The Lambs of London

http://bookloons.com/cgi-bin/Review.ASP?bookid=6878
Avidly reading Shakespeare as respite from a drab life is escape from entrapment in those lives by both Charles and Mary Lamb,the former an aspiring young writer working for the East India Company. Ambitious bookseller William Ireland enters their lives stating that Shakespeare had a lost play. He found it perusing papers of an elderly client,so he avers. Other "finds " rivet London and Ireland plans to stage the lost play and becomes friends with the Lambs by common interest,common obsession(?).Plans go awry and a hurtling conclusion awaits all.We often believe what we hope to see,and that is a fairly large part of the human predicament. An interesting conclusion awaits the book's ending.





The Lambs of London by Peter Ackroyd
Order: USA Can
Nan A. Talese, 2006 (2005)

Reviewed by Kerrily Sapet
For years William Shakespeare has left readers
clamoring for more. Author Peter Ackroyd has previously offered up a biography
of Shakespeare, and now he follows with another book in the same vein. The Lambs
of London, set in the nineteenth century, tells the story of Charles and Mary
Lamb. For the brother and sister, avidly reading Shakespeare's work is an escape
from their drab lives.Charles is an aspiring writer, trapped as a clerk at the
East India Company. Each night he stumbles home in a stupor from the local pub,
after scholarly discussions with his friends. Mary spends her days at home,
caring for her senile father and growing increasingly frustrated with her
irritating mother. Both Charles and Mary are easy marks for William Ireland, an
ambitious young bookseller. Ireland comes into their lives, claiming to have
found a lost play by Shakespeare amongst some papers he is perusing for an
elderly client. Soon other Shakespearian finds have all of London riveted.
Charles and Mary are fascinated and ensnared in Ireland's claims.Ireland makes
plans to stage Shakespeare's lost play. He captures Mary's eye and Charles's
friendship while he's at it. However even the best laid plans soon go awry and
so The Lambs of London hurtles towards its intriguing conclusion.As Ackroyd's
story progresses, it is increasingly difficult to believe that so many people
could be taken in by William Ireland's claims - although, admittedly at times,
we all believe what we hope to see. The power of convincing others that you are
more than they can see on the surface is also sometimes an undeniable human
urge. It's these two basic human foibles that bring The Lambs of London to its
foreseeable, yet interesting, conclusion.

Alexander the Great Plutarch's account-role of Aristotle

http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_plutarch_alexander.htm

Alexander was tutored and instructed by his teacher Aristotle and this the scholarly world well knows. Yet this passage from Plutarch reveals little known facets and fine points many have not discerned in their relationship . Stagira was a city vanquished by Philip which he repopulated for leisure and study for the purpose of providing his son with a nurturing atmosphere. He assigned for this purpose the Temple of the Nymphs near Mieza where one can view Aristotle's stone benches to this very day.The shady walks were there also.Alexander received instruction in doctrine and morals but also in the staple and fare the very "few" received in that day and in succeeding ages, in the esoteric mysteries not revealed to the great masses. These were orally communicated to the adepts for that very purpose of conserving secrecy, and Alexander was privy to that secret knowledge as thought to be meriting and worthy thereof. Aristotle later published some of these treatises and Alexander wrote him a letter criticizing him for doing so in that by doing so, he could not excel others in what is excellent if this knowledge were laid open to all/ He would rather excel in knowledge rather than in power and dominion and that is a hint of his obsessing preoccupation with "hellenizing the world", with the spread of Hellenism to spread the culture in which the mysteries were embedded. He viewed it as enriching the world. Aristotle describes his books of Metaphysics as instructive and memoranda for the initiated adepts and not for the common herd.Aristotle taught him the art of medicine which he shared.Yet a great lover of learning he was, a quality brought out by Aristotle, but, I suspect,antedated his tenure with Aristotle. Aristotle taught him to live well. Later he mistrusted and alienated himself from Aristotle, but his passion for learning never abated,as evidenced by his admiration of Anaxarchus by the present of fifty talents which he sent to Xenocrates, and his particular care and esteem of Dandamis and Calanus. (QUOTE)

• the casket copy of Homer corrected by Aristotle was under his pillow with his dagger.(Onesicritus)




• In Upper Asia,he ordered Harpalus to send him books-Plays of Euripides,Sophocles and Aeschylus,Philistus's History,dithyrambic odes of Telestes and Philoxenus.

After this, considering him to be of a temper easy to be led to his duty by
reason, but by no means to be compelled, he always endeavored to persuade rather
than to command or force him to anything; and now looking upon the instruction
and tuition of his youth to be of greater difficulty and importance, than to be
wholly trusted to the ordinary masters in music and poetry, and the common
school subjects, and to require, as Sophocles says,
The bridle and the rudder
too,
he sent for Aristotle, the most learned and most cerebrated philosopher
of his time, and rewarded him with a munificence proportionable to and becoming
the care he took to instruct his son. For he repeopled his native city Stagira,
which he had caused to be demolished a little before, and restored all the
citizens who were in exile or slavery, to their habitations. As a place for the
pursuit of their studies and exercises, he assigned the temple of the Nymphs,
near Mieza, where, to this very day, they show you Aristotle's stone seats, and
the shady walks which he was wont to frequent. It would appear that Alexander
received from him not only his doctrines of Morals, and of Politics, but also
something of those more abstruse and profound theories which these philosophers,
by the very names they gave them, professed to reserve for oral communication to
the initiated, and did not allow many to become acquainted with. For when he was
in Asia, and heard Aristotle had published some treatises of that kind, he wrote
to him, using very plain language to him in behalf of philosophy, the following
letter. "Alexander to Aristotle greeting. You have not done well to publish your
books of oral doctrine; for what is there now that we excel others in, if those
things which we have been particularly instructed in be laid open to all? For my
part, I assure you, I had rather excel others in the knowledge of what is
excellent, than in the extent of my power and dominion. Farewell." And
Aristotle, soothing this passion for preeminence, speaks, in his excuse for
himself, of these doctrines, as in fact both published and not published: as
indeed, to say the truth, his books on metaphysics are written in a style which
makes them useless for ordinary teaching, and instructive only, in the way of
memoranda, for those who have been already conversant in that sort of
learning.
Doubtless also it was to Aristotle, that he owed the inclination he
had, not to the theory only, but likewise to the practice of the art of
medicine. For when any of his friends were sick, he would often prescribe them
their course of diet, and medicines proper to their disease, as we may find in
his epistles. He was naturally a great lover of all kinds of learning and
reading; and Onesicritus informs us, that he constantly laid Homer's Iliads,
according to the copy corrected by Aristotle, called the casket copy, with his
dagger under his pillow, declaring that he esteemed it a perfect portable
treasure of all military virtue and knowledge. When he was in the upper Asia,
being destitute of other books, he ordered Harpalus to send him some; who
furnished him with Philistus's History, a great many of the plays of Euripides,
Sophocles, and Aeschylus, and some dithyrambic odes, composed by Telestes and
Philoxenus. For awhile he loved and cherished Aristotle no less, as he was wont
to say himself, than if he had been his father, giving this reason for it, that
as he had received life from the one, so the other had taught him to live well.
But afterwards, upon some mistrust of him, yet not so great as to make him do
him any hurt, his familiarity and friendly kindness to him abated so much of its
former force and affectionateness, as to make it evident he was alienated from
him. However, his violent thirst after and passion for learning, which were once
implanted, still grew up with him, and never decayed; as appears by his
veneration of Anaxarchus, by the present of fifty talents which he sent to
Xenocrates, and his particular care and esteem of Dandamis and Calanus.

BOOK REV IEWS and more The Clerkenwell Tales

http://bookloons.com/cgi-bin/Reviews.asp?genre=Historical

This is an excellent site for book reviews of a large collection of historicals and from a wide list of authors and topics .

This is a thoroughly riveting story recreated fictionally in the author's imagination to enliven history using Chaucer's Canterbury Tales as a backdrop and using its characters.This is historical fiction at prime with full characters in new and surprising dilemmas. Each character has his/her own chapter with 23 in all. Political and religious intrigues in 14th century England abound and are on canvas here.

• Opponents and supporters of the monarch (King Richard II), the exiled Henry Bolingbroke, the Church, and other secular as well as non-secular interests are secretly moving through the darkly dangerous medieval streets of London. Strange alliances are embroiled against each other in a number of clandestine, mysterious conflicts (Quote)


• There is a profusion of cultural arcane details which an intelligent reader seeks an explanation for.


• History with a new twist-unforgettable.

Peter Ackroyd
The Clerkenwell Tales

Reviewed by Tim Davis
Peter Ackroyd, bestselling author of London: The
Biography and Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination (as well as dozens
of other fiction and nonfiction titles) has recently published an absolutely
wonderful new book, The Clerkenwell Tales. This mind-boggling mixture of fact
and fiction uses Chaucer's Canterbury Tales as the foundational framework for an
intellectual story of political and religious intrigues in medieval
fourteenth-century England. Using many of Chaucer's pilgrims as his characters
for this fascinating adventure, with quite a few others thrown in to make it all
even more interesting, Ackroyd cleverly creates a thoroughly riveting story.
Readers will become reacquainted with Chaucer's wonderful pilgrims. The Miller
is there. So is the Wife of Bath. And in addition to the Prioress, the Pardoner,
and the Nun's Priest, readers will encounter dozens of Chaucer's (and Ackroyd's)
fully realized characters in new and very surprising situations.As we are
introduced to each character in his or her own chapter (twenty-three, in all),
we gradually learn that conspiracies of unimaginable complexity and profound
implications abound in England. Opponents and supporters of the monarch (King
Richard II), the exiled Henry Bolingbroke, the Church, and other secular as well
as non-secular interests are secretly moving through the darkly dangerous
medieval streets of London. Strange alliances are embroiled against each other
in a number of clandestine, mysterious conflicts. They hope to wrest power from
each other and assert themselves and their causes as powers throughout
England.Full of wonderful imagery - pungent, disturbing, and staggering in its
scope and detail - The Clerkenwell Tales is a suspense-filled tale beautifully
enriched with an amazing plot and provocative themes. Paradoxically, while very
entertaining and informative, it is also rather demanding at times because of
the profusion of cultural and historical details, and readers - if at all like
me - will constantly (albeit enjoyably) get distracted by the urgent need to
seek out explanations for those arcane details from other research sources.Just
as readers, upon first encountering Chaucer, were most certainly entertained and
informed by his representation of medieval England, readers now - once they have
read The Clerkenwell Tales - will have a new perspective, and will never again
think of Chaucer or pre-Renaissance England in quite the same way. This book is
history with a wonderful twist. It is deliciously unforgettable.

Book Award Winners A Great Way to compile a list of possibles

http://needmoreshelves.blogspot.com/2008/06/and-because-i-can-never-stop-at-just.html

Elizabeth ran this on her blog and it's a great way to compile a list of possible books to read as a challenge. I will be commenting on these titles if and when I read them or read reviews of them.

Starters:Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale (Samuel Johnson prize) finished 8/12/08The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (Newbery) - finished 2/16/09, rated 9/10Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand by Gioconda Belli (Biblioteca Breve) finished 3/19/09, rated Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (Man Booker)

I am going to join this one too. (See, I knew as soon as I did one the
floodgates would open.) For this challenge I have to pick 10 award winners to
read over 10 months, from at least 5 different award categories. I don't have to
have my final list yet, so here are the current list of
possibilities:Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson (Arthur C. Clarke)Midnight's
Children by Salman Rushdie (Man Booker) - finished 4/23/09, rated 6/10An
Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (Costa/Whitbread)The In-Between
World of Vikram Lal by M.G. Vassanji (Giller)Mercy Among the Children by David
Adams Richards (Giller)The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy (Governor General)Jonathan
Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (Hugo)This Blinding Absence of Light
by Taher Ben Jelloun (IMPAC Dublin)The Known World by Edward P. Jones (IMPAC
Dublin)Sacred Country by Rose Tremain (James Tait Black)The Inheritance of Loss
by Kiran Desai (NBCC)Atonement by Ian McEwan (NBCC)Doomsday Book by Connie
Willis (Hugo and Nebula)Half of a Yellow Sun by Adichie (Orange)The
Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale (Samuel Johnson prize)
finished 8/12/08The
Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (Newbery) - finished 2/16/09, rated 9/10Infinity in the Palm
of Her Hand by Gioconda Belli (Biblioteca Breve) finished 3/19/09, rated