent and turbulent period of history.

What makes this book is such memorable characters: Bega, the devout christian, destined to become a saint; the pagan woman whom Bega so despises, yet who is so human, Bega's "man", who's love she is prepared to forgo to persue her love affair with God.

Read this book. It will change your outlook on life, love and religion. It is wonderful. This book has been reprinted as "The Sword and The Miracle", but is also available as "Credo" from Amazon.co.uk

The title of the book was catchy, I am a lover of Arthurian legend and historical fiction, mainly having to do with the British Isles. In this occasion and realizing Mr. Braggs is a good writer, the characters of the book were, in my opinion, most of them despicable. Zealous religious, though not totally convinced of their own believes. The best character in the book is Reggiani, the pagan, who was the only one to make sense. As she asked Bega, "Why do you have to pray so much? Is your God deaf?" I think this is the best line in the book. But to zealous Bega she was evil, and would not listen to her unless she embraced the True Faith. Luckily for me, Reggiani never did. These religious fanatics were so insecure, that they couldn't even discuss the matters, or at least try to convince. No, they only judge. Fanatism at its best. This is the book that I have taken the longer to read. Most of the time, I found it boring. The main character, Bega, couldn't even love the boy Bede. She was so arrogant as to make him a gift to her God. I need a good book to put this one behind me!

Melvyn Bragg's "The Sword and the Miracle" (or "Credo" as it is known in Britain) is astonishing. It is so well researched and so well written that the characters live in your head long after you have closed the pages for the last time.

It's a classical battle; between the Pagans and the Christians, and between the Christian Celts and the Christian Catholics, set in a violent and turbulent period of history.

What makes this book is such memorable characters: Bega, the devout christian, destined to become a saint; the pagan woman whom Bega so despises, yet who is so human, Bega's "man", who's love she is prepared to forgo to persue her love affair with God.

The strength of this book is that the characters react, not with 20th century eyes, but as you'd imagine them to in the 7th century. This is not a historical novel. It is, at least to me, a biography! I cannot recommend it highly enough

Read this book. It will change your outlook on life, love and religion. It is wonderful.

As a long-time follower of Melvyn Bragg's literary works (as well as an admirer of his illuminating yet refreshingly non-combative interview style on the South Bank Show), I first read "The Sword and the Miracle" a year ago under its British title, "Credo". It captivated me -- not only because of the author's exquisite use of the English language, as always, but because he achieves the near-impossible: He pulls characters from an ancient, largely undocumented age and imbues them with contemporary human qualities. In fact, I sometimes had to chide myself, sitting smugly on the cusp of the 21st century, for presuming to feel angry at Bega in her ferocious struggles against the sin of desire. I kept feeling tempted to use words like 'denial' and 'self-fulfillment' ... modern-day arguments that would easily have convinced this girl, naturally, to ride off with her prince, turn her back on the sometimes fanatical and cruel Christianity of her time and place!

But, of course, the princess Bega lived and died in those times, not these. And Melvyn Bragg does not write feel-good stories for the genre market. Hence, I believe the editors and marketers at Random House did this novel a great disservice by re-titling it to sound like an Errol Flynn swashbuckler, and by encasing it (the version I received, anyway) in a slick dust jacket with a Fabio look-alike on the cover! I have to wonder how many readers of serious historical fiction were driven away, and how many attracted who simply needed bed-table escapism after a tough day of board meetings; the latter were consigned to disappointment and the book to a lukewarm reception. I admit I'm baffled by a marketing plan designed to repel those most likely to appreciate the product being marketed.

This novel is not one long history lesson, however. There are great battles depicted in furious detail, and barbaric characters of epic proportion, and a horrific rape described in such clinical slow motion that it could be a scene out of de Sade's own chambers. Although what lies between is not always easy reading, in the end we walk away having been not just observers but enlightened travelers through a dark time in history. Title notwithstanding, I found "Credo" / "The Sword and the Miracle" to be a powerful portrayal of life and people in an era when Celtic mysticism was engaged in a losing war with Christian martyrdom, and Bragg does a masterful job, particularly in the prickly encounters between Bega and the pagan priestess Reggiani, of leaving us with the question: Did we take the right turn 1,200 years ago?

"The Sword and the Miracle" -- or whatever name it bears -- is one of Melvyn Bragg's most imposing achievements, both intellectually and creatively.

Regarding his other works, for historical romance on a more traditional scale, read "The Maid of Buttermere", based on a true-life scandalous affair in early 19th century England. Or for more contemporary settings: "A Time To Dance", about a convention-shattering love between a staid, aging banker and a young working-class girl; and "Crystal Rooms", with plotlines that course through modern-day London, from political heights to a Fagin-like character and his boy-slaves. And you wouldn't want to miss the author's special facility with erotic passages.

Although his myriad pursuits could probably qualify Melvyn Bragg as a Renaissance man, I continue to be drawn mostly to his fiction -- as the purest manifestation of the mind and spirit behind the whole body of work.

This page-turner manages to keep readers interested for most of its five hundred or so pages, however is not what one would call an excellent novel. Bragg's brilliant use of historical detail, from dialect to geography, certainly makes the story come alive. It also, however, gives the impression that it is a true piece of period literature, when in fact the novel's plot, in particular the frequent sex scenes, render it a typical Harlequin-type romance, which soon grows tiresome