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Thanks for dropping by.......and welcome to the
website for Raven Books. You'll find a variety of
books, book-related
news, a daily posting celebrating writers and writing, and plenty of
suggestions for what to read next. We hope you enjoy browsing! (This
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September 2ndToday
is
the
birthday
of
Joseph Roth, born in 1894 in Brody, a village at
that time on the eastern borders of the Habsburg Empire. His
father had gone insane and died in Russia before Roth was born.
Roth served in the Austro-Hungarian Army from 1916 to 1918, during
which time he claimed to have spent several months in Russian
captivity. He then got work as a journalist, covering events in
Europe from Vienna, Berlin and Frankfurt. He lived as a fugitive,
becoming one of the central figures in the intellectual opposition to
the Nazis. He was often unable to find a publisher willing to
take on his books, and he eventually fell into poverty, loneliness and
despair. Roth died in Paris from the effects of alcoholism in
1939.
Roth's writing explored his experience of war, Judaism,  personal
and
cultural
"homelessness",
and
the relationship between
father and son. The
best known of Roth's thirteen novels, The
Radetzky March (1932) chronicled the decay of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. His
final novel, The Legend Of The Holy
Drinker (1939), recorded the attempts of an alcoholic vagrant
to regain his dignity. It was adapted for the screen by Italian
director Ermanno Olmi and starred Rutger Hauer. Roth is now
compared to Proust, Joyce
and Mann as one of the greatest writers of modern literature.  Callsign Hades,Patrick Bury In summer 2006 Helmand Province erupted into violence as NATO forces struggled to crush Taliban strongholds. For six weeks the Royal Irish Regiment and the Paras defended Sangin in the face of ever-mounting attacks. At this point young officer Patrick Bury was learning the trade of the infantry in the Brecon Beacons. Paddy had always wanted to be a soldier - a desire fraught with the contradictions of a complex history overridden by a 'warrior calling'. When he arrived in Afghanistan with 1st Royal Irish, he was surrounded by men oozing bloody combat experience. This was not Sandhurst. It was extreme violence and killing. Hades Four One was his callsign and the infantry mantra rang in his ears: 'To close and kill the enemy, in all weather conditions, in all terrain, by day or night.' Over six months, Paddy and his company dealt with over a hundred IEDs (Improvised Explosive Device), of which 60 exploded on them, killing his comrades in the most vicious of ways and fuelling a sense of ever-growing dissatisfaction in the young captain. This powerful and thoughful first-hand account about the 'eternal truths of military life' places the reader in Paddy's boots, sharing every thought, ache, smell and taste of life on the frontline in Afghanistan. He describes modern warfare in a way that creates an understanding of the myriad complexities soldiers are faced with, the conditions in which they operate and the moral and emotional challenges they endure.   Memoirs Of A Radical
Lawyer,Michael Mansfield ‘Everyone has the right to representation. As a defence lawyer it’s my job to defend the indefensible’ Michael Mansfield, QC Michael Mansfield, QC, is Britain’s most high-profile
defence lawyer, whose unparalleled commitment to his clients and
radical approach to forensics, evidence and disclosure have made him a
scourge of the establishment and a champion of the individual in many
miscarriages of justice cases. Passionate about unveiling corruption
and unafraid to challenge received wisdom, he has taken on many of the
most controversial cases of our times, including the Bloody Sunday
Inquiry, Angela Cannings, Jill Dando and Barry George, Dodi Fayed and
Princess Diana, Stephen Lawrence, Arthur Scargill and the miners and,
most recently, the tragic death of Jean Charles de Menezes. Dissecting
these cases with incisive intelligence, subtlety and humour, and
interspersing revealing personal reminiscences he offers a fascinating
insight into the idiosyncrasies of the English legal system and how it
has changed from the late 1960s to the present.
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 Seapoint Literary Suppers Tonight,
I’ll be swanning it in the salubrious Seapoint Restaurant with fellow
bibliophiles: good food, wine, and a book to swap... read
on
And I Quote... There ain't nothing that breaks up homes, country, and nations like somebody publishing their memoirs ~ Will Rogers (1879-1935)  Terry Pratchett on his new novel, living with Alzheimer's, and why he should be allowed to decide when to end it all. Twenty years after helping defeat apartheid, Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer is fighting government plans to muzzle South Africa's media. It was possible to change your own destiny, but you had to be vigilant and you could never look back… - Read An Arranged Marriage, short fiction by Nell Freudenberger.  This week on Open Book, crime writer Mark Billingham on his latest novel and stand-up comedy, Philip Ardagh on Kipling's Just So Stories, and Bruce Chatwin's recently published letters. Listen online. Graham Greene remains an elusive yet irresistible subject for biographers, writes John Sutherland, who reviews three books that polish up the writer’s achievements. |
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